There are currently 29 National Trust Historic Sites, and 20 of these Sites are stewards of National Trust-owned collections.
These 20 Sites maintain a database inventory of their National Trust-owned collections via our PastPerfect collections management system. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been using PastPerfect to manage our collections data since 2004.
PastPerfect has been a wonderful partner for National Trust Historic Sites, because (among other reasons) the PastPerfect software enables Sites and National Trust Headquarters to easily communicate and share data. The way that Sites and Headquarters share data is called the scatter-gather process. Although this process is not automatic, it is relatively easy to do.
It is important for National Trust Sites and Headquarters to scatter-gather data whenever changes are made to database records. Some examples of changes to records can include: when object records are added or deleted; when loan or exhibition records are created; when an object location is confirmed via inventory; when objects have been conserved and treatment information is added to the database record.
Once database records have been created or updated in either the Site version of PastPerfect, or the National Trust Headquarters version of PastPerfect, we need to schedule a scatter/gather to transfer these records.
Follow this link for the scatter gather instructions. If you have any questions, would like to know more about the process, or would like to schedule a scatter-gather, please contact Terri Anderson, the John & Neville Bryan Director of Museum Collections at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 202-588-6232 or terri_anderson@nthp.org.
