Barcoding and Museum Collections

Presented by: Julie MacDonald Utah Museum Association Conference, October 2015

O Barcode Printing Upgrade for PastPerfect 5.0O PastPerfect’s Barcode Printing Upgrade takes your museum to the next level of inventory

control and tracking. Barcoding is a proven technology that can eliminate keyboard data entry errors and has many applications in the museum setting, from artifact marking and tracking to inventory control.

In addition to printing labels for your collection items, you can also print the PostNet and Intelligent Mail formats used by the US Postal Service to encode zip code information for automatic mail sorting. 

Hardware Requirements: You will need a good printer and barcode scanning device. Barcode labels can be printed on any standard high quality laser or inkjet printer. To ensure that the labels can be easily read with the scanner, they should be printed at 600 dpi or higher. Scanners come in three basic styles, the wand, CCD, and laser. The laser is the best because it can scan labels from a distance of one or two feet. The CCD (Charged Coupled Device) scanners work from a distance of about 1" or less. The wand style scanners are the most economical to purchase, but are not recommended.

O Please note: If you'd like to include images on your barcode labels, you will need to have theMultiMedia Upgrade. The Barcode Printing Upgrade is included with the Inventory Manager Upgrade.

Benefits of Barcoding Minimizes the chance of human error in the

writing/recording and data entry of information Minimizes time needed to make changes to

object locations and conduct inventories Can be printed and reproduced fairly easily Requires relatively inexpensive hardware Barcodes can be attached to regular/existing

labels Locations and objects both have unique

barcodes Process made more portable