Challenges

Established in 2009 by Catherine Sauvin, granddaughter of Léon Bel, La Maison de La Vache qui rit was built on the very site where the brand was born, in Lons-le-Saunier in the heart of the Jura.

By safeguarding and showcasing diverse collections of archival and museum records that chronicle the history of Bel’s cheese dairies, the museum provides a unique insight into one of the most impressive French industrial and marketing achievements of the 20th century.

In 2024, La Maison de La Vache qui rit commissioned Arkhênum to inventory a section of its collection. Comprising approximately 50,000, items, the inventory included objects, cheeses, paper archives in every format, videos, and photographic records.

A multi-stage inventory operation

Following an audit, the Arkhênum team began the inventorying process in 2024, dividing the work into different stages, each focused on a separate archive or collection. In the first stage, they catalogued a collection of “paper archives”, indexing over 800 documents of various types, including administrative material, office files, press reviews, marketing documents, registers, and correspondence.

In stage two, they inventoried an audiovisual collection of over 1,000 different media in various formats, including audio cassette, VHS, Betacam, film reel, CDs and DVD. The third stage, scheduled for 2025, will see them index nearly 18,000 visual and iconographic media (photographs, slides, ektachromes, and negatives) from the museum’s photo library. And in the fourth and final stage, they will inventory a collection of more than 28,000 2D and 3D objects.

Generating inventory data to import into a database

Arkhênum’s heritage division team used their expertise to design and implement an archival processing solution tailored to the specific needs of this project. As the collections are inventoried, archivists complete an inventory file that respects archival standards and corresponds to the inventory matrix provided by La Maison de la Vache qui rit. The data in this file will be imported into the database of the museum’s collection management tool (DAM) – a key step because it adds to the knowledge of the collections and allows for more precise searches across a broader range of subjects.

Selecting items with high heritage value for future digitisation

In a second phase, La Maison de la Vache qui rit will call on Arkhênum’s expertise to digitise part of the inventoried collections. In preparation, the Arkhênum team earmarked select documents during the inventorying process. Their historical, iconographic and heritage value will form the foundation of a high-calibre digital collection.

This digitisation project will in turn augment the museum’s database, ensuring that the work to preserve its collections continues.