Happy New Year! We wish you and yours good health, new adventures, and plenty of joy in 2025!

We look forward to assisting you with your PastPerfect software, whether you use our desktop version or cloud-based solution. Our business hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00am to 5:30pm Eastern. You can reach us by calling 1-800-562-6080 or emailing support@museumsoftware.com.

Here are a few upcoming educational and museum advocacy events.

Activating Environmental Care and Strength at Museums and Historic Sites

January 28-29

AASLH Virtual Summit

This virtual meeting will address how museums and historic sites are impacted by the environment, and how they can contribute to greater environmental sustainability. Topics include communicating and educating about the climate and environment; how museums and sites can be more sustainable; and how organizations can prepare for disasters.

https://www.aaslh.org/annualconference/environment-summit/

Small Museums Association - 41st Annual Conference

February 17-19

Gaithersburg, MD

Join small museum colleagues at the Gaithersburg Marriott Washington Center for sessions and events that cover a number of current topics for collections care, education, interpretation, staffing, and board relations.

https://www.smallmuseum.org/Conference

Canadian Museums Association - Museum Studies Symposium

February 19-20

Victoria, BC

This symposium will bring together accreditation bodies, scholars, heritage experts and practitioners in the theme Teaching, Learning & Reciprocity. Through interactive table sessions, participants can discuss and help formulate CMA's objectives, priorities and future actions.

https://site.pheedloop.com/event/cmaamc25/home/

American Alliance of Museums - Museums Advocacy Day

February 24-25

Arlington, VA & Washington, DC

Calling all museum professionals, advocates, students, board members, and volunteers to attend Museums Advocacy Day in Arlington, Virginia, on February 24th and 25th. This program includes training materials and sessions to prepare participants to speak directly with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Be an advocate for museums and their important roles as educators and economic drivers in our communities.

https://www.aam-us.org/programs/museums-advocacy-day

Last Fall we switched platforms for sharing all of our online videos. Our new channels on GoToStage allows us to share free video resources for our desktop and cloud products.

On our PastPerfect Software channel, videos include webinar recordings, introductory training, and video tech tips for PastPerfect 5.0 and the PastPerfect Online add-on. You can access the channel at https://www.gotostage.com/channel/pastperfect.

Our second channel for Web Edition users includes introductory videos and training classes. Visit https://www.gotostage.com/channel/pastperfectwebedition to watch these videos. More training classes will be coming soon to this channel!

After the start of each new year, it is important to back up data and perform a Reindex to make sure yearly dues and donation totals are correctly calculated for Contacts.

Here are the steps to ensure amounts are displayed correctly in your donations and dues summary information in PastPerfect 5.0.

1. If using PastPerfect on multiple workstations, make sure all other users completely close the PastPerfect program before following the next steps.
2. From the PastPerfect Main Menu, click "Hard Drive Backup", then click "Backup Data to Hard Drive". This is an important step to do before any Reindex is performed.
3. Once the backup has completed successfully, exit back to the Main Menu, then click "Reindex".
4. On the Reindex screen, make sure all files are checked, including Spelling Dictionary, Rebuild Catalogs, and Keyword List.
5. Click "Start Reindex Now". This process may take several minutes.
6. Once the Reindex is complete, exit back to the Main Menu.

If you have any questions about this process or run into any errors, please call our support office before proceeding.

Have you ever wanted to review all of the collection names that catalogers have used? In Reports | All 4 Catalogs, you'll find the List of Collections report that includes the collection names that have been entered into the Collection field on catalog records. The report also provides a record count for each collection by catalog.

By default, the report includes collection names from all four catalogs: Archives, Library, Objects and Photos. If you do not want to see the collections in one (or more) of the catalogs, or you do not want to include those catalog records in the record counts, you can deselect the catalog(s). You can also include catalog records with the Status "Deaccessioned". If the first collection listing is blank, that means that a number of catalog records have no data in the Collection field.

Consistent data entry is key for successfully searching and finding your records. If there are multiple spellings of Collection names and variations in your data in Search Terms, people's names, Events, Material, Status, etc., then it is harder to find all of the relevant records.

PastPerfect 5.0 has authority files for both collections and contacts fields to help standardize and speed up data entry. Authority files can be set up and maintained from a couple of places in PastPerfect including Setup | Authority Files. From the Setup screen, select the screen that contains your field. If the field is in all four catalogs (Objects, Photos, Archives and Library), select Common Screens. Double click on the field name to open its authority file. Click the plus sign to add the new term/name to the list.

You can also work with authority files from record screens. When adding or editing records, if a field has an authority file, you will see a blue book icon with a lower case "a" in the top navigation bar. Click in the field and then right click or press F7 to access the authority file. You can add, edit and delete terms/names from the authority file screen.

Authority files can also help when using the Find, Query, and Research functions. To use an authority file in a search, open a Find, Query, or research screen. Select a field from the Field drop-down. If that field has an authority file, click in Value/Begins with Text/Search for field and you will see the authority file icon. Right click or use the F7 key to access the field's authority file. Double click on the term/name and then perform the search.

