Detail: Mawalan Marika Untitled c.1957 natural pigments on eucalyptus bark National Gallery of Australia click detail to view full image

Objective
The National Gallery’s collection is accessioned and documented in order to account for each work of art in the collection. Works of art are then catalogued to provide information about the collection and to enable access to that information.

Strategies
The National Gallery maintains appropriate records of works of art by applying professional standards of collection documentation. The collection is documented by:

• ensuring all works of art are accessioned on acquisition;
• utilising a computerised collection management system;
• undertaking research and scholarship on the collections and documenting such research and scholarship;
• updating and amending information as appropriate about collections; and
• auditing collection documentation records on a regular basis.

Following a comprehensive review of collection management systems, the National Gallery has selected the Electronic Museum Collection Management System (EMu CMS) to upgrade the ageing Titan system. Implementation of the Emu system has commenced, with the phasing-in of the system, testing and training of staff expected to continue into the latter half of 2001. As a Windows product, the system is user-friendly, fully web-enabled and has multimedia capabilities which will allow improved collection management. The system is also able to generate statistics, summaries and management reports directly from data. The total number of works that have been digitised for the new collection management system is 17,000, with 499 digitised this year.

In accordance with government policy, the national collection was revalued during the year. The collection is revalued triennially by an independent art valuer in liaison with Gallery curators.