Loans Management at the Natural History Museum

2. Loans Management at the Natural History Museum Dave Smith UK EMu Users Group Meeting 12-13th April 2007

3. Background • Cultural Change at the NHM • Implementation of a single centralised Collections Management Database over 3 years- EMu • 18 Collections Management Policies BUT • Policy implementation 2 years too late….! • Procedures have only just been written.

4. Exhibitions & Collections Valuation Control Insurance & Indemnity Object Entry Destructive & Invasive Sampling Location & Movement Control Interventive Processes Dispatch & Object Exit Retrospective Documentation Policies influencing Loans Management • LOANS • Research • Exhibition

5. Key changes • Automation of loan status based on ‘trigger’ fields • Approved borrower relationships within Party Module • Managing diverse items involved in loan process • Valuations of items sent/received on loan • Managing the return of items on loan • Loan Transfers

6. Loan Status • Automatically changes depending on stage loan process has reached. • Triggered by addition of dates to specific fields:- • Creation date  “Open – Request” • Approved date  “Open – Approved” • Issued date  “Open – Processing” • Dispatched date  “Open – Dispatched” • Returned date  “Open – Returned” • Closed date  “Closed” *

7. Approved Borrower Relationships • “Only bona fide researchers (in permanent employment) will be granted approved borrower status.” • Approved Borrower = signed up to terms and conditions for borrowing material • Supervised Borrower = students, post docs, retired and honorary staff who request a loan through an approved borrower. • Authorised Signatory = Head of Department / Museum Director/ Guarantor who signs on behalf of the borrowing institute.

8. Loan Status Loans Module Party Module Exhibition designer Authorised Signatory Requester Head of Dept/ Director Approved Borrower Approved Borrower Permanent researcher None Student/ postdoc. For use by Approved Borrower Relationships

9. Authorised Signatory Approved Borrower Student 1 Student 2 Loan Agreement Status

10. Approval Prepare Dispatch Return The Loans Process Request

11. Request

12. Approval

13. Loan dates * * *

14. Loan dates -Extensions

15. Managing items • Object Entry items on loan to NHM • Items for which a single Catalogue record exists • Items for which an Accession Catalogue record exists • Items for which an Index Lot record exists • Items which have no data in EMu

16. Managing items - Catalogued

17. Managing items – Un-Catalogued

18. Managing Returns *

19. Managing Valuations

20. Managing Transfer of items • Best practice:- • All transfers managed as new loan. • All new borrowers must be Approved Borrowers.

21. Managing Transfer of items

22. Exhibitions

23. Dispatch of items *

24. Conclusion • This was developed whilst second guessing at procedure. • There may be some future changes depending on what the NHM decides is best practice and how much they differ from the flow built into EMu. • As a loan manager myself, I have a vested interest in this development and I believe that these designs provide a great tool to be able to manage the loans process from request to final return of the items. • It provides a good balance between ease of data entry, whilst observing best practice and being able to comprehensively document the loan, and the people involved, and track their status.

25. It's too late.....! Conclusions • Any suggestions from the audience……………

26. Questions?