The University of New Mexico Art Museum (UNMAM) has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize its collections. The grant will be awarded over the course of three years. The NHPRC is the grant program of the National Archives. 

The UNMAM project, Digitizing the UNM Art Museum’s Collections, is an initiative to digitize and publicly share the entire UNMAM collection online for the first time through a new, user-friendly web portal hosted on the UNMAM website.  

The award helps fund UNMAM’s initial purchase of TMS Collections and eMuseum, a leading web-based collections management system and online publishing tool from Gallery Systems, along with data and image migration, and three years of hosting and maintenance costs for the new database.  

The database will provide online searchable access to UNMAM’s collection of more than 30,000 art objects, which is the largest collection of artwork in New Mexico. Currently, the UNMAM collection is not available online. 

The project marks a significant step in the museum’s mission to make art accessible to everyone. The first segment in the process will onboard TMS Collections internally for staff use. Next, eMuseum will be incorporated into the UNMAM website. 

By making the entire UNMAM collection available online to students, researchers and the public worldwide, the project increases UNMAM collection access, underscores it as a teaching tool and supports the museum’s mission as a training ground for students, artists and arts professionals. It also removes accessibility barriers that individuals may face in physically visiting the museum. 

“This project is an incredible opportunity,” said Arif Khan, UNMAM Director. “Not only will the database enable UNMAM to join museums worldwide in presenting their collections online, but it invites anyone, anywhere to engage with UNMAM in ways that were not possible previously.” 

UNMAM hosts more than 11,000 visitors each year, with UNM students making up nearly 20 percent of that number. More than 21,000 visitors engage with the UNMAM website annually, and the project is expected to significantly expand digital engagement. In addition, Digitizing the UNM Art Museum’s Collections will make UNMAM’s collection accessible to scholars and researchers worldwide, contributing to scholarship on works in the collection. 

The project is part of UNMAM’s Collections Year, which has paused public programming through August 2026 to focus on collections management activities.  

UNMAM acknowledges Stephen Lockwood, UNMAM’s previous Collections Manager, who initially applied for the project funding.  

Gallery Systems is the national leader in the maintenance and online distribution of historical records and images for art museums through its TMS Collections software. The data and images from UNMAM will be made available and accessible through eMuseum, a web-based search product from Gallery Systems that works concurrently with TMS Collections.