4 minute read
Art and Heritage Collections System Project (AHCS
Michael Duffy, Estate Management System Unit
The Office of Public Works (OPW) is the custodian of one of the largest and most important public collections of cultural assets in the country. Rich and diverse collections of fine art, decorative objects, furniture, economic botany, printed books and archives are held within Government offices, embassies, historic structures and parklands. The majority of these assets are nationally and internationally significant and, in many cases, irreplaceable and priceless.
A complex, multi-phased project entitled the Art and Heritage Collections System Project (AHCS) is underway to enable OPW to centrally manage and account for the records of hundreds of thousands of the above-mentioned cultural assets. The OPW consolidated existing standalone Adlib databases plus the Art Management Access Database into a single centralised webenabled enterprise class system (Phase 1). As part of the overall project, existing bespoke MS-Access databases and Excel files are also being migrated to the new system (Phase 1 & 3). An ambitious cataloguing and digitisation programme is planned in Phase 3 to provide a unified system for the whole of Heritage Services.
Responsibility for managing the various collections is currently divided between a number of business areas within the organisation. This is to ensure that each OPW business area can manage the assets it is responsible for in isolation. It was important that these administrative boundaries be reflected within the new system. Phase 1 is now complete with 15 sites live on the newly implemented AHCS. In total 53,604 records have been migrated from the State Art and Heritage Services Collections. Phase 2 is currently underway and involves defining data standards, cleaning existing data sets and delivering a suite of user policies and procedures. The ultimate goal is to record every object within our properties on the system and to make these publically available through an outward facing portal.
Some benefits of this project include:
• Governance and custodial control of heritage assets
• Easily accessible data for cultural assets
• One centralised repository for the cultural asset data
• Legacy systems decommissioned
• Supporting the ICT Strategy 2018- 2020 and the Built Heritage Services objective
• Significantly improved data on our cultural assets, in terms of its accuracy and granularity which will support:
- management decisions
- key performance indicators
- answering the growing amount of audit queries and other queries
• Faster performance
• More secure and robust system
• Improved functionality
• Improved customer engagement and service
• Transparency on cultural asset management activity
Curators and collections staff are already experiencing the many benefits of the database; one of the most exciting opportunities is the ability for different sites to explore each other’s collections. This will allow us to discover previously unknown connections between collections and will also open up new ways of sharing them with the public.
Even before the first phase of the project was complete, the new database proved invaluable to both OPW Art Management and Kilmainham Gaol Museum as they collaborated on a small exhibition to mark the bi-centenary of a significant historical event. On 30th December 1820, a little over two months after the Kilmainham Courthouse first opened, the High Sheriff of County Dublin, Sir Richard Steele called a meeting of the Freeholders of County Dublin. As part of the British Government’s administration in Ireland, he wanted to use the meeting to force through a loyal address to King George IV; the extravagant and self-indulgent King was particularly unpopular at the time due to his scandalous attempt to divorce his wife, Queen Caroline.
Kilmainham Gaol’s exhibition to mark this event centred on the restoration and display of a portrait of Daniel O’Connell which had not been on display for many years. However, the curatorial team were also anxious to represent some of the other personalities involved, most notably Lord Cloncurry and Archibald Hamilton Rowan. While the Gaol had nothing suitable relating to these men in its own collection, thanks to the access provided by the new Art and Heritage Collections System it was possible to identify two engravings of the men in the Douglas Hyde Collection in Áras an Uachtaráin. This collection of historical Irish portraits was assembled by President Douglas Hyde in the 1940s and although it is not an OPW collection, the portraits are cared for by OPW Art Management on behalf of the President. His office generously agreed to lend the Cloncurry and Rowan portraits to the Gaol following an approach by Art Management. The AHCS team are currently developing an Intranet site on Stór where you will be able to keep up to date with the Art and Heritage Collections System Project. An all-user email will issue to notify you when this site has gone live.
We look forward to sharing OPW’s rich art and heritage collections online in due course.
Cloncurry Hamilton Rowan
