The Registration Collection Management and Documentation Department (RCMDD) was founded in January 2007. It began as a training project for the Egyptian museum staff by the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE), supported with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). By July 2007, four Egyptian registrars commenced their training with three foreign registrar experts.
The RCMDD is responsible for overseeing a centralised system for the care, maintenance and documentation of all collections held in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, in both paper and digital formats. Currently, the department is administered by five dedicated registrars who have the following responsibilities:
- Assisting the section heads with the accessioning of new objects, including registering objects in the journal d’entrée, and completing database records for new or previously unregistered objects.
- Tracking all object movements and updating the museum’s centralised records accordingly, on paper and digitally.
- Carrying out object inventories and maintaining accurate centralised location records for all museum objects.
- Coordinating and managing various aspects of outgoing loans and in-house exhibitions, and recording all loans and exhibitions on paper and digitally.
- Receiving scholars’ requests in-person or by email. This includes inventory and location research, co-ordinating with museum section heads for object photography requests, and following-up with scholars.
- Managing and maintaining labels and panels for museum objects and galleries.
- Maintaining and managing all centralised object records, on paper and in the museum database, to ensure that all records are up-to-date and accurate.
If you wish to contact the RCMDD, please write to: emcregistrars@gmail.com