CCHS Awarded Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant to Upgrade System and Improve Public Research Access

The Minnesota Historical Society has awarded CCHS a Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant in the amount of $19,837.00 to convert and upgrade its collection management system (CMS). To help with the transfer and clean-up of over 23,000 data records, the grant also allows CCHS to hire a contractor experienced with this specific software transition. For this role, CCHS has selected Crystal Boyd, a tenured museum professional who has assisted several Minnesota historical societies with CMS conversions.

What does that mean?

A CMS is a computer database used by museums to record, update, and share information about items in their collections. A good CMS helps authors, students, genealogists, and other researchers learn about materials in the museum. It also helps staff quickly locate items for researchers, identify the importance of a particular artifact, craft exhibits, recognize donors, and basically understand what the museum owns and where everything is. For an organization like CCHS with multiple sites and archival storage areas, having an efficient CMS is critical.

Unfortunately, the existing CMS hasn’t kept up with technology. It is approaching obsolescence, offers limited features, and is very expensive and time-consuming to maintain.

What’s changing

CCHS will be converting to CollectiveAccess, a cloud-based, open-source CMS. CollectiveAccess has been adopted by several other Minnesota historical societies and is endorsed by the Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums. 

Benefits:

  • Better public research experience: The public will be able to access more information about the treasures in our collections from the comfort of their own home, with a more robust, user-friendly system.

  • Better accuracy: We’ll be updating and correcting item entries throughout the transition.

  • Improved efficiency: Staff and volunteers will be able to work with collections across multiple sites and storage areas, rather than being tied to a single computer at a single location. 

  • Financial savings: Following the conversion, the system will reduce annual CMS expenses by more than half.

  • No more getting left behind by outdated software: As a web-based, open-source program, CollectiveAccess presents an easier update process, remaining continually responsive to changing needs, practices and technologies.

Project timeline

CCHS anticipates the project will take several months to fully implement, with the most time-consuming element being the correction, enhancement, and general clean-up of data entries from the old system. Volunteers are welcome! Training will be provided, and work can be done at home. 


This project has been financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota through the Minnesota Historical Society from the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.