Training temporary staff members on your museum’s collections management system (CMS) and digital asset management system (DAMS) can feel intimidating, especially if you have a small team with limited resources.

The key to success? Starting with an intuitive platform and a well-structured training plan.

With the right approach, you'll be able to maximize your interns’ and volunteers’ contributions without overextending yourself or other permanent staff.

This guide will help you better understand your trainees, provide step-by-step guidance for building your training plan, and share best practices to support your institution's success.

Understanding your trainees: Interns vs. volunteers

Training interns and volunteers on your museum’s software can help increase capacity, alleviate backlogs, and deliver much-needed support. Smaller institutions, whose permanent staff are already stretched thin, will see the greatest impacts.

Though interns and volunteers share some similarities, the scope and duration of their contributions often differ. Temporary staff will also have varied knowledge, experience, and skills.

Being mindful of these differences will help you ensure each trainee feels supported throughout onboarding. And when your CMS and DAMS are user-friendly, your interns and volunteers will be able to gain confidence in using these solutions quicker.

Interns

Many interns arrive with an academic background in museum work, but may or may not have experience working with a CMS or DAMS. Understanding where they’re coming from will help you design training programs that help them succeed.

Profile: Interns are typically current students or recent graduates from Museum Studies or related programs. Some interns will be new to working in museums, while others may have already earned hands-on experience during internships at other institutions.

Duration: The length of an internship will depend on your museum’s needs, the intern’s academic requirements, and whether they’re pursuing undergraduate or graduate studies. Internships can be full-time or part-time and often last 3-6 months, although some are longer.

Focus: Interns are primarily at your museum to learn and gain valuable work experience. So, internship roles require more structured tasks and closer supervision to ensure their work aligns with their educational objectives.

Interns often focus on limited project- or skill-focused tasks, such as:

• Photographing or cataloguing a specific collection

• Performing research on a collection

• Creating content for an educational program

• Importing digital files into your DAMS and adding metadata

Volunteers

Volunteers have diverse backgrounds—they may be retired museum professionals, frequent visitors to your institution, or community members looking to make a meaningful contribution. As a result, their training needs will vary.

Profile: When preparing to train volunteers, remember that their skillsets and comfort with using and learning new technologies will likely vary more than with interns. Some will have used museum software for complex projects, while others may just know it exists.

Duration: Volunteers are also more likely to contribute to your museum on a longer-term basis. However, their shifts tend to be less frequent and subject to their personal availability and schedules.

Focus: Compared to interns, volunteers’ roles tend to be broader, less structured, and focused on ongoing or daily repetitive tasks.

Volunteers could support your museum by:

• Running a regular educational program

• Acting as a docent in a gallery space

• Digitizing and cataloguing incoming accessions

• Improving collections objects’ storage for better preservation

Common obstacles in museum software training

Teaching interns and volunteers how to use your CMS and DAMS can feel daunting, especially if you’re stretched thin or using complicated software.

Being aware of the challenges you’re likely to face in training will help you prepare an effective plan and feel more confident as you onboard new temporary staff.

During training, you could encounter the following obstacles:

• Varying levels of comfort and experience with technology: While some trainees may be well-versed in technology, others may only have basic computer skills. Different approaches and pacing will be needed to support everyone.
  
  

• Trainees only work short-term, infrequently, or seasonally: Interns and volunteers spend limited time at your museum, which can make it tricky to provide comprehensive training or follow-up support. Extra time might be needed to review what was learned in prior training sessions before teaching something new.
  
  

• Concerns over data access and following best practices: Granting your trainees access to your CMS and DAMS is necessary to support their work. However, your museum is also responsible for upholding data integrity, having a clear governance structure, and protecting its sensitive data. Some platforms, like Terentia, offer granular permissions to control user access—but not all do.
  
  

• Lack of training time or resources to devote: Developing a software training plan can feel daunting when your workload is already heavy. Though interns and volunteers can take tasks off your plate in the long term, you’ll first need to spend time getting them up to speed.
  
