Objets d'IT

DEEP INTO THE Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), past the main exhibit hall, past the special exhibit of Impressionists, beyond the famous armor court, Chief Registrar Mary Suzor inspects a diminutive statue. Hunched over an antique mahogany desk, Suzor works in the shadow of a series of huge oak file cabinets that line the back wall of her office. More than 100 drawers across, the cabinet contains nearly 45,000 fading index cards with information about every item the museum has owned since it opened in 1916.

Technology has displaced old card files from Chief Registrar Mary Suzor's work. Collections managers of yesterday referred to these cards 20 to 30 times a day, constantly updating information by hand as it became available. Today, however, the catalog is more of a museum relic, thanks to a new, Windows-based collections management system and museumwide strides in information technology. The system, named after the Greek painter Apelles, enables Suzor to manage data -- details about a work's provenance, its artist and materials used -- about every museum object electronically, with some keystrokes and a few clicks of her mouse.

"My job has changed dramatically over the last few years," she says with a hint of nostalgia and a touch of relief. "Technology is responsible for it all."

IT is transforming the museum experience around the country, from the venerable CMA to the Experience Music Project, a new music museum in Seattle. Once remarkably low-tech institutions, these nonprofits are turning to IT in record numbers to streamline processes and cut costs across the board. At most museums, IT efforts are led by someone in the finance department or by a technologist who reports to a vice president. Yet at the CMA, IT falls under the auspices of CIO Leonard Steinbach, a frenetic, fast-talking, ponytail-wearing transplant from, as he says, "big, bad Noo Yawk."

Fresh off a three-year stint at his hometown's Guggenheim Museum, Steinbach is regarded by many industry bigwigs as a champion of IT in the nonprofit world. One year into his tenure at the CMA, he's proven himself with innovative initiatives that include a spanking new website, a highly regarded distance education curriculum and a grandiose effort to digitize every object in the museum's collection. Though the 48-year-old insists that technology isn't essential for museums to survive, he sees IT as a catalyst for moving museums into the 21st century and beyond.

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