18
This article was downloaded by: [University of Calgary] On: 01 September 2014, At: 06:50 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Museum Management and Curatorship Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmmc20 Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence Helena Robinson a a Department of Museum Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences , The University of Sydney , R.C. Mills Building A26, Sydney , NSW , 2006 , Australia Published online: 26 Sep 2012. To cite this article: Helena Robinson (2012) Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence, Museum Management and Curatorship, 27:4, 413-429, DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2012.720188 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2012.720188 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

  • Upload
    helena

  • View
    242

  • Download
    10

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

This article was downloaded by: [University of Calgary]On: 01 September 2014, At: 06:50Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Museum Management and CuratorshipPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmmc20

Remembering things differently:museums, libraries and archivesas memory institutions and theimplications for convergenceHelena Robinson aa Department of Museum Studies, Faculty of Arts and SocialSciences , The University of Sydney , R.C. Mills Building A26,Sydney , NSW , 2006 , AustraliaPublished online: 26 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Helena Robinson (2012) Remembering things differently: museums, librariesand archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence, Museum Managementand Curatorship, 27:4, 413-429, DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2012.720188

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2012.720188

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

DIGITAL HERITAGE

Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives asmemory institutions and the implications for convergence

Helena Robinson*

Department of Museum Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney,R.C. Mills Building A26, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

(Received 6 June 2011; final version received 28 March 2012)

In Australia and internationally, museums, libraries and archives are oftendescribed as ‘memory institutions’ in discussions about their possible convergencein the digital and physical realms. Yet a wider variety of organisations, such asschools, universities, media corporations, government or religious bodies couldalso legitimately be ascribed this title. In what special ways do museums, librariesand archives engage with the concept of ‘memory’? Do the roles of theseorganisations in shaping ‘memory’ align sufficiently for this concept to form thebasis on which to ground arguments in favour of convergence? This paperinterrogates the idea of ‘memory institutions’ and proposes that such a genericconcept is not especially productive in facilitating the thorough, critical analysisnecessary to highlight both the synergies and discords in the history and memory-making techniques of museums, libraries and archives.

Keywords: museums; archives; libraries; memory institutions; interpretation;convergence

Introduction

In tandem with similar trends in the UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand, and

responding to a variety of financial, government and technological motivations, a

number of Australian museums have converged their physical facilities with local

libraries, galleries and archives.1 Not only has this created a new organisational

model, it also marks an important turning point in how preservation and

interpretation of culturally significant material is understood and institutionally

framed. In parallel with these developments, enthusiasm for the digital convergence

of diverse collections has continued to gain pace internationally, setting an agenda

for universal access to digital collections information originating from different

domain sources.

Arguments for convergence are commonly accompanied by a conventional

wisdom that collapses libraries, archives and museums together under the blanket

definition of ‘memory institutions’ (Cathro 2001; Dempsey 2000; Dupont 2007;

Enser 2001; Gomez 2010; Hedstrom and King 2004; Miller 2000; Tanackovic and

Badurina 2009; Tibbo and Lee 2010), along with the even broader identification of

these collecting domains as ‘knowledge organisations’ (Given and McTavish 2010;

*Email: [email protected]

Museum Management and Curatorship

Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2012, 413�429

ISSN 0964-7775 print/ISSN 1872-9185 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2012.720188

http://www.tandfonline.com

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 3: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

Macnaught 2008). However, is this loose terminological conflation really conducive

to achieving the successful integration of collecting institutions?

I argue in this paper that, rather than revealing the essential affiliation between

museums, libraries and archives, their sweeping classification as ‘memory institu-tions’ in the public sector and the academy oversimplifies the concept of memory,

and marginalises domain-specific approaches to the cataloguing, description,

interpretation and deployment of collections that lead museums, libraries and

archives to engage with history, meaning and memory in significantly different ways.

By applying the work of scholars in library and information science, archival studies

and museology, I argue for a more analytical discourse around convergence � one

that avoids generalisations about libraries, archives and museums and acknowledges

nuance, diversity and polyphony in the representation of history and culturalmemory.

