IT Support for Museums

SCIP has successfully delivered IT support to more than 40 museums across south east England after a very successful pilot scheme in Hampshire and Isle of Wight which we trialled last year.

The project for the Museums Libraries and Archives Council aims to bring solid gains in IT strategy and understanding, while at the same time giving practical help to museums needing to upgrade their systems.

The three phase programme is being rolled out in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire. It involves small to medium independent museums who are either Registered or Accredited, or are seeking accreditation.

Phase One: ICT Health Check

Phase one is a comprehensive health check to establish the museum’s capability  in terms of hardware, software, resources, and IT literacy. It starts with an interview with someone most able to describe the setup, and then involves an audit of each PC to see whether it is fit for purpose. At the same time we will fix any immediately rectifiable problems such as monitors set up incorrectly, or anti virus software out of date.

Out of this we produce a detailed report explaining what we have found, and suggesting the most cost-effective way of making any improvements. We have a small grant fund available for minor improvements and we can help with the grant application process for larger items such as complete PCs.

Phase Two: Follow up Support

Phase two is hands-on technical support to make any changes identified in the audit. Generally this involves installing more memory in computers, setting up backup systems, and helping with security and data sharing.

Phase Three: Training

Finally comes training, although this will overlap with Phase two a bit. We will be offering three courses in a variety of locations across the region to enable as many people as possible to attend.

Our PC Self Defence course will teach you the basics of what you need to know to tackle the problems of Internet threats such as viruses, worms and Trojans. It is a non-technical hands-on workshop where you get to install and run various programs which will keep your PCs virus free. You can see the course notes here .

Get the Most from your PC will give you an armoury of new tricks and techniques to make your use of computers more productive. It looks at security, file and printer sharing, file housekeeping, backing up, and much more.

And our specialist Museums and the Web course will show you ways of maximizing your presence on the Internet.

See the next page for further details about all the courses!