Case studies

Newry and Mourne Museum in Northern Ireland, is a long-standing Modes User with a collections management team of three. Shane McGivern, the museum’s collections research assistant, tells us how Modes Complete has helped support the museum’s ongoing work.

The Modes database allows items to be quickly identified and located, and immeasurably speeds up the organisation of accessioned items in the Museum, and our response to queries from the public.

As we are a museum with few staff and very little money, in 1997, putting our whole collection online, and moreover integrating it with a larger database, seemed like a pipe dream. However, with the development of Modes for Windows and now Modes Complete, and Culture Grid, all that has been made possible.

The British Dental Association Museum has recently upgraded to Modes Complete from Modes for Windows. The Museum was keen to make its collections in store more accessible via the Museum’s website and wanted to trial the use of QR codes in the Museum galleries.

It has made the whole cataloguing process quicker and easier, and it is also much easier to teach new volunteers how to use the program. Having the Modes Viewer option is incredibly useful as researchers can access the database with no fear of them deleting or altering records and the different access levels you can set for users in Modes Complete mean that more advanced features are switched off and the only the administrator has access to them.

The Royal Cornwall Museum has a large and varied collection, which in the late 1980s was in need of proper documentation. Modes user-friendly format proved invaluable in sorting out a formidable backlog.

We have been cataloguing the collection using Modes software for 10 years now and have recently started to use Modes Complete, to improve our collections care and development. The museum was Accredited with Arts Council England, on 25 September 2012, recognising our commitment to managing our collections effectively for the enjoyment and benefit of visitors.

We have a great task of documenting 150 boxes of archives! Our group of trusty volunteers, who use Modes Compact to document these social history records, has a broad spectrum of IT skills.