First, the paper provides an overview of the convergence of libraries, archives and

museums in digital and physical realms, including an account of the precursors to

this re-conceptualisation of collecting organisations. Second, I deal with the ways

in which ‘memory’ operates within library, archive and museum contexts. Third,

I contrast the historiographic processes at work in libraries, archives and museums,

revealing fundamental differences in ideas about historical significance and memory

production that exist as the basis of domain-specific approaches to collections.Finally, I consider the impact that museum, library and archive convergence may

have on the shaping of narrative and memory.

This paper offers a theoretical contribution to the convergence debate; one that

seems dominated by discussion of financial efficiencies, rationalisation of services

and the ideal of universal access to information about material culture. It forms part

of a larger study addressing the epistemological status of museum, library and

archive collections and their conceptual compatibility through an examination of five

‘converged’ institutions in New South Wales, Australia. By interviewing collectionsstaff and examining the policies and organisational structures of each facility before

and after the integration process, this research provides insights into the interpreta-

tion of previously autonomous museum collections within converged organisations.

Ultimately, this broader investigation aims at strengthening the dialogue about

how physical and digital convergences can alter archival, library and especially

museum frameworks, and correspondingly, the shaping and articulation of cultural

knowledge.

Convergence and ‘memory institutions’ � a background

Within the relatively small body of literature directly related to the theme of

convergence, it is assumed that libraries, archives and museums share an essential

compatibility and purpose around the concept of memory and history. The

popularity of the term ‘memory institutions’ (see e.g. Cathro 2001; De Laurentis

2006; Dempsey 2000; Dupont 2007; Hedstrom and King 2004; Tanackovic and

Badurina 2009) attests to this. Jennifer Trant, an archives and museum informaticsconsultant, who has contributed several articles on the theme of convergence, opened

her introduction to a paper on cross-domain professional training by acknowledging

the pervasiveness of the term ‘memory institution’ in current discourse around

convergence. She suggests that ‘The memory institution . . . has captured the

414 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 4: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

imagination of policy-makers as a powerful metaphor for the social role of libraries,

archives and museums’ (Trant 2009, 369). According to Dupont, it is understood

that libraries, archives and museums can be grouped conceptually around the theme

of memory because they all exist to ‘make a better future by helping us remember

and understand the past’ (Dupont 2007, 13).

Initially, the use of the term ‘memory institutions’ to describe libraries, archivesand museums was linked to the new possibilities opened up by the advent of the

Internet and interoperable databases that could facilitate seamless access to

collections information. Writing on memory institutions and documentation from

the perspective of Information Science, Birger Hjorland (2000) has attributed the

first usage of the term ‘memory institutions’ to Swedish information scientist

R. Hjerppe in 1994, thus highlighting the link between evolving computing

technology and the prospect of converged collections databases. From this point

of view, museums, libraries and archives are differentiated primarily by the

typological distinctions between their collections (objects, books, documents), that

seem arbitrary and redundant in an age where users can, with the aid of digital

technologies, by-pass the institutional gatekeepers and access collections directly.

This perspective has been readily adopted into the discourse around convergence

of collecting domains. For example, Tanakovic and Badurina write that the

‘fragmentation of total world memory into distinct institutionalized forms of care

for heritage is based on the nature and formal characteristics of material for whichthese different but cognate institutions assumed primary responsibility’ and,

furthermore, that this ‘artificial perspective does not benefit the end user in a

significant way’ (Tanackovic and Badurina 2009, 299). Authors such as Robert

Martin (2007, 81�2), Given and McTavish (2010) and Hedstrom and King

(2004, 12), offer a similar view, insisting that the separation of the collecting

domains was an accident of history based on now obsolete bureaucratic and

disciplinary conventions. As Lorcan Dempsey wrote in 2000, memory institutions

share a common goal in preserving and organising the intellectual record of their

societies, and they ‘recognise their users’ desire to refer to intellectual and cultural

materials flexibly and transparently, without concern for institutional or national

boundaries’ (Dempsey 2000, 3).2

The advent of online access to all types of collections, so the argument goes, has

highlighted the end-users’ desire for unmediated, direct interaction with collection

objects, their documentation, and their historical or knowledge content � pushing

the original repository of the records very much to the background. Nevertheless, it

is interesting that the collective term ‘memory institutions’ for libraries, archives andmuseums only came about relatively recently and in a digital context, as if the

commonalities that these institutions share around the concepts of collective,

national and social memory (rather than, say, their broad cultural role in facilitating

learning and research, creating an active public sphere or supporting cultural

engagement) constitute their pre-eminent value in contemporary times.

