Jude McBean, Regional Gallery Director, Grafton Regional Gallery.
The Grafton Regional Gallery, established in 1988, started with a paper-based database for recording information about artworks and people. Two digital databases began in the early 1990s. These files were fashioned from MS Access and further developed to answer the requirements of managing over 3,000 objects and nearly 4,000 people.
The gallery’s collection holds four Clarence Valley Council collections and eight gallery collections. The Person file in Vernon CMS holds our artists, Friends of the Gallery, the Gallery Foundation supporters and our volunteers, partners, business contacts and customers. Vernon CMS enables us to do extensive reporting across the artworks and people, due to its excellent search facilities.
The transition from our previous database to Vernon CMS is an exciting one. The range of information that can be held and accessed in the system is what makes it exciting. The knowledge that can be placed in Vernon CMS means that when gallery staff leave, corporate knowledge will not so likely be lost.
Being able to have two operators access Vernon CMS at the same time is a great benefit, as we often have up to four staff utilising the system at the same time. We still have our ‘L’ plates on and are upskilling as we make demands on Vernon CMS. This includes our computers, as some are running out of RAM and speed.
You can find out more on the Grafton Regional Gallery website
Vernon Systems develops innovative software for cultural organisations to manage and share their collections. We've been dedicated to the cultural sector since 1985.