CRITICAL details about the multi-million pound William Morris Gallery collection could be lost forever when an expert leaves his job, campaigners claim.

Information about the art and writing, which runs to more than 9,000 items, is catalogued on one single old-fashioned card index and has never been put on a digital database, despite new equipment being bought four years ago.

The council then cut the curatorial staff from three to two, leaving them with no time to do the work, which experts estimate would take a cataloguer three years to complete.

Campaigners are concerned that the council will not know what is in the collection, where to find it and what it is worth when current keeper Peter Cormack takes redundancy, due to budget cuts, next month.

Walthamstow-based art dealer Helen Smith, who specialises in 19th century art and design, said the card index was excellent but could be understood only by an expert.

"It's absolutely terrifying," she said. "There will be nobody left in that gallery who knows a thing about the collection. It's really a desperate situation."

She said the art had a worldwide reputation, and could demand high fees to be lent for "blockbuster exhibitions" such as one in Japan in 2004 which earned the council £12,500, but no one would be able to learn about the collection or borrow the art without Mr Cormack, or his deputy Amy Gaimster, who is not returning from maternity leave.

Nick Poole, chief executive of the Museums and Documentation Associa-tion, the cataloguers' professional body, said card indexes were not easy to use.

"It's getting increasingly unusual, particularly for a collection of that significance, to be catalogued in that way."

Mr Poole said a catalogue was also a legal document demonstrating ownership and public accountability.

A WALTHAM Forest Council spokesman said a schedule for the electronic cataloging of the gallery's collection would be developed by a new manager.

"We will ensure all of the gallery's records are up to date and accessible prior to Mr Cormack leaving the council, as is done in any handover situation," he said.

"This will include the provision of legible details of the collection's inventory.

"The software purchased to catalogue the collections housed in both the William Morris Gallery and in Vestry House Museum has been of great use and several thousand items at Vestry House have been catalogued," he told the Guardian.