For authors such as Michelle Doucet, in an article describing the circumstances

behind the 2004 merger of Library and Archives Canada, the network synergies

offered via new technologies, though limited to the exchange of digital information,

helped accelerate debate around the potential integration of tangible collections

and physical collection spaces (Doucet 2007, 61). Doucet (2007, 65) and others

(see e.g. Martin 2007, 82; 2004, 670) also speak of users’ desire to transcend domain

Museum Management and Curatorship 415

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 5: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

boundaries as a parallel force driving the move towards physical convergence. In

examples of physical convergence, such as the Albury LibraryMuseum in New South

Wales, Australia, similar ideals promising seamless access across collections were

embedded in the organisational vision. Carina Clement of the LibraryMuseum hasdescribed her institution as an integrated cultural community space, where ‘the

building was to incorporate the functions of a public library, research and technology

centre and social history museum but with limited barriers between the zones in the

building to encourage integration of spaces and experiences’ (Boaden and Clement

2009, 10).

While digital technologies and the perceived demands of collection users3 do

present a substantial and pragmatic argument for converging museums, libraries and

archives, the conceptual basis for such a shift, based upon the common grouping ofthese organisations as ‘memory institutions’, has not been investigated in the

scholarly literature. Authors such as the oft-cited Dempsey (2000) assume that these

organisations have shared interests in engaging with ‘memory’, moving directly to the

problem of how to achieve these convergences (via standardised cataloguing

processes, nomenclatures and metadata), rather than seeking to first substantiate

assumed parallels around knowledge and memory and examining why their roles in

supporting the concept of ‘memory’ have become so important in recent times. What

are the actual mechanisms through which ‘memory’ functions in relation tomuseums, libraries and archives? Is the experience of memory � individual, collective,

social, national � the same across all kinds of collecting institutions?

Libraries and memory

Libraries, archives and museums are certainly all aligned in the basic function of

accumulation and preservation of information, much (but not all) of which concerns

the past. Guided by the overwhelming imperative to provide a comprehensive publicservice (Cubitt 2006, 581), libraries in particular have concentrated their develop-

ment on producing sophisticated ways of selecting, classifying, organising and

enabling streamlined user access to collections information. Hjorland (2000)

underscores that facilitation of access is the central principle of the library context,

writing that the ‘core functions provided by librarians/information specialists are

related to such tasks as selection of documents, their indexing and classification, and

searching/retrieval of information and documents for users’ (Hjorland 2000, 35).

Similarly, Cubitt (2006) writes, ‘The library is a machine for retrieving informa-tion . . . It constructs routes of access, it guides towards results you didn’t even know

you were seeking’ (Cubitt 2006, 581).4

For the purposes of this paper, the quintessential raison d’etre of libraries, taking

into account the history of their development, is taken as being the provision of

access to documentary or text collections. While it may certainly be argued that

contemporary libraries offer an array of services that extend and even surpass this

role (such as the inclusion of ‘folksonomies’ to broaden and democratise search

terminologies,5 the trend towards various ‘edutainment’ programmes, includingexhibitions, that marry leisure and learning to attract new users,6 etc.), library

technologies for ordering their collections, and through these techniques, establishing

the context through which these collections can be accessed, remains a central tenet

of the library as an institution.

416 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 6: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

The goal of access is facilitated in libraries by the ubiquity of standardised

nomenclatures and cataloguing procedures, outlined within widely adopted catalo-

guing standards such as the LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings) and the

DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification scheme used in more than 200,000 libraries

worldwide),7 with both systems formalised around the turn of the twentieth century

(Olson 2001). These elaborate cataloguing methodologies set out to organise vast

collections according to rigid hierarchical subject definitions, with the identification

of these categories being paramount to the success of the system. In principle,

therefore, libraries strive to provide broad access to entire collections via rigorous

and standardised finding aids.8

Hope Olsen, a prominent library scholar, demonstrates that library classification

(controlled vocabularies) and indexing systems not only provide access to collections

but also help establish the conceptual parameters that delineate how those collection

items are to be perceived. She writes that subject classification is ‘a sort of epistemic

cartography � mapping knowledge’ (Olson 2001, 652). Similarly, web-based

information specialist, Thomas Gruber, writes of traditional subject classifications:

‘Taxonomies limit the dimensions along which one can make distinctions, and local

choices at the leaves are constrained by global categorizations at the branches’

(Gruber 2007, 3). In other words, the ways in which libraries identify their collections

influences the direction of user inquiries and which resources will be turned up (and

grouped together) in the results of the user’s search.

