Loans Management at the Natural History Museum

Dave Smith

UK EMu Users Group Meeting 12-13th April 2007

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.

Policies influencing Loans Management

LOANS-Research-Exhibition

ObjectEntry

Exhibitions & Collections

ValuationControl

Insurance &

Indemnity

Destructive & InvasiveSampling

InterventiveProcesses

Location& Movement

Control

Dispatch &Object Exit Retrospective

Documentation

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

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” *

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.

Approved Borrower Relationships

Requester

ApprovedBorrower

For use by

Loans ModuleLoans Module

Student/ postdoc.

Head of Dept/ Director

Permanentresearcher

Exhibitiondesigner

Party ModuleParty Module

ApprovedBorrower

Loan Status

AuthorisedSignatory

None

Loan Agreement Status

ApprovedBorrower

AuthorisedSignatory

Student 1 Student 2

The Loans Process

Request

Approval

Prepare

Dispatch

Return

Request

Approval

Loan dates

*

**

Loan dates -Extensions

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

Managing items - Catalogued

Managing items – Un-Catalogued

Managing Returns

*

Managing Valuations

Managing Transfer of items

• Best practice:-

– All transfers managed as new loan.

– All new borrowers must be Approved Borrowers.

Managing Transfer of items

Exhibitions

Dispatch of items

*

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.

Conclusions

• Any suggestions from the audience……………

Questions?