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Museum Documentation Today and Tomorrow (and possibly the day after that too...)
Nick Poole
CEO, Collections Trust
Contents
• Introduction
• What is a collection anyway...?
• How our organisations are changing
• What is Documentation?
• Trust and Trustability
• Strategic Collections Management
• SPECTRUM, COPE and the CRM
• The future of Documentation
• Further reading
About the Collections Trust
• Working with 23,000 museums in 18 countries worldwide
– Connecting people with collections
– Supporting professional development
– Building digital capacity
– Demonstrating the value of Collections Management
• We want to help as many museums as possible give as many people as possible the chance to learn about themselves and the world around them.
Discover Refine Manage Deliver Engage Improve
Acquisition
Strategic Planning
Research
Interpretation Collections
Management
Environmental Control
Integrated Pest Management
Integrated Risk Management
Collections Development
Disaster Planning & Resilience
Conservation
Loans & Mobility
Exhibition Planning
Digital Content
Web/mobile
Audience Engagement
Strategic Marketing
Outreach
Education/ Learning Support
Commerce/ retail
Fundraising
Business administration
Key Performance Indicators
Process improvement
Cost reduction
Collections Trust core competencies
Digitisation
Digital Asset Management
Licensing/IPR
Documentation
The Collections Trust’s role
What is a Collection?
Physical Collections
What is a Collection?
Administrative Information
Physical Collections
What is a Collection?
Administrative Information
Collections-based
Knowledge
Physical Collections
What is a Collection?
Administrative Information
Collections-based
Knowledge
Physical Collections
Narratives
What is a Collection?
Administrative Information
Digital Assets
Collections-based
Knowledge
Physical Collections
Narratives
What is a Collection?
Administrative Information
Digital Assets
Collections-based
Knowledge
Physical Collections
Narratives
Physical surrogates (3D print)
What is a Collection?
Administrative Information
Digital Assets
Collections-based
Knowledge
Physical Collections
Narratives
Physical surrogates (3D print)
Our changing role...
The role of museums has always been a balance between physical protection and facilitating access
We’re replacing access with activism, relevance, engagement & participation
To become relevant, the museum has to become responsive
The ‘traditional’ museum...
Most cultural organisations operate in ‘vertical’ silos
Education Management Collections Retail IT
The ‘responsive’ museum...
The visitor is
king
Collections
Learning
Retail
Online
Visitor Services
Facilities
Social
Mobile
It’s about finding the fastest, simplest way of giving people meaningful, emotional experiences
Not about partitioning peoples lives, but about letting them express the kind of connection they want to make (including being left alone & not having to connect to anything!)
I am...
A mum
A teacher
A casual gamer
Cold
Bored
An expert
What is Documentation?
Documentation is the process by which we record a set of assertions about a given thing in our collections...
What is Documentation?
What is Documentation?
What is it?
Where is it?
What is it made of?
Who owns it?
Why do we have it?
What is it connected to?
Who collected it? Where was it
found?
How big is it?
How much is it worth?
What is Documentation?
What is it?
Where is it?
What is it made of?
Who owns it?
Why do we have it?
What is it connected to?
Who collected it? Where was it
found?
How big is it?
How much is it worth?
Why should I care?
What does it mean?
What story does it tell?
What is its context?
How do I relate to it?
What makes it unique?
What does it help me
understand? Is it ethical/
political/ moral?
What is Documentation?
What is Documentation?
What is Documentation?
What is Documentation?
What is Documentation?
Our visitors must be free to wander the paths we create, create their own, or tell us why a path is broken and should lead somewhere else...
What is Documentation?
The aim of documentation is not the creation of fixed points, but to facilitate the museum in reflecting the changing nature of knowledge & understanding about our collections.
What is Documentation?
In a connected world, knowledge flows freely between contexts and communities, becoming greater & more valuable as it travels.
In the real world, museums remain among the most trusted civic institutions, more than banks, politicians, broadcasters, teachers and the church.
In a world of hyper-connected information, trust is a currency
Museums are rich in trust because of professionalism and accountability – which are expressed through Documentation, Conservation & Collections Management
The critical transition....
