Cataloguing Museum Collections Week 1

JHU Museum Studies Spring 2010

Cataloguing Museum Collections

History, Trends, and Issues

Susan Chun and Michael Jenkins

Co-teaching and Office Hours

• Susan and Michael will alternate as instructor: check the schedule to see who will be teaching each week.

• Each week, we’ll designate at least three hours as office hours, although you can always contact us to schedule a meeting.

Course Description

Cultural heritage institutions—including museums, libraries, and archives—have as core responsibilities the safeguarding of the objects in their care and the education of the public about these objects. To support both of these responsibilities, one of the central activities of cultural heritage professionals is the cataloguing of the objects in their collections. The course will provide an overview of the definition, rationale, practices, and problems of cataloguing cultural objects; a review of the uses of the cataloguing material produced by registrars, curators, authors, and other personnel of cultural heritage institutions; and a glimpse of some interesting changes in cataloguing practices made possible by technology and the current museum information environment.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

-Discuss the role of cataloguing in museum practice, including administration, education, and research.-Define the basic types of cataloguing and their data elements.- Have a practical understanding of the tools of museum cataloguing, and the roles played by museum professionals in the cataloguing process.- Understand the relationship of cataloguing and public access to collections information.- Develop a basic cataloguing schema/data dictionary and defend their choices based on the appropriateness of the schema based on the collection to be catalogued.

Our PhilosophyOur Biases

Grading2 quizzes--10% (5 points each)

13 weeks of discussion-- 40% (3 points available each week)

1 final assignment-- 20% (20 points)

10 written assignments-- 30% (3 points each)

100 Total Points for Course

PresentationsReadings

AssignmentsGlossary

Final Projects

Discussion

• Discussion is the heart of the class and is weighted accordingly in the grading scheme.

• You are expected to monitor the discussion board and respond to new threads within three days.

History of Collections Cataloguing in Museums

History of Collections Cataloguing in Museums, continued.

Image retrieved on November 17, 2009 from http://collections.paleo.amnh.org/assets/fossil_mammal_card.jpg

History of Collections Cataloguing in Museums, continued.

This Week’s Assignments

• Read– Gurian, E., "The Essential Museum," keynote speech at the

Museums Aoteaora Conference, October 2006.– Green, D. (2007), "Museums, Cataloging & Content Infrastructure:

An Interview with Kenneth Hamma" in Academic Commons.– Baca, Murtha, ed. (2002). Introduction to Art Image Access. Los

Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute.

• Write– 500-word response: Describe the cataloguing that you do in your

daily life. (see Assignments for additional details).

This Week’s Discussion

• Introduce yourself• What do you know about the role of

cataloguers in museums?

A Final Word:On the Orthography

“catalogue” vs.

“catalog”