Building and maintaining the Sarjeant Gallery's online collection with limited resources

Tuesday November 20th, 2:30pm-2:55pm @ Rangimarie 2 - Breakout Room

The Sarjeant is a regional gallery without a web development team or IT staff and, until late last year, had no online catalogue for over 8,000 collection items. During the Sarjeant Gallery’s current occupation of smaller temporary premises, while the heritage Gallery building is being redeveloped and earthquake strengthened, it was crucial to increase online access to the collection. This presentation will outline the process of how the online catalogue was developed in collaboration with supplier Vernon Systems Ltd within the limited resources available. Computer vision software was used to automatically analyse the collection images and add new information. A series of internal prototypes allowed Sarjeant staff and developers to focus on data improvements and website features that made the most of the project time available. The presentation also considers the successes and later improvements of the site during its first year, how it was promoted, what the Gallery did to keep the site relevant and interesting, and how it facilitated new ways of interacting with the collection. The site can be accessed at https://collection.sarjeant.org.nz/explore