Olsen convincingly argues that library practice is inherently subjective for this

reason, inscribing the ordering of collections with particular biases, even though

these have traditionally been obscured beneath a veneer of supposed objective

universality, reflecting the early twentieth century origins of library systems:

Naming information is the special business of librarians and information professionals.Applied in our role as ‘‘neutral’’ intermediaries between users and information, ourtheories, models, and descriptions are as presumptuous and controlling as scientists’construction and containment of nature. (Olson 2001, 640)

From this perspective, the concept of the modern library evolved around the

principle of connecting users with the collection resources they sought, even though

the cataloguing processes developed to facilitate this result (with their necessarily

limited naming terms and hierarchical subject headings) restricted the interpretive

possibilities of each collection item. This is an important point, as it foregrounds a

common layer of interpretation that occurs across libraries, archives and museums �albeit via diverse procedures � when items traverse the threshold from their lives as

objects in the ‘outside’ world and enter the context of a ‘collection’. Like documents

and objects in archives and museums, items in library collections earn their place by

passing certain criteria for selection and then assume a particular position in relation

to other collection items, according to definitions and thematic connections that are

attributed to them by the institution. These processes are fundamentally interpretive,

reducing the meaning-potential of individual items so that they might fit the order of

the collection as a whole. In this way, they are also elementarily historiographic,

making the first level of ‘sense’ from objects by pinning them down to a particular

scope of significance.

Museum Management and Curatorship 417

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 7: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

However, if we are considering libraries as ‘memory institutions’, does the

subjectivity of library practice constitute a level of contextualisation comparable to

narrative creation? It would appear that, while the library organises its collection and

provides specific technologies for retrieval, and while the librarian may actively assist

a user in their search for collection items (e.g. by improving the user’s literacy in

library systems or guiding them through a reference query), it is the user who finally

decides which collection items to select, to combine with others, and then synthesises

the content for knowledge creation. What is the extent of the library’s role in the

production of meaning and ‘memory’? To what degree does the service of libraries in

facilitating access to collections qualify them as ‘memory institutions’? It may be

easier to form some conclusions about these questions once the roles of archives and

museums as ‘memory institutions’ have also been considered.

Archives and memory

Archives present another model of collecting, often viewed first and foremost in their

role of preserving information contained in unique records, rather than as overt

interpreters of content. As Mike Featherstone, editor of journal Theory, Culture &

Society, wrote in 2006 in the abstract to his article titled Archive, an archive is ‘the

place for the storage of documents and records. With the emergence of the modern

state, it became the storehouse for the material from which national memories were

constructed’ (Featherstone 2006, 591). The concept of the archive was, therefore,

conceived around the principle of preservation of documentary materials and later

evolved an official bureaucratic function, providing ‘raw’ content that could be

mined, interpreted and manipulated by scholars, governments and other external

users for, among other things, the production of historical narratives.

In contrast to museums, especially, the interpretation of collection holdings in

historical or thematic contexts by archivists is actively discouraged and even

regarded as antithetical to good archival practice. The most recent edition of

Keeping Archives (2008), a comprehensive manual of archival practice published by

the Australian Society of Archivists, contains several references to the necessity for

archives to be kept according to the principle of provenance (i.e. the order in which

they were received from the creating agency), and the need for archivists to remain at

arms length from the interpretation process (Bettington et al. 2008, 18, 356, 365,

382). The archival approach to record keeping is succinctly described in the following

paragraph from Keeping Archives:

As outlined above, archives have many potential uses and an archivist cannot knowexactly what these uses may be in the future. Rather than rearranging records in a waythat might be ‘useful’ to a particular audience, archivists preserve the original order sothat records can be understood in their original context, giving room for users tointerpret and analyse the records in a multitude of ways. (Bettington et al. 2008, 18)

