INTRODUCTION
The purpose of digitising the museum’s collection of sketches was to meet rising demand for access from the general public, researchers, students and institutions, to inventory the collection and to review the conditions for its conservation. The objective was to stimulate and promote new and future research on public art and artistic processes in a multidisciplinary perspective.

IMPLEMENTATION
The project was implemented over a three-year period (2014-16) by a working group consisting of a project manager, three photographers, three museum assistants and a restorer. The museum’s regular staff also set aside time for registration, photography and storage. The project was implemented at Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art where two photography studios, a scanning station, a restorer’s studio and a registration room (seven new workplaces in total) were set up. Over 18 000 sketches were photographed in high resolution and stored on a server connected to the museum’s art database. A mirror server is located in a server hall with high security, continuous system surveillance and backup copying. Close to 25 000 sketches have been provided with metadata and registered in the art database. The database currently has over 36 000 items (compared with 21 500 items at the start of the project). The sketches were photographed in two photographic studios, one equipped with a Canon reflex camera and traditional lighting, the other with a Sinar repro camera and fixed natural daylight. The sketches were inspected and provided with metadata, damage was documented and repaired, and over 10 000 sketches on paper were stored in new acid-free folders and archive boxes. Since the start of the project, a paper restorer has restored approximately 450 sketches. This work involves difficult considerations and prioritisations as it is not always obvious what should be restored. Sketches are working material and have been treated as such by the artist, often with traces of tape, dirt and tears on the sketches. Care is taken to stabilise the material and halt the process of decomposition, but also to avoid erasing traces of the artist’s work process. Only the most urgent damage has been repaired by the restorer; the rest has been ranked in the art database so that it is easy to search for the sketches that do not require urgent intervention, but should be restored in future.

The expected result was a full complement to the museum’s art database. When the project began, approximately 7000 sketches had been digitised in an earlier digitisation initiative (the Access project 2006-09). During the course of the project, it emerged that much of the material had been wrongly catalogued – more than we had planned for. As the old acquisition catalogues and catalogue cards were the only existing register, it was difficult to get a complete overview of the material. One sketch could turn out to be 30 sketches, two pieces could turn out to be five, and when the material was removed from its mount, sketches were sometimes found on the reverse, some of which were completely uncatalogued. A certain amount of re-photographing of previously digitised material was also necessary as many of the old photographs were not of sufficiently high quality. A water leak in an external store room delayed the work somewhat and led to around 3000 sketches not being digitised due to evacuation of the entire storeroom.

The art database was developed in close cooperation with the museum’s staff, resulting in a more user-friendly and functional art database. The changes made include new search engines and a controlled terminology with value lists. Thanks to the value lists, it will be possible in the future to translate the entire database into several languages.
The plan was for the project to take two years with seven people working full time (as well as time set aside by the museum’s own staff, totalling 90% of one full-time employee). Considering the work’s sometimes monotonous nature, we chose, in consultation with the project employees, to spread it over three years with seven people working part time. The staff composition remained fairly constant, an important factor allowing the work to progress in an efficient and professional manner.
In summary, we observe that we did not achieve one of our desired outcomes, i.e. a full complement of the art database, but we achieved the set goal with over 18 000 completed items in the database (the goal was around 15 000). We estimate that 75% of the collection is now digitised and the digitisation work of the remaining 25% will continue until it is complete. The museum’s photographer and archivist (the project manager) has set aside one day a week to complete the work.

BUDGET
A number of minor changes were made to the budget. The development of the art database took longer than expected, mainly with regard to finding solutions for image connection and image access from the server. That budget item will end up costing significantly more than budgeted. The cost for image storage was somewhat lower than estimated. The biggest discrepancy from the financial plan is the extension of the project by a year and the division of some full time positions among several people. In addition to the grants awarded by the Swedish Foundation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (SEK 7 464 000) and the Crafoord Foundation (SEK 1 500 000), the museum invested its own funds in both equipment and staff. Among other things, more shelf storage and a system of drawers were purchased, enabling storage space to be used more efficiently.
DISSEMINATION AND ACCESS
The project received a great deal of attention in the media and many institutions poised to start similar projects have made study visits to the museum, including the IKEA Museum, the Museum of Drawings in Laholm, the Historical Museum in Lund, Märta Måås-Fjetterström AB, the Design Archive and the University Library in Lund.
On several occasions, we organised open viewings, inviting the public behind the scenes to follow the work of digitising the collection. These events were fully booked every time and much appreciated.
In one of the museum’s exhibition rooms, an open restorer’s studio was installed, allowing visitors to ask questions and follow the work at close quarters once a week. In connection with the open studio, the project participants got an opportunity to exhibit their personal favourites from the collection and explain the digitisation work in text.
On several occasions, the project manager was invited to other institutions and companies to talk about the project, including to the Stockholm City Archive in cooperation with Molanders and Lund University.

INTEGRATION
When the project began, the work of making the collection accessible had been neglected for many years, despite increasing demand for the material. Many of the sketches were in urgent need of restoration and the conditions for their conservation needed to be reviewed. The project enabled us to employ a paper restorer – a first for the museum. The project was important for the professionalisation of all employees at the museum, who got to take part in the digitisation process. New procedures for handling and storage were developed, in which the project’s restorer played an important role. Training courses and continued professional development for both project staff and regular staff were an important element of the project, ranging from handling courses to database reviews for all staff.
The project was carefully documented and evaluated. The work flows and processes were continuously followed up and made more efficient. Checklists and guidelines were drawn up for the registration, photography, scanning and storage of material.

OUTCOME
The purpose of the project, i.e. to make the collection accessible, is an ongoing task, but demand has increased due to the attention the project has received in the media as well as the launch of the museum’s new website, where works from the collection are presented: www.skissernasmuseum.se/samlingen. More works will gradually be posted to the website.
A major change in the museum’s work with researchers, students and the general public can already be seen. Requests can be handled more rapidly when photographs of the sketches are easily available in the database to all staff members. Internal work on exhibitions, loans and deposits has been made more efficient.
Thanks to the project, a collection of sketch material which is unique in the world has been made available for research and the general public. After the conclusion of the project, the work of making the material accessible continues both online and in printed form. Considering that the collection of Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art mainly consists of copyright-protected material, it is associated with high costs. The complete art database should not and cannot be openly accessible as it contains data which is not to be made public, since that would endanger the security of the sketches. A complete database is not necessarily what appeals to an interested general public. Perhaps a selection should be made and presented as virtual exhibitions. A new interface is thus to be produced and it is important to present the material in an interesting and educational way.
The goal is to set up a digital research infrastructure with the aim of stimulating and promoting new and future research. Taking extracts from the art database and sending them to researchers is not sustainable in the long term. It is both time-consuming for museum staff and limiting for researchers. Within the near future, researchers must be able to access the whole of the art database remotely to enable them to conduct quantitative studies. This would be possible by offering researchers the opportunity to apply for a fixed-term visitor’s account for remote access to a separate server. This could be associated with some security risks which must be evaluated further, but the fact is that many research databases today allow remote access in this way.

The project has led to a new future research project with the University of Gothenburg and the Public Art Agency Sweden. Together, we have a long-term plan to make material on building-related art in public spaces accessible.