[londons_explore]

> That's 5 years if one person worked on it nonstop without sleeping and each item took 60 seconds.

Or... 2 people doing regular working hours for 3 years taking 10 seconds per item.

Each item can literally be 'photo' + drawer/cabinet number. All other details can be crowdsourced or done later.

How long does it take to take a photo?

[PeterisP]

That's not cataloguing, that's recording, and as far as I understand this is long ago done - cataloguing is those "all other details" which require expertise and time; all the things like figuring out that this coin is a roman coin from 1st century, and that other coin from the same find is from another location.

[NavinF]

If it's long ago done, where is the wiki with 2.4 million photos? If it's not online it might as well not exist

[pests]

It might be strange to us, but a lot of the world exists outside the internet. Many people never go online or go online seldom. And that's okay.

[ghaff]

Museums have huge collections of many things that are not online but which researchers can access locally.

[ssnistfajen]

How much time does it take to move a specific piece of artefact in/out of storage? What are the dimensions of the artefact? Are they sensitive to light? Are special equipments required to handle them? Every piece is different, not to mention the mandatory planning involved before moving every item. It's not the same as a retail store photographing their merchandise.