November 2009 Update

Steering Committee & SDI

The Steering Committee held it’s final meeting under the auspices of the Wolfville Historical Society on November 5^th. The final report to SDI has been submitted, and we are very pleased to report that we once again exceeded our funding deliverables. Renewals contracts are being mailed out this week, so please get these back to us as soon as possible.

CHIN Enrichment Project

Anna’s research contract has come to a close which means that Jen is now handling all of the enrichment work. We are well on the way to meeting all of our funding deliverables, and now need your help to make sure your records are updated and uploaded in time. This must be done by the end of January at the very latest. If you have never participated in this work, please contact us so we can make sure you don’t miss out on such a great opportunity.

Data Entry Support (aka Melanie’s work)

The Queens County Museum records have now all been entered. Thanks to Melanie for all of her hard work! We will be looking at other ways for Melanie to help out Passage participants, and will keep you posted about our volunteer’s activities. Once the enrichment work has been completed on their 20 art objects, all of the information will be uploaded to Artefacts Canada.

Skype & Crossloop

Need help but want to avoid long distance phone bills? Karin is now online via Skype every day, so you can either call or send a quick text message with your questions or comments. The online Passage skype community continues to grow, so if you aren’t signed up already, create an account and search for karinkierstead as a new contact.

Karin is also available to connect to your computer with Crossloop. This is the perfect thing for any contract staff who are working on the database, as Karin can be virtually by their side as they get acquainted with the Passage system. If something goes wrong, or they want to be shown something, Karin can control your computer and walk them through the steps. They can watch her enter records, attach photos, or otherwise use the database. It’s a great and efficient way to get a refresher course in the database.

Remote assistance is going to become an integral part of Passage services in order to cut down on travel costs and make troubleshooting more efficient. Here’s a little testimonial of how it’s working so far:

“Karin spoke to me about downloading Skype. I am so computer illiterate that it is embarrassing. So I asked a couple of questions and wow! Here I am talking away to her, getting answers to problems immediately. It even saves conversations for future reference when the same mistake happens.” ~Brenda, Cape Sable Historical Society

Equipment Survey

The Steering Committee has been calling and emailing all partner sites to determine your equipment needs for facilitating remote assistance. If you have not talked to your regional representative, let Karin know right away if you have the following equipment at your museum. We are currently negotiating a bulk purchase and wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on this opportunity.

1. Microphone (for your computer)
2. Webcam
3. External Hard Drive

Blog Polls

Thanks to everyone who has voted so far in our poll about managing loans in your museum. If you haven’t yet voted, please scroll to the bottom of the page and let us know how you handle loans at your institution. This is a key piece of information that will be used to help us meet this coming year’s deliverables, so we need everyone to vote by simply clicking in the appropriate check boxes.

Artefacts Canada Tally

There weren’t any changes in the uploading tally for November, so the regional standings remain the same as last month:

Southwest: 59,196

Central: 29,015

Northeast: 24,623

Cape Breton: 21,134