The archival imperative to avoid placing layers of interpretation on collections

often precludes the use of subject or theme indexes and other finding aids common

to museum collections and libraries. The primary concerns of archives lie in retaining

the relationship between the documents and the institutional functions and activities

that gave rise to them. As such, access to the collection is organised around the

418 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 8: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

source or creator of the record, the record type and so on.9 Similarly, due to the

governing principle of provenance (also called respect des fonds), archival records are

arranged and described in series order, rather than as individual items. Ideally, each

public user follows their own path through the order of the archive, making their own

sense of the collection without the inference of any pre-imposed understanding.10 As

such, interpretation of the meaning of archival materials often remains personal and

publically undisclosed, unless it forms part of research disseminated via a secondary

outlet that is not connected with the archive itself, such as a government publication,

scholarly research, etc. Hence, while archives exist for public use, and their content is

inherently relevant to the history and ‘memory’ of societies, the act of articulating

and disseminating those histories and memories sits outside the remit of the archive

itself.

While considering archives, it is important to acknowledge the tension that exists

between some scholars of the archival context and its practitioners. In his wide-

ranging and rigorous essay that covers the historical development of archives and

critiques mechanisms for archival information management, Terry Cook (2009)

argues that archives are not, in fact, the neutral repositories of information that they

purport to be, and that archivists actively engage in historiographic processes � even

if at times they do not recognise their own actions as such. He argues that the

impartiality of archives is a myth that grew out of a nineteenth-century rationalist

approach to the accumulation of ‘facts’ (Cook 2009, 500, 515�17), and a new

consciousness of the need to document a ‘distinctive past’ that evolved in tandem

with the idea of Europe’s accelerating scientific, technological, political and social

progress (Cook 2009, 503). These conditions, Cook argues, gave rise to a perception

(including a self-perception) of archivists as the passive, unassuming guardians of

historical data, preserving documents so that others, such as historians, could access,

interpret and create an objective historical narrative around the materials,

unencumbered by pre-imposed understandings of the collection. As Cook writes:

The need by historians, for methodological, epistemological, and gender reasons, tohave a non-problematic, pure, virginal archive, ready for the historian to discover andexploit, almost by definition required the archivist to be an invisible caretaker, a docilehandmaiden, the harem-keeper of the documentary virgins. (Cook 2009, 507)

However, Cook highlights numerous archival interventions in the processing of so-

called ‘untouched’ records, including description of collection groupings, prioritising

conservation needs, creation of catalogues, copying, implementing destruction

schedules, etc., that clearly point to the archivist as co-creator, rather than simply

the keeper, of the archive (Cook 2009, 504).11 Or, as Marlene Manoff argues in

considering Michel Foucault’s concept of the archive, the very contents and

structuring principles of not only museums but also libraries and archives,

‘establishes the possibility of what can be said’ (Manoff 2004, 18). Within this

context, the admonition of interpretive action by archivists, as sampled in the

Keeping Archives manual cited previously, points to a persisting nineteenth-century

view of archives that is at odds with the active process of meaning-making and

contextualisation that are implicit in archival practice.

Nevertheless, while archivists can certainly be viewed as interpreters of content

from this point of view, and therefore as co-authors of history and memory, it is not

Museum Management and Curatorship 419

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 9: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

valid to assert that archival collection processes are identical to those of museums or

libraries, or that they produce the same level of contextualisation of collection

material. As Featherstone points out, the classification and storage of archives

is usually much looser than the ordering mechanisms employed by libraries

(Featherstone 2006, 593). The grouping of large quantities of documents in record

series, as opposed to the item-level description and indexing of library items, is one

example of this difference in practice. As a result, it could be said that, rather than

storing collective memory in a concrete, pre-existing form, archives house material

accumulated in original order (though not entirely ‘objectively’) that awaits writinginto some form of historical narrative by the user. Hence, archives are indeed

‘memory institutions’, but not in the same sense that libraries or museums are.

Archives provide a vast, partially organised trove of documentary sources upon

which second-tier historiographic work is yet to be done.

