Case Study: Williams College Museum of Art achieves digitization, wider access, and improved preservation of the Prendergast collection with Gallery Systems (TMS & eMuseum)

Integrating and Promoting Fine Art and Archives through Technology

Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) in Williamstown, MA, home to over 14,000 works and the world’s largest Prendergast repository, needed to raise the profile of its Prendergast holdings (about 400 works, 67 carved frames and 1,554 archival items) while reducing handling and light exposure to fragile paper materials. Already a client, WCMA turned to Gallery Systems and its The Museum System (TMS) collections management software and the eMuseum web-publishing toolkit to catalogue, accession and digitize the collection for online access.

Gallery Systems implemented TMS (with Digital Asset Management and integrated thesaurus/attributes) and eMuseum to manage images, control access levels, and publish the collection on WCMA’s website. The result: the entire Prendergast collection was digitized and made available online (with recto/verso documentation and frames/archives integrated), faster and more uniform responses to image requests, improved documentation and preservation through reduced handling, and wider access including submissions to ARTstor — demonstrating measurable gains in accessibility and collection care enabled by Gallery Systems.

Williams College Museum of Art

Rachel Tassone

Associate Registrar