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As part of the grand reopening, and to celebrate El Museo’s 40th anniversary, El Museo del Barrio is making its wide-ranging Permanent Collection more accessible to the public through its online searchable database. 
This project is the natural outgrowth of years of work researching and documenting the museum’s Permanent Collection. It allows the institution to make this information available to the public, fulfilling the museum’s mission “as a forum that promotes an appreciation and understanding of Caribbean and Latin American art and culture and its rich contribution to North America,” as well as one major goal of the museum’s 5-year strategic plan (initiated July 1, 2006). The strategic plan mandates not only a general website re-envisioning, but specifically, that the museum provided greater digital accessibility to collection-based content.
The goal of the Digitization Project is to fully catalogue and prepare educational resources  for selected highlights from El Museo’s Permanent Collection, across the four collection areas (Modern & Contemporary, Graphics, Taíno/Pre-Columbian, and Popular Traditions), so that the museum can share them virtually via the renovated website. 
In Phase I of this project, the Curatorial Department conducted the necessary research and analysis of the Permanent Collection, with the overall goal to update object records, establish policies and procedures for the management of the Permanent Collection database, and create an automated online database that would seamlessly integrate with the museum’s renovated website. The general tasks of this project included researching, cataloguing, and professionally photographing objects; obtaining reproduction rights; digitizing, formatting, and uploading images and texts related to artworks in the Permanent Collection; and working with the Education Department and various third party vendors to finalize the design and launch the online database. The initial upload of highlights from the Permanent Collection to the museum’s online database includes over 400 works. The selection of objects is based on the museum’s Permanent Collection 5-volume catalogue and previous traveling exhibition Voces y Visiones: Highlights from El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection. 
As Phase I comes to fruition, Phase II of this project is currently underway. A new selection of over 200 objects will be fully catalogued, with newly commissioned essays by well-known scholars in the field of Latin American art. The museum will be able to upload these new records, update current online records, as well as continuously upload any other new records, including recent acquisitions/donation, using the new automated online database. 
The museum’s Education Department is simultaneously working on various interpretive resources based on the online works including related texts, media, bibliographic information, as well as lesson plans and activities designed for K-12 educators. These resources will be linked to a selection of the online records. The Education Department is working with various third party vendors to design, create, and test these materials.
The long term objective of this project is to continue creating records for all the existing Permanent Collection works making as many as possible available online, continuously update and add more information to current online records, work with the Education Department to expand educational resources related to the online works, and after conducting some more in depth analysis, indicate the readiness of Permanent Collection works for exhibition. This would allow El Museo del Barrio to not only offer works virtually, but determine which works are readily available for the museum’s Permanent Collection exhibition space, as well as for loans and traveling exhibitions.
El Museo del Barrio wishes to acknowledge the many contributors who have worked so tirelessly on this project, including: Gallery Systems; Hot Studio; Source N; the many consultants and colleagues who provided their expertise and guidance; all the staff of El Museo del Barrio; and all the fabulous interns and volunteers. 
Leadership support for El Museo’s Permanent Collection Cataloguing and Digitization Project was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, with additional support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the New York State Council on the Arts.  
Leadership support for El Museo’s overall website redevelopment project was provided by the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, with additional support from the Booth Ferris Foundation and the Fidelity Foundation.
To view highlights from El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection on the museum’s online searchable database, please click on the link below. COMING SOON 

As part of the grand reopening, and to celebrate El Museo’s 40th anniversary, El Museo del Barrio is making its wide-ranging Permanent Collection more accessible to the public through its online searchable database. 

This project is the natural outgrowth of years of work researching and documenting the museum’s Permanent Collection. It allows the institution to make this information available to the public, fulfilling the museum’s mission “as a forum that promotes an appreciation and understanding of Caribbean and Latin American art and culture and its rich contribution to North America,” as well as one major goal of the museum’s 5-year strategic plan (initiated July 1, 2006). The strategic plan mandates not only a general website re-envisioning, but specifically, that the museum provided greater digital accessibility to collection-based content.

The goal of the Digitization Project is to fully catalogue and prepare educational resources  for selected highlights from El Museo’s Permanent Collection, across the four collection areas (Modern & Contemporary, Graphics, Taíno/Pre-Columbian, and Popular Traditions), so that the museum can share them virtually via the renovated website. 

In Phase I of this project, the Curatorial Department conducted the necessary research and analysis of the Permanent Collection, with the overall goal to update object records, establish policies and procedures for the management of the Permanent Collection database, and create an automated online database that would seamlessly integrate with the museum’s renovated website. The general tasks of this project included researching, cataloguing, and professionally photographing objects; obtaining reproduction rights; digitizing, formatting, and uploading images and texts related to artworks in the Permanent Collection; and working with the Education Department and various third party vendors to finalize the design and launch the online database. The initial upload of highlights from the Permanent Collection to the museum’s online database includes over 400 works. The selection of objects is based on the museum’s Permanent Collection 5-volume catalogue and previous traveling exhibition Voces y Visiones: Highlights from El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection. 

As Phase I comes to fruition, Phase II of this project is currently underway. A new selection of over 200 objects will be fully catalogued, with newly commissioned essays by well-known scholars in the field of Latin American art. The museum will be able to upload these new records, update current online records, as well as continuously upload any other new records, including recent acquisitions/donation, using the new automated online database. 

The museum’s Education Department is simultaneously working on various interpretive resources based on the online works including related texts, media, bibliographic information, as well as lesson plans and activities designed for K-12 educators. These resources will be linked to a selection of the online records. The Education Department is working with various third party vendors to design, create, and test these materials.

The long term objective of this project is to continue creating records for all the existing Permanent Collection works making as many as possible available online, continuously update and add more information to current online records, work with the Education Department to expand educational resources related to the online works, and after conducting some more in depth analysis, indicate the readiness of Permanent Collection works for exhibition. This would allow El Museo del Barrio to not only offer works virtually, but determine which works are readily available for the museum’s Permanent Collection exhibition space, as well as for loans and traveling exhibitions.

El Museo del Barrio wishes to acknowledge the many contributors who have worked so tirelessly on this project, including: Gallery Systems; Hot Studio; Source N; the many consultants and colleagues who provided their expertise and guidance; all the staff of El Museo del Barrio; and all the fabulous interns and volunteers.

Leadership support for El Museo's Permanent Collection Online and Digitization was provided by: Ford Foundation, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Henry Luce Foundation. This project is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

 

FordUMEZInstitute of Museum and Library ServicesHenry Luce FoundationNYCSA