Otago Museum authorities have decided to spend about $270,000
buying a sophisticated radio tracking system to monitor its
collection items to boost efficiency and security.
The museum earlier unsuccessfully sought a $500,000 grant
from the Lottery Grants Board to buy the system and meet
related costs.
At a recent meeting, the museum trust board approved a
proposal to buy the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
system from an Australian firm, Smarttrack RFID, at a heavily
discounted price of about $A200,000 ($NZ267,000).
The proposal includes 17 "portals", with readers, antennae,
sensors and mounting brackets, as well as a hand-held reader
and 100,000 RFID labels.
It is planned to install the technology about mid-year and
progressively add electronic tags to collection items in
future.
The Otago Museum would become the first large-scale museum in
New Zealand to use the new technology and had been chosen by
the Australian firm as a "reference site" for the technology,
partly reflecting the museum's leadership success, museum
organisers said.
In a written proposal to the board, museum exhibitions,
development and planning director Clare Wilson said the
technology would "very significantly decrease time required
to access, identify and track movement of objects" ,
resulting in "substantial ongoing efficiencies" in staff time
and boosting collection security and safety.
Museum artefacts will be equipped with electronic tags,
enabling them to be tracked automatically when they are
shifted from one part of the museum to another, using fixed
"readers" installed throughout the institution.
Each artefact's location would also be automatically updated
on on the museum's computerised collection management system.
The museum has about 2 million collection items.
Museum artefacts were moved for many reasons, including
exhibitions use, outward loans and storage reorganisation.
The museum's current tracking system involved staff reading
the accession number off the object and manually updating its
location in the museum data base.
RFID technology had been long-developed, being mostly used in
anti-theft devices, including in clothing stores, as well as
in warehouse and stock control, Ms Wilson said.
In museum use, a small tag was attached to an object. The
tag, often 1.5cm by 10cm, stored some information and
contained an antenna.
Tags were read from a distance by a hand-held or static
reader.
The technology's "highly-valued" advantages included.-
Instantly updating its location as the object moved.
Allowing regular audits of collections to be done easily and
quickly, saving labour and boosting security.
Improving access to artefacts, by locating them with a
hand-held reader.
Readers on exit doors record any tagged collection item
leaving the premises.
The museum already had plans to start a full collection audit
later this year, which would take several years to complete.
Integrating the electronic tagging into this process would
reduce labour requirements, museum organisers said.
john.gibb@odt.co.nz
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