INVENTORY CONTROL
Record Management for the Collection
For the past six weeks at Ruthven, I have been working
hard on tackling the huge job of inventorying the
collection in the mansion. After training, I began
working in the dining room with the beautiful china
collection owned by the Thompson family.
For those of you who are not sure what Collections
Management actually is, here is a brief explanation.
Collections Management involves assessing the condition
of each item, and numbering them in a systematic
manner. For example, each dish is taken from its
place in the cupboard, photographed, numbered,
assessed, and put back with the ethaform padding cut
to size and placed between each dish. After all of
these tasks have been completed, I then enter the
information into our new Past Perfect collections
management software programme on the computer.
Past Perfect is a computer database record of the condition,
description, and date when the artifact was
made. This new software programme was purchased
in 2006 and has proven to be very useful as it is easy
to access and is extremely detailed for future reference.
It also allows others who may continue with the project
to have an idea of the condition of an item.
Research is also a large part of what I do here at
Ruthven. In order to find out where and what time
period each item has come from I spend quite a bit of
time searching through books, and online references
for this information. It is extremely important to
know these facts because we are interpreting the history
of the Thompson family, and their personal
belongings are a part of that history.
Collections Management is a very large task for any
historical site to tackle, but slowly and surely we are
getting through the collection. It is a very rewarding
job to have because you get to learn more about the
Thompson’s everyday lifestyle by working with their
possessions in their home setting. My work here is
only for seven weeks but it has been enough to show
me that this is a field I would immensely enjoy working
in and will most definitely consider pursuing it in
the future.
Cassie Kett,
Collections Assistant