Museums and memory

Museums provide the third model of organisation to be considered under the broad

umbrella of the term ‘memory institutions’. Having addressed the general principles

at work in library and archival approaches to collecting, as well as some of the

implications for the production of ‘memory’, this section will consider various ideas

and definitions of how museum collections operate as a stimulus for personal

memory, or how they generate representations and consciousness of the past through

the selection and juxtaposition of collection objects.

In comparing museum practices to psychological processes that produce memory,

museologist Susan Crane shows how museums trigger the mental activity of

recollection for visitors by staging objects as signifiers of that which is absent

(Crane 2000, 2). More recently, she has written that for many people ‘museums

perform the externalized function of their own brains: it [the museum] remem-

bers . . .what is most valuable, and essential in culture and science’ (Crane 2006, 98).

The psychological process of recollection is paralleled with the mechanisms of

museum representation: just as we mentally reassemble our memories into mean-

ingful bundles in response to stimuli, museums assemble (i.e., interpret) individualobjects in various configurations to produce meaningful narratives. This process

allows museums to reify memories and knowledge that might otherwise fade if left

unwritten in this form.

Peter van Mensch employs a similar view of the museum object, citing Stransky’s

definition, where the collection item is an ‘object separated from its actual reality and

transferred to a new, museum reality in order to document the reality from which it

was separated’ (van Mensch 1990, 145). In this context, museum professionals,

especially curators, fulfil the role of historians. It is their role to select and make sense

of the evidence of the past on behalf of the visitor. Museology scholar, Gaynor

Kavanagh, directly identifies museum professionals as historians with a great

responsibility in how they represent the past. As she puts it:

Historians working in museums have possibly the most creative and complex roles of allhistory-makers. They have a wide range of evidence on which to draw, including objects,oral tradition and observed social practice . . . curators have to decide what to collectand what to let go, what to record and what to ignore. (Kavanagh 1996, 5)

420 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 10: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

David Carr argues a similar point, describing how the museum setting juxtaposes

objects and information in engaging configurations, offering new insights that trigger

audiences to re-evaluate their worldview. For him, a museum ‘constructs narratives

that help us to locate our memories, passions, and commitments. The museum

illuminates irresistible new thoughts and stimulates revision of former thoughts’

(Carr 2006, 16). Through the interpretation of artefacts, museums provide a tangible

anchor for existing notions about the past, and present unexpected narrative insightsthat can motivate visitors to rethink ideas about history and their relationships

to it.12

In this sense, curators become arbiters of what should be considered historically

significant, charged with the responsibility of interpreting which aspects of material

evidence from the past are not only retained but also represented in meaningful ways

for contemporary and future generations. Moreover, the process of history-making

in museums is multidimensional, not only due to the immense variety of objects held

in museum collections, but also because curators employ diverse and discipline-based

methodologies for ‘reading’ these sources, founded on a variety of epistemological

approaches.13 These interpretive processes transcend the subjectivity inherent in the

initial accessioning and cataloguing of collections � a common interpretive element

across libraries, archives and museums, although in each case subject to the

particular collection policies and traditions of individual organisations.

From this small selection of important scholarship concerning the role ofmuseums in producing historical and cultural narratives, we see that museums have a

special ability to use collections to produce meanings and histories. They create

varied (and, over time, multiple) representations of a culture’s collective memory, as

well as providing a stimulus and staging ground for evoking the personal memories

of visitors. Indeed, this is a defining characteristic of the museum experience.

A glance back into the history of museums reveals their development was always

founded in the need to organise knowledge and history � the very constituents of

memory. In an essay written for the Organization for Economic Co-operation

Development (OECD), Hedstrom and King situate the development of museums in

tandem with the rise of modern science and scholarship in seventeenth century

Europe, describing how systematic collecting both accompanied and stimulated

attempts to understand and organise knowledge about nature at a time of

unprecedented access to new information about the world (Hedstrom and King

2004, 8). Paula Findlen also notes that early museums developed as a response to the

information ‘overload’ brought about by European exploration of the globe and the

corresponding introduction into European consciousness of new discoveries aboutnature, as well as foreign concepts of civilisation (Findlen 2004, 173�5). In this

unsettling period of discovery and perceived progress, accompanied by a growing

consciousness of historical time, the museum context provided a space for coherent

understanding and sense of place within the world. In this way, the initial

development of museums was intrinsically tied to the need to contextualise, and

thus make sense of, reality and temporal change.