  

• Trying to train multiple people at once: Orchestrating group training can feel inefficient and frustrating when trainees learn at different paces or have different comfort levels with technology. Without proper preparation, you may become overwhelmed from trying to meet everyone’s needs.
  
  

• Some systems have a steep learning curve: Legacy CMS and DAMS with outdated interfaces can require extensive training to use—which often isn’t free either! Instead of contributing to projects, interns and volunteers waste valuable time trying to decipher how your museum’s solutions work. Software that isn't user-friendly creates a significant training barrier, even for tech-savvy trainees.

While these challenges are common, they’re absolutely manageable with the right approach.

A step-by-step guide on training interns and volunteers to use museum software

Intuitive museum software and a well-designed training plan will make training easier and fruitful for you and your trainees. Follow these steps to create a training plan that maximizes your interns’ and volunteers’ contributions to your institution.

Step 1: Set the groundwork for museum software training

Help trainees feel supported from their first day. Effective preparation will make onboarding more efficient and begin alleviating your workload sooner.

Build a strong foundation for your interns and volunteers by completing these tasks:

• Assess technical experience and comfort: Start by understanding your trainees’ backgrounds. Have a brief conversation or complete a skills assessment with each person to explore their museum experience and comfort level with technology.
  
  

• Determine training content and trainer availability: Decide which projects and tasks your interns or volunteers will work on. Then, determine the training they’ll need to succeed and identify potential trainers at your institution who can help lead the sessions. Confirm each trainer’s availability and explain what you’re looking for.
  
  

• Set up access to your software: Create user accounts for each trainee in your museum’s CMS and/or DAMS. Configurable platforms—like Terentia—allow you to set up specific views and workflows for your interns and volunteers based on their responsibilities. You can also control what each trainee can see, create, modify or delete, so your data is always safe.
  
  

• Highlight the importance of policies: Set clear expectations on the data handling procedures, security protocols, and professional standards that trainees must follow. Make sure each trainee reads and understands any policies that relate to their work.
  
  

• Prepare trainees’ workspaces: Set up an organized workspace for each trainee with necessary equipment and reference materials to support them. When interns and volunteers don’t need to search for what they need, they’ll save time and feel less frustrated.

Step 2: Design and kick off the onboarding program

While it might be tempting to jump straight into showing interns and volunteers your software, doing so can leave your trainees feeling overwhelmed. Take time to cover what trainees will learn, be clear on your expectations, and explain how training will proceed.

Add structure to your training and prepare your temporary staff for success with these strategies:

• Plan your onboarding and create documentation: Outline what trainees will learn and develop supporting documentation they can refer back to as their skills grow. For example, create user guides that include to-do checklists, screenshots of your software platform, and video tutorials created through screen recording.
  
  

• Break complex processes into manageable steps: Feeling overwhelmed during onboarding will stall trainees' progress and can leave them frustrated and confused. Help interns and volunteers build their skills gradually and retain what they've learned by breaking complex processes down into smaller, digestible parts.
  
  

• Acquaint trainees with your software: Begin familiarizing your trainees with your collections management system and digital asset management system. Share each solution’s purpose, main functionalities, and how it supports your mission and collections.
  
  

• Provide hands-on demos: Show interns and volunteers the software’s core features and the tasks they’ll perform most often. Using real examples from your collections can make the training feel more relevant and engaging. Record the demo and provide a transcript for trainees to refer to.

Step 3: Supervise, support, and review trainees’ work

After wrapping up onboarding, your focus should move to nurturing your interns and volunteers as they continue to build their skills. With effective oversight and support, your temporary staff can become self-reliant and productive team members.

Use the following practices to build their independence while staying reachable:

• Be available through multiple channels: Ask each trainee which channels they prefer for asking questions or troubleshooting issues. Offer several options, such as email, internal chats or messaging platforms, or phone calls. Make sure each person can reach you or another permanent staff member using their preferred communication method.
  
  

• Schedule regular check-ins: Interns and volunteers may feel less connected to your institution due to their limited schedules. Book time with each one at a sensible frequency to answer their questions and provide feedback. This way, trainees will stay on the right track and feel included in your museum community.
  
