To facilitate research and use of our collections, our staff is constantly updating and expanding our remotely searchable and accessible catalogs of artifacts, photographs, journals, books, documents, and oral histories from MOCA’s extensive collection. Currently, MOCA has digitized around 30% of its collections. The digitized items are available on the following three research platforms. The use of the three allows them to complement one another and present the entirety of our collection.

ArchivesSpace

Finding aids for general overview of the collections

A grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) from 2014-2016 supported MOCA’s initial adoption of ArchivesSpace, facilitated our creation of finding aids, and helped us reduce our backlog of unprocessed collections for our 31 collections occupying 510 linear feet.

PastPerfect

Item level database

Oral History Metadata Synchronizer, OHMS

Online access to oral histories

A 2019-2020 grant from the Luce Foundation supported MOCA’s initial adoption of OHMS and funded the digitization and sharing of our first 50 oral histories on the OHMS platform. A grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) from 2020-2021 helped us fund the digitization of an additional 50 oral histories. With the support of an ongoing three-year grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), we will make an additional 150 oral histories accessible online by 2024.