Case Study: Stark Museum of Art achieves preservation, accurate cataloguing and public access for Audubon’s The Birds of America with Gallery Systems' TMS and eMuseum

Preserving, Cataloguing, and Sharing Rare Books with Collections Management Software

The Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, faced the challenge of documenting and preserving John James Audubon’s personal copy of The Birds of America — a five‑volume double‑elephant folio set containing 448 life‑size prints — while making it accessible to staff, researchers, and the public. To address fragile handling and incomplete cataloguing, the museum worked with Gallery Systems and its Collections Management System, The Museum System (TMS), (with plans to publish online via Gallery Systems’ eMuseum).

Gallery Systems helped the Stark digitize each plate and implement TMS’s Inseparable Object records so each print is fully documented, linked to its parent folio, and automatically moved with the folio to eliminate human error. As a result, staff can locate and access exact plates without paging through bulky folios (reducing handling and preservation risk), track exhibition counts and movement history for each of the 448 prints, streamline exhibition and loan management, and prepare the collection for public sharing through Gallery Systems’ eMuseum.

Stark Museum of Art

Allison Evans

Collections Manager and Registrar