Where next for Museum Documentation

Copyright Collections Trust 2011. Published under a CC license

Where next for museum Documentation?Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust


Introducing the Collections Trust

• Support museums, archives, libraries and galleries in unlocking the potential of their collections, by:

– Providing know-how– Developing and promoting excellence– Challenging existing practices– Pioneering new ideas– Bringing experts together


Our work

• 5 Programmes

– OpenCulture– Collections Link– Culture Grid– Excellence in Collections– International


Excellence in Collections

• A common framework to connect Collections standards to:

– End-user value and impact– Organisational resilience – Cost-effectiveness– Sustainable collections development


10 Strategic Priorities for Documentation


Documentation Delivers

• We have to demonstrate that Documentation & Information Management deliver long-term value for our institutions

• SPECTRUM evolving into a Management Tool

• Analysing and improving operational efficiency

• Minimising risk

• Developing Performance Indicators for Collections Management

• Using SPECTRUM Workflows to simplify, streamline and rationalise


Museums are Digital

• Museums are producers and managers of large quantities of Digital material

• Digital production and management needs to be integrated into the core functions of the museum

• Developing SPECTRUM Procedures for Digital Photography, Digitisation, Digital Rights Management and Digital Preservation

• Evolving to address the needs of Digital delivery channels

• Integrating Digital Asset Management into core Collections Management Systems


Museums are Knowledge Organisations

• Museums create, manage and distribute knowledge across all business functions

• Documentation, finance, personnel, education, exhibitions

• The value of knowledge is limited where it is siloed

• Documentation needs to adapt to deliver information and records management across the whole enterprise

• SPECTRUM evolving to embrace Archival Records Management & integrated Information Management


Proactive Collections Development

• A Collection is an evolving, organic thing, not a fixed point

• The Collections and collections-related knowledge need to adapt to the changing requirements of the museum and its audiences

• We cannot afford to be held back by material that is unaccessioned, uncatalogued or of unknown ownership

• Documentation must support proactive Collections Development, including collaborative collecting and proactive disposal

• SPECTRUM evolving to support batch-level processes


Collections Working Harder

• We need to ensure that our Collections are working as hard as possible to deliver value for our institutions

• Our Collections procedures need to support rather than inhibit new behaviours by our museums – we need to help establish new relationships and new attitudes to loans

• SPECTRUM evolving to facilitate the loan and use of material in store


Collections Are Different

• Digitisation has tended to create an impression of homogeneity – that all Collections are essentially the same

• Different Collection types are different, and they have different requirements

• Documentation needs to adapt to reflect these different requirements, based on a common core of information management

• SPECTRUM evolving to provide subject/material-specific variants and procedures


Museums are Publishers

• Museum Documentation has evolved from stock-management to an entertainment medium. In the process, we have to adopt the model of publishers, broadcasters and the media – publish once, repurpose many times

• SPECTRUM evolving to embrace a ‘framework’ approach – enabling museums to select the standards, application profiles and protocols most appropriate to their needs and the needs of their audience

• Integrating support for LIDO, Europeana Data Model and other Digital formats and protocols

• Integrating not just Rights Management but proactive Licensing


A Museum is a Conversation

• Social media has created an environment in which the user expects to be a participant. Processes of museum interpretation and presentation are being democratised via the web

• Offering an opportunity to crowdsource functions which we lack capacity to deliver

• Documentation needs to preserve accountability and ‘authority’, while supporting informal knowledge exchange and social interpretation

• SPECTRUM evolving to provide structured approaches to user-generated information and external knowledge


We are united

• Culture is a global endeavour

• The Collections Management community is engaging with these issues worldwide

• SPECTRUM Community unites professional communities working on or with SPECTRUM

• A ‘family’ of translations and localised versions, with each community contributing to the overall direction of SPECTRUM


Where we are today…




http://standards.collectionslink.org.uk


http://www.vocman.com/cultureGrid


SPECTRUM Local

• SPECTRUM is an international open standard, used in more than 7,500 museums and galleries and 40 countries worldwide

• Licensed to national partners to translate and to localise (to reflect local variations in policy, practice and law)

• Current translations in the Netherlands, Flanders and Germany

• Active communities in Sweden, Portugal, Greece, France, Switzerland

• Arabic & Chinese translations planned

• An international community of practitioners


SPECTRUM Partners

• 14 Partners worldwide representing an installed user base of some 30,000 institutions

• Working together to develop a common vision of International Documentation standards and practice

• A vision that is essentially focussed on delivering operational efficiency and user value

• Access Compliance• Functional Compliance• Informational Compliance• Procedural Compliance


Europeana INSIDE

• EU-funded project to integrate tools into your system to reduce the structural, financial, strategic, legal and operational barriers to participation in open content services.

• Need to change the balance from ‘it’s too hard’/’I’ll do it next year’/’I’ll do it when my Documentation is complete’ to ‘we’re doing it’ (and the sky hasn’t yet fallen on our heads…)

– Drag and drop one-time-only data mapping– Granular access/use/rights management– Object/collection/institution level control (send it there, don’t send it

there)– Tracking secondary & tertiary reuse– Re-ingesting enriched metadata into systems


SPECTRUM Roadmap• Planning the 4-5 year Development Path for SPECTRUM

• Specific requirements include:

– SPECTRUM RFID– SPECTRUM 4.0 Schema– Digitisation & Digital Photography– Digital Asset Management– Digital Rights Management– Digital Preservation– BPMN Workflows & automated systems– User-generated content– Narrative/re-use– Agile rights and usage metadata


• The greatest Collections Management Show on Earth!

• 26th & 27th June 2012

• London, Oval

• SPECTRUM Community get-together!


Contact

Nick PooleCollections Trust

[email protected]

@NickPoole1

http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk

Business

Where next for Museum Documentation