FROM
TO “I have status
because I am a museum...”
“I have status because of what I know, what I share and what I enable.”
Strategic Collections Management
• Not about practice for its own sake, but about designing an organisation that works well & works together
• Making decisions based on the needs of the audience and the organisation
• Ensuring effective management based on the right balance of skills, resources, systems and processes...
Users Politics Funding Culture
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Users Politics Funding Culture
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Users Politics Funding Culture
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Care Use Learn Develop
Users Politics Funding Culture
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Care Use Learn Develop
Users Politics Funding Culture
People Processes Systems Info
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Care Use Learn Develop
Users Politics Funding Culture
People Processes Systems Info
Evaluation & improvement
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Care Use Learn Develop
Users Politics Funding Culture
People Processes Systems Info
Evaluation & improvement
Rich, meaningful experiences for users
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Care Use Learn Develop
Users Politics Funding Culture
People Processes Systems Info
Evaluation & improvement
Rich, meaningful experiences for users
Organisation’s Mission Statement
Collections Management Policy
Care Use Learn Develop
Users Politics Funding Culture
People Processes Systems Info
Evaluation & improvement
Rich, meaningful experiences for users
The core elements of SPECTRUM
• SPECTRUM helps museums review their work with their collections, celebrate good practice and identify opportunities to improve!
• SPECTRUM Standard including translations/ localisations, SPECTRUM Digital Asset Management, the SPECTRUM Schema and the Archive of previous versions of SPECTRUM
• SPECTRUM Labs, including new ideas and potential applications of the SPECTRUM Standard
• SPECTRUM Resources which support the application of the standard
• SPECTRUM Community which includes anyone who uses the standard nationally or internationally
STANDARD
WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY (7,600)
COMPLIANCE (23,000)
GUIDANCE PDF/XML/PRINT
+ SCHEMA
NEW IDEAS
SPECTRUM Facts & Figures
• 8,000 licensed users
• 23,000 museums using SPECTRUM Compliant™ systems
• 17 SPECTRUM Partner systems
• Translations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Flanders, Germany
• Active communities in the Nordic countries
• Under development in Qatar and China
New ideas: Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE)
• An object record is a nugget of digital content
• Able to be re-flowed dynamically across platforms
• Prepared for responsive design
• Collections that are mobile, social and in the Cloud
• “Get your content ready to travel anywhere, because it’s going to go everywhere” (thanks to Paul Rowe, Vernon Systems)!
New ideas: Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE)
SPECTRUM & the CIDOC CRM
CIDOC CRM
LIDO, ESE, ?
Abstraction layer
Collections
management layer
Data interchange layer
By mapping up to CIDOC CRM from SPECTRUM, we can support COPE by
supporting a richer & more future-proof data interchange layer
ENTRY-LEVEL ACADEMIC MID-CAREER LEADERSHIP LEGACY
CORE VALUES Integrity, accountability, openness, honesty, diversity, efficiency
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Housekeeping, handling, packing
Collections theory, research, documentation
Environment, IPM, security, labelling etc.
Strategic CM, Collections
development
Organisational knowledge
transfer, research
MANAGEMENT Time-
management Project
Management
PPM, Risk, HR, Finance,
Marketing
Strategic planning, advocacy
Continuity planning
SUBJECT EXPERTISE
Broad interest General subject
focus Practice-based
expertise
Specialist academic
knowledge
Subject knowledge
transfer
SOFT SKILLS Mentoring, facilitation, negotiation, communication, networking
Developing integrated skills
The future of Documentation?
There is a golden thread that connects the card-index cataloguing of the 1970’s with the world of linked open data
Documentation is about much more than cataloguing objects, it is what allows those objects to tell and re-tell their stories
In a connected world, it is the professionalism and accountability of our documentation & collections care which give us our trusted status
Practical Guides
• A Practical Guide to Collections Management
• A Practical Guide to Documentation
• Both available from Collections Trust (RRP £24.99)
• www.collectionslink.org.uk/shop
Thankyou!
www.collectionslink.org.uk/spectrum
@NickPoole1
These slides online at http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole
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