Uncataloged collections need to be cataloged so they can be utlized. I'm sure the public does not understand the issue (for the most part they don't understand why everything any institution owns is not on display, why some collections are in storage). Of course it is a large project to catalog your collections in addition to all the other responsiblities of your position as a curator or executive director, whatever your position at your non-profit. Perhaps grant funding can help in hiring someone whose full-time duty is cataloging. Or maybe an institution could make this a part of their fundraising campaign - if the uncataloged items were given by a prominent community member (past or present) or there are special items that are uncataloged that would make a nice exhibition. Depending on the situation, funds would have to be raised to hire someone (or multiple people) to catalog the backlog and a marketing campaign would have to be developed to tell a story that would make people want to contribute to the fund. I worked on a backlog cataloging project in the late 80's with the National Park Service - a team of us traveled to various NE parks to catalog and preserve objects at sites such as the Longfellow House in Cambridge, a seacaptain's house on Cape Cod and a farm house on Mt. Desert Island. This was a multi-year government funded special project. When our team completed our work, the curator was left with a hard copies as well as a computer database of all of the objects from which they could pull reports and then really understand their holdings and how to integrate them into special exhibits or make them available to researchers and educators.

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