Twenty Years of Arts Computing
CHArt Twentieth Annual Conference
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FUTURES PAST: Twenty Years of Arts Computing |
Sian Everitt, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, University of Central England, Birmingham, UK
The Good, the Bad and the Accessible: 30 Years of Using New Technologies in the BIAD Archives
This paper reflects upon the use of new technologies in BIAD Archives over the past 30 years. BIAD Archives holds the archives and collections of Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (BIAD), a faculty of the University of Central England (UCE). BIAD Archives is a specialist repository that holds over 20 separate archives and collections, covering the fields of art and design education, museology and public art. The collections range in size from under 50 to over 40,000 items and contain a mix of paper documents and books as well as art works, photographs and artefacts.
BIAD Archives had been effectively closed to researchers for over 20 years. Despite the lengthy period of inaction, recent developments have been built on past experience. The original automated access system to the collections was developed in 1974, and is now fondly remembered as the “Jiggling Box”. In 1987 a catalogue to one of the collections was created as a Strix database, which unfortunately lacked a digital preservation or migration strategy. More recently, in 2001, a Microsoft Access catalogue database was developed in an attempt to overcome the incompatibilities in archival and museum collection management and cataloguing standards.
Recently reawakened in a digital age, a strategic approach has also been taken to utilising collaborative regional and national digital initiatives to increase access to BIAD Archives. This has included collection-level descriptions, the creation of digital catalogue records, images and surrogates and the almost inevitable website. Currently plans are in development to adopt a user-centred design process in the creation of an online catalogue.
This paper considers the successes and the disappointments of 30 years of initiative and collaboration. It comments on the lessons learned in trying to harness the potential of computers to manage and interpret diverse collections.