Case Study: Fredericksburg Area Museum streamlines collections and deepens community engagement with CatalogIt

Fredericksburg Area Museum catalogs 700+ artifacts in a semester with CatalogIt

The Fredericksburg Area Museum (FAM) faced the challenge of managing its diverse and growing collection with an outdated and rigid collections management system, PastPerfect. This system was cumbersome for tracking loans and temporary custody items and did not support the museum's expanding work with student volunteers and community engagement. Seeking a more dynamic solution, FAM turned to CatalogIt for its collections management system to streamline processes and improve accessibility.

By implementing CatalogIt, the museum gained an intuitive, cloud-based system that streamlined the tracking of loans, accessions, and exhibits, eliminating the need for multiple spreadsheets. The solution provided crucial flexibility for student volunteers from local colleges, who cataloged over 700 historic photographs in one semester. CatalogIt enabled real-time community engagement by allowing staff to access the collection on mobile devices, leading to more acquisitions and enriched object provenance. The vendor's tools have positioned FAM for future initiatives, including major anniversary exhibitions and the goal of a fully digitized, publicly accessible collection.

Fredericksburg Area Museum