October 2009 Update

Steering Committee & SDI
Due to illness, the PSC meeting was postponed until November 5th. This is to be the last meeting with the Wolfville Historical Society administering the project, and so we will be saying a special little thank you for Derek and his wonderful group in recognition of all the hard work they put in to the project over the past year.
Thank you to everyone who has returned their completed evaluation & self-assessment surveys. Remember that results will be discussed on Thursday and are part of our SDI funding obligations, so Karin needs these back asap.

Regional Meetings
Both the Southwest Regional Curator’s Group and the Iona Connection held their regional meetings this month. Since they were scheduled one day apart attending both would have been very difficult logistically, so Karin attended the Southwest one in Annapolis Royal and Anita Price, Managing Director of ANSM attended the Iona Connection meeting in Iona. Their respective reports were sent and shared with the groups, yet another example of the cooperation that continues to build between Passage and ANSM.


CHIN Enrichment Project
Jen & Anna are working hard to make sure all of our CHIN funding deliverables are met. While we are already close to meeting the required number of new & updated records being uploaded to Artefacts Canada, there is one deliverable that we cannot meet without certain partners’ participation. In order for the project to be deemed a success by CHIN, 8 new museums need to upload records to Artefacts Canada. If you have never uploaded records to Artefacts Canada, you meet this criteria and can help to ensure that our funding obligations are met. We also have to upload over 400 records, so now is the time to inundate us with objects to research.
On top of meeting our funding obligations, we really don’t want anyone to miss out on the opportunity to learn more about the art objects in their collection. We have a research assistant who specialized in paintings & prints at NSCAD University, and so this is a real opportunity for people to garner some expert knowledge. All you have to do is pick out your items and get in touch with Karin or Jen.

Data Cleaning
Now that site visits are completed I have returned to the task of data cleaning. There are only a few sites that have yet to receive this extra assistance, and in order to meet our SDI funding obligations we must complete this by the end of November. In order to meet our deadline, it is important that we move this along as swiftly as possible.


Data Entry Support (aka Melanie’s work)
Melanie is still working on entering backlogged records, but is nearing the end. Once completed, the Queens County Museum will be finished the first two steps of the Passage game plan, having everything entered skeletally, and the entire database uploaded to Artefacts Canada.


Artefacts Canada Tally
Last month we saw the most records uploaded since we first installed the upload button in the database. So this month we’ve had a bit of a lull. 1,178 records were uploaded, giving us a new grand total of 132,690 records on Artefacts Canada.

Here are the current regional standings:
Southwest: 59,196
Central: 29,015
Northeast: 24,623
Cape Breton: 21,134

Congratulations to the Southwest Region for uploading 1,178 records this month, and for being the only region to upload!

Blog Polls
Thank you to everyone who voted in our most recent blog poll. We asked you who was doing the database work, staff, volunteers, students, or a combination of the three. While we were a little disappointed that only 16 of you voted, we hope that the results are reflective of the entire group. Here are the results:
Staff – 3 votes
Volunteers – 7 votes
Students – 3 votes
Combination – 3 votes
This suggests that 43% of Passage sites use volunteers to accomplish their database work

Check out our latest blog poll question about loans at the bottom of the blog page. Please check all applicable answers.

CNSA Training
Interested in learning more about copyright laws and how they affect your museum? The CNSA is holding a 2-day workshop on November 12-13th at NSARM in Halifax. The deadline to register is November 9th, and costs $50 for CNSA members or $75 for non-members. For more information visit the CNSA website.