Manage Information
Right, bear with me on this. This is one of those posts about museum systems which I know may only appeal to a tiny cross-section of humanity. You might want to go and make a cup of tea or watch 'Strictly' or something.
A couple of weeks back, I wrote a post about a methodology called 'COPE' (Create Once, Publish Everywhere), which prompted a discussion on the museum computer group e-list about content, data and publishing in museums.
In Autumn 2012, Edinburgh Museums and Galleries began a project to review their requirements for a Collections Management System to replace their existing outmoded system.
As part of this project, Nico Tyack, Documentation Officer at City of Edinburgh Council conducted an online survey to find out how other museum and gallery services have approached the specification, implementation and updating of their systems.'Hidden Collections' the latest report from Research Libraries UK (RLUK), has shed light on the significant proportion of library collections (including collections held in museums) for which little or no catalogue information is available - effectively making them inaccessible for use, discovery and research.
SHARE Museums East have commissioned the creation of this animation to help explain what rationalisation is. The animation explains that by refining a collection the museum is in turn making itself more accessible and therefore more effective. Rationalisation is about making the museum more effective in serving the public.
Follow the link to access a downloadable PDF which helps to explain UCL's own collections review project as well as useful hints and tips to help you complete your own collections review. There is also a helpful powerpoint also available on the same page.
Read more about the resource on this website (external link)
Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust
Abstract: Meeting the needs of future audiences demands that museums are flexible, responsive and agile in embracing new technologies and new ways of working. Provenance, authority, information and narrative are all key elements of the value we uniquely bring to the online world. If we are to connect with modern users, we must ensure that the information we create and the systems we use can be repurposed dynamically across platforms and contexts.
“Museums, libraries and archives connect people to knowledge and information, creativity and inspiration...' Taken from Investing in Knowledge, (MLA 2004)
Managing information and knowledge in your institution includes, but goes beyond, catalaguing and documenting collections. It's about capturing a wealth of facts about collections and their context that may only exist in the head of a curator, librarian or volunteer and recording it in such a way that others, either staff or users, can access it readily. It's also about putting systems in place to capture knowledge about key processes, from recruiting staff to drawing up a cleaning schedule for your offices and from managing projects to dealing with suppliers. Good information management saves time and resources and prevents precious information from being lost forever.
In order to remain relevant and useful to current and future generations, museums all over the world find themselves challenged to deal with an increasing range of different types of material, and to support an ever-increasing range of uses, both physical and digital.
Page 1 of 13
