Creating a Digital Database and Manuals to Document our Extensive Collection of Historic Printmaking Equipment and Ephemera

We were inspired to do this research project after realizing the importance and significance of our extensive collection of historic printmaking equipment and ephemera. As scholars we felt that it would benefit our department as well as our community to document and share information about our printmaking materials. Thus far the primary focus of our research has been researching and building a database of information that is best suited to our goal. Our methodology included researching best practices to document this collection into a researchable database to share with the intellectual community. Once we identified software for the database, we were able to methodically embrace the best practices for accession, condition reports, and cataloguing. We have created an ongoing file which includes all pertinent information and history about individual pieces, collections, or groupings of pieces. Throughout the process, we have been using the condition reports to plan and schedule the restoration of the pieces; we have restored many of them. The documentation and final restoration of these items is one of the initiatives of our project. This project will be ongoing, but so far it has produced an inventory of over 500 artifacts that have been photographed, organized, and are methodically being processed into condition reports, catalogue cards, and excel files for the database. The final product is culminating into a researchable database that we are sharing with global scholars. Many of the pieces have a significant association with Southern commerce, publishing history, and print history; through documentation, they are becoming a valuable tool to connect the past with the present. An account of the significance of this collection will attract source archives, museums, scholars, and visiting artists, and will serve as a reference for historical research and future publications