  

• Offer a buddy system: If your permanent staff have time, pair trainees with an experienced employee who can offer coaching, answer questions, and share expertise. Participating in a buddy program is also an excellent way for permanent staff to build training and mentorship skills.
  
  

• Facilitate skills practice: Give interns and volunteers opportunities to practice and apply what they’ve learned in low-risk scenarios. They’ll build their skills, and you can protect your museum from unnecessary risks.
  
  

• Implement a review process: Check interns’ and volunteers’ work, especially in the early stages, and provide constructive feedback. Over time, you’ll be able to increase your capacity by delegating routine tasks in your collections management and digital asset management systems to temporary staff.
  
  

• Document FAQs and common challenges: Develop a FAQ document that answers common questions you receive from trainees. You can save significant time by pointing interns and volunteers to this helpful resource, rather than answering the same questions repeatedly.

Step 4: Reinforce the learning and recognize contributions

Keep interns and volunteers engaged by boosting their confidence and explaining how their work helps your museum. When staff are engaged, they’re more likely to be productive.

Build morale and help temporary staff grow with a progressive and receptive approach that uses these methods:

• Gradually increase trainees’ responsibilities: Start museum software training for interns and volunteers with low-responsibility, specific tasks. When trainees feel confident, increase the scope of their work little by little. Seeing their own progress can be a powerful motivator.
  
  

• Provide feedback and share impact: Help trainees connect with your museum’s mission by celebrating their success. Take advantage of any opportunities to share how their work has resulted in a positive outcome for your institution. Recognize that some trainees will be comfortable receiving public acknowledgement, while others may prefer to be recognized one-on-one.
  
  

• Get your trainees’ input: Reinforce that feedback from interns and volunteers is always welcome, as their suggestions can be leveraged for improving your training documents and processes. Invite temporary staff members to share their ideas using the communication channels they are most comfortable with.

Best practices for training museum interns and volunteers

All museums are different, but effective training plans do share several common elements. The best plans provide consistent training for all new team members, yet are flexible enough to adapt to each trainee as individual learners.

Lean on the following best practices for guidance:

• Personalize your onboarding: Support interns and volunteers by accommodating their different learning styles and accessibility needs. Training should be offered in different formats—for example, guides, video tutorials, hands-on demos, and workshops.
  
  

• Clearly document workflows and standards: Create documentation on your institution’s processes, best practices, and standards to ensure consistency across interns’ and volunteers’ work. Store these documents in a secure location that temporary staff can access.
  
  

• Foster collaboration and inclusivity across the team: Encourage your staff to share knowledge and create a collaborative environment for learning. Make sure trainees feel comfortable speaking up when they have questions or concerns—and that they’re supported when they do.
  
  

• Provide refresher training: Help trainees keep their skills sharp throughout their internship or volunteering tenure. Schedule refresher sessions to reinforce key concepts and address challenges that arise as trainees put their learning into practice.
  
  

• Keep training materials updated: Review your training materials regularly, revising them to reflect trainee feedback and changes in best practices, technologies, and museum standards. Complete this process at a frequency that makes sense for your institution, such as once per year.
  
  

• Actively ask for feedback: Check in with interns and volunteers regularly to see which tasks still feel challenging. If trainees need additional support, offer coaching to address any gaps in their learning. Improve future onboarding by gathering input through exit interviews when temporary staff leave your institution.

Make it stress-free to train anyone on your museum’s software

A user-friendly CMS and DAMS makes the biggest difference in reducing the time, effort, and potential frustration involved in onboarding trainees.

Terentia’s intuitive platform is simple to learn and helps interns and volunteers become productive quicker. Its clear navigation logically guides users to the next steps in their workflows, improving their efficiency.

And you’ll never be alone. Terentia provides attentive client support, so you can focus on training new temporary staff. Our team is available to answer your questions and help with troubleshooting, so you and your trainees can get the most from the platform.

Ready to explore how the right museum software can support your institution? Book a demo with Terentia to see our platform in action and learn how we can help you onboard interns and volunteers with ease.