This article is the second in a series on Web Edition's search functions that are accessed by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top of every page in Web Edition. This article provides more in-depth information about Quick Search. See our Fall 2024 newsletter for more information about the Full Catalog Search. The Search by Lexicon article will be in the Spring 2025 newsletter.

Quick Search allows you to perform searches of collection and contact records at the same time. Collection records include Objects, Photos, Archives, Library, and Deaccessioned records. You can search for these records using an Object ID or Object Name. The search can also be used to find Contact records by Contact ID or Contact Name. When searching by name, the search will look in the Last Name, First Name, and Name & Title fields on Contact records.

Here is an example of a Quick Search for the word "book". The results contain books in the Library catalog, a deaccessioned book, and a Contact with the last name "Westbook".

The browse grid with the search results contains two columns, Type and Description. The Type column contains the record type. The Description column contains the Object ID and Object Name or the Contact ID and Contact Name. You can access individual records by using the link in the Type column.

The search results can be printed in one of the following report types: Grid, Grid with Images, List, List with Images. Grid/Grid with Images displays the Type and Description columns as seen on screen. Grid with Images adds each record's primary image thumbnail in the left column. List/List with Images displays the Type and Description in a vertical list. List with Images adds thumbnails for all images attached to each record.

Through Web Edition's Catalog Lists & Inventory feature, you can create lists for inventory projects, print inventory reports, and update inventory fields on catalog records.

Creating an Inventory Sampling List

One of the first steps for starting an inventory project is targeting items that should be part of the project and creating a list of items from your PastPerfect catalog records. On the Catalog Lists & Inventory Query screen, you'll begin by clicking "Create Inventory Sampling List" to select records based on a number of criteria. You can pick items in one or more catalogs and select items with a particular Status, Collection name, and/or location. You can narrow the list for your inventory project by checking "Only Items with Last Inventoried Date older than" and entering a previous inventory's date. There are options to exclude items on Outgoing Loans, Incoming Loans, and Exhibits. You can also exclude items with a particular Status or in a certain location. If you want to generate a list of randomly sampled items, you can enter a percentage of the collection or a fixed number of items.

Once you have an inventory list of cataloged items, you can print that list as a report. In addition to the report layout options that are available on Query screens (Grid, List, and Labels)*, you can use one of the inventory-specific reports. Reports can be saved in PDF format and printed to a printer. The inventory reports are:

• Inventory Checklist - this simple report contains the Object ID and Object Name for records on the list. There is a "Found in Location" check box and a space for notes.
• Inventory Checklist with Images - this report contains Object ID, Object Name, Status, Title, and Home Location. There are check boxes for "Missing," "Found in Location", and "Item Observed in this Location." Each record's primary image thumbnail is also included.
• Inventory Worksheet - this report contains the most fields, including Accession or Incoming Loan Number, Object ID, Object Name, Status, Title, Last Inventoried fields, Condition, Condition Date, Home Location fields, Temporary Location fields, and Description. There are check boxes for "Item Observed in Home Location," "Item Observed in Temp Location," and "Information Change" with space for notes. This report also contains each record's primary image thumbnail.

Import Inventory List from ASCII File

If you decide on an alternative inventory strategy where you start by creating a list of found items in a storage location, you can import that list into a Catalog List. First save your list of inventoried items as an ASCII text file. The ASCII file should contain only Object IDs with each number separated by a carriage return. On the Catalog Lists & Inventory Query screen, you'll click "Import List from ASCII File," enter a list name, select a category from the List Category authority file, and select a user account holder's name for the List Manager field. Then click "Import List Now". Once you have imported the ASCII text file, PastPerfect will provide a list of any items that do not have catalog records.

Mark Items as Inventoried

Whether you have used Inventory Sampling List or have imported a list, you can update the items' catalog records with new Inventoried By and Inventoried Date information by using the "Mark as Inventoried" feature. Return to the Catalog List and click "Edit", then click "Mark as Inventoried." Select a person's name from the Staff authority file for Inventoried By and enter the Inventoried Date. By clicking "Proceed", you will update the Inventoried fields for all catalog records on the list.

For more information on creating and working with Catalog Lists, visit the Catalog Lists & Inventory section in our User Guide at https://museumsoftware.com/we/#t=researchreporting_cataloglists.htm.

*For an explanation of the report layout options on Query screens, please read our Knowledge Base article, https://pastperfect.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/25473152165655-Report-Layout-Options-Available-from-a-Query-Screen.

Curious about upgrading to PastPerfect Web Edition? We invite you to register for our hour-long, on-demand or live webinars that walk through the collections and contacts capabilities of our cloud-based software. Register for either webinar here: https://museumsoftware.com/demo.html.

After the webinar, if you think Web Edition is the right choice for your organization, contact the team at webedition@museumsoftware.com to get started on the next steps.