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April 2020 newsletter
I hope you’re keeping safe and well in these anxious times. As and when you’re thinking about your collections, we’ll help you through as best we can with resources, advice and company.

We’re already working with Museum Development colleagues to move our popular outreach programme online. First up is a special Q&A session on collections care during the lockdown – an urgent priority right now. You can find out how to send your questions to our expert panel below.

We suspect many of you are not only physically cut off from your collections, but unable even to access the collections databases that might help you curate online exhibitions or crack on with other collections management activities. We’re trying to understand the scale of this problem across the UK so we can help coordinate some workarounds. Please give us five minutes of your time to fill in our quick survey; it will help us help the sector get through the months ahead. Thank you.


Kevin Gosling
Chief Executive

Collections care in lockdown – panel discussion

We know a lot of you are concerned about how you’ll manage to care for your collections during the current lockdown, so Collections Trust has assembled an expert panel to offer advice and answer your questions.

The hour-long discussion will take place
on Tuesday 7 April at 11.00 BST and will
be streamed live via the Collections Trust YouTube channel. The panel will include
Sarah Brown, Collections Trust’s Outreach Officer, and experts drawn from the Museum Development Network.

There is no need to register, but please submit your questions by Friday 3 April using the form on the Collections Trust website. If you can’t join us live, you’ll be able to catch up with the video after the event. 
We’ve also drawn together a selection of resources that are particularly relevant to caring for collections during the lockdown and you can find these on our website here.
UK survey – remote access to collections management data
Can you access your collections data while your museum is in lockdown? Collections Trust wants to help, but first we need to know the scale and nature of the problem.

As mentioned above, we’re conducting a quick survey to find out whether museum personnel are able to work with collections data from home. It will only take five minutes to complete, but will reveal whether or not there’s a widespread problem. Although we can’t make any promises, we’ll coordinate with collections management software suppliers and sector bodies to try to find workarounds.
We’ll keep the survey open until Monday 13 April and you can find it here. Whether you can or you can’t work on your collections data remotely, we’d be very grateful if you could fill it in. Thanks very much!
Join Collections Trust for a virtual cup of coffee
Collections Trust would like to invite you to a weekly online get-together to chat about a museum topic over your elevenses.

On Wednesday 8 April we’ll be talking about how you’re adapting to working on collections management during the current lockdown, so join us at 11.00 BST to raise any issues and share your tips.
The Coffee Time get-together will be hosted via an online platform that should work with whatever browser you use, and without the need for you to install anything else. Using your webcam is optional, no pressure, and we won’t judge you if you’re still in your dressing gown.

To take part in the conversation via your web browser, go to this link. Alternatively, you can join us on the phone (UK only) by dialling 0330 336 0036 and entering the guest PIN, which is 262440.
Update on ordering from the Collections Trust shop
You can still buy the print version of Spectrum 5.0, along with a selection of other collections management books, in the Collections Trust shop.

However, unfortunately we are unable to take orders for accessions registers, pre-printed forms and catalogue cards at the moment.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but if you would like us to let you know when production resumes, please complete the form on the Collections Trust website and we will contact you as soon as they become available once more.
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