Bring your collection over from other software

A museum coming from other collection software usually brings three things: the records, the images and files that go with them, and often index cards or inventory books that were never entered digitally. Moliri has a route for each of them. All of them are in the sidebar, on the Data In- & Export tab, under Import.

What you bring	Route in Moliri	Guide
Records as a spreadsheet (Excel, CSV)	Excel	Import Excel
Images and files named after the inventory number	Bulk File Import	Assign files in bulk
Index cards, inventory books, lists as scans or PDF	Documents and scans (OCR)	OCR import
Records as a LIDO or EODEM file	Metadata standard (LIDO)	Import LIDO

The import writes into fields that already exist. So the fields and layouts (input forms) for your collection come first: Create a field and Build an input form in the setup area.

Records through the Excel import

Almost every collection system can put out its records as a spreadsheet, as an Excel file or as CSV. Open a CSV file in Excel and save it as .xlsx. One row per object, one column per piece of information, a header row on top: that is all the import needs.

Moliri maps the columns to your fields, by the column header and by what the column contains. Uncertain suggestions are marked and can be changed. Legacy data often has measurements and dates as free text, such as 48 x 63 cm or c. 1910. For these the import brings functions that split such values into height, width and depth, or into a date from/to; it suggests them on the matching column.

Names, places and terms that belong in an authority or address field are not written in as text. The import parks them, and later, under Resolve references , you decide once per term which authority record is meant. If the same artist appears in three hundred rows, that is one decision.

If the collection comes in several deliveries, the Fill in or Overwrite mode matches each row with the existing objects through a column such as the inventory number, instead of creating duplicates. The whole run is then listed in the history under Batch operations and can be undone there as a whole.

All steps: Import Excel , all details: Excel import .

Images and files through the bulk file import

When switching, the images are usually a folder of files whose names contain the inventory number. The Bulk File Import takes many files at once and assigns each one to an object through its file name. A regular expression cuts out the part of the name that counts, for example 2000.839 from 2000.839+1.jpg. If that is not enough, you write a function. Before the upload a table shows which file belongs to which object and which has no match.

All steps: Assign files in bulk .

Index cards and inventory books through the OCR import

What exists only on paper comes in through Documents and scans (OCR): typed index cards, inventory books, stock lists or old catalogues, as PDF or image. Moliri recognises the text and turns each document, each page or each entry on a page into an object. You assign the information to fields, by the label on the card, by its position or as with the objects before. Images on the page go into the image field. The result runs through the Excel import, with preview and undo.

All details: OCR import .

LIDO files

Many collection systems can also put out their records as LIDO. The LIDO import takes over the title, inventory number, description, inscriptions, the holding institution and the record information. It reads terms such as object type, material or the type of an event only if the file carries them as SKOS concepts. Many files from other systems do not. Then an event such as the production stays out as well, together with person, date and place. The import does not read measurements. The same applies to EODEM files from loan management.

For a whole collection, the Excel export of your previous software is therefore usually the more complete route. How the LIDO import works in detail: Import LIDO .

An import module for your previous software

If the collection is to come over without the detour through spreadsheets, the Moliri team adapts an import module as a service that takes the data directly from your previous software. What this needs depends on the software and on how it gives out its data. Get in touch: Demo and enquiry .

Procedure

Set up fields and layouts to match the columns your previous software puts out.
Do a trial run with twenty or fifty rows in a project of its own. Afterwards you can see which columns need functions and which values get parked. If something does not fit, undo the run in the history.
Import the collection and resolve the parked values under Resolve references .
Assign the images with the bulk file import, first with ten files, then with the whole folder.
Add what exists only on paper through the OCR import.