In the contemporary context, the way in which museums organise their

collections continues to provide a cognitive model for converting new and dissociated

information into meaningful knowledge and cultural memory (Carr 2006, 13;

Hetherington 2006, 600�2). While acknowledging the diversity that exists among

museums, Kevin Hetherington points to the provision of a singular, coherent

Museum Management and Curatorship 421

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 11: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

narrative space as a central tenet of these institutions. He writes that the modern

museum:

seeks to provide modern society with a fabricated Erfahrung [experience]. It seeksthrough its display regimes, their narratives and ordering logics to provide people with asense that they are living in a world where our uncertain and complex set of experiencesmake sense. (Hetherington 2006, 600)

This idea not only emphasises the importance of museums as a counter-balance to

the potentially destabilising effects of the ‘modern experience’, but also points to the

ethical responsibility to culture inherent in this role. Bringing these issues into

contemporary focus, Chung, Wilkening, and Johnstone (2008) predict that the

permeation of digital content into everyday life is creating a similar ‘overload’ that

will open up new opportunities for museums to stand out not only as providers of

credible, authoritative and verifiable information, but also to demonstrate mechan-

isms by which the overabundance of available sources can be navigated and arranged

around significant themes and issues of community interest, creating ‘oases of the

real in an increasingly virtual world’ (Chung, Wilkening, and Johnstone 2008, 19).

Essentially, these processes of arrangement and sense-making are particular

narrative techniques that define the way in which museums communicate ideas

through the use of objects. A museum collection exists not as an end in itself, but

rather as the raw material that curators (and other museum professionals) assemble

and juxtapose via specific museal practices in order for a variety of ideas to be made

manifest. Ghislaine Lawrence, writing in Susan Pearce’s influential book Objects of

Knowledge, makes a similar observation, preferring to class museums as a form of

media in the sense that the work of museums is primarily the use of artefacts and

other ‘devices’ to create meanings for audiences (Lawrence 1990, 103). In this

process, museums are not about unmediated open access to collections. As Crane

suggests, the ‘institutional nature of the museum has encouraged the construction of

narratives that inhibit random access in favour of orderly, informative meaning-

formation’ (Crane 2000, 4).

From this point of view, apart from the technical functions of cataloguing,

describing and preserving collections (which, of course, embody their own set of

subjectivities), the distinctive value of museums is their ability to contextualise

collection objects within broader thematic and narrative groupings � enabling

visitors to engage with more complex ideas about history and ‘memory’. It is through

this curatorial interface that most in-person visitors interact with museum collec-

tions. It is also this interpretive museal framework that is most in danger of being

obscured or circumvented when individual object records are accessed directly at

item level, as often occurs when visitors use digital museum collection databases. The

challenge for museums with digital collection access will be to maintain the

interpretive scaffolding that renders basic collection records meaningful, thereby

distinguishing themselves from libraries and archives, which generally offer electronic

records without additional superimposed layers of context. Within converged

collection environments, whether physical or digital, these basic philosophical

differences between museums, libraries and archives around provision of access to

collection information are yet to be convincingly resolved. The question also remains

as to whether, for the sake of differentiation and variety, they should be.

422 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 12: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

Re-plotting ‘memory’ through convergence

So far, this paper has considered the comparative approaches and collection practices

of libraries, archives and museums in relation to the production of historical

knowledge, or ‘memory’, in a general sense. Although the cataloguing and

descriptive methodologies of libraries and archives have been recognised as a

technology for framing users’ understanding of collections, and these processes are

commeasurable with cataloguing procedures and collection management in mu-

seums, it is problematic to equate them with the interpretive curatorial interventions

applied to museum collections.14 As such, it could be said that although museums,

libraries and archives proceed along the path of memory together a certain way, only

museums continue through additional steps to actively and self-consciously author

historical narratives through their objects.

From this point of view, however, it is still possible to assert that museums,

libraries and archives can be grouped together as ‘memory institutions’, as they share

similar approaches to collection management and the basic processes of cataloguing,

naming and description of collections that Terry Cook has validly identified as

fundamentally historiographic. Interestingly, a deeper examination of these appar-

ently common approaches reveals that, although superficially compatible, their

specific articulation within individual libraries, archives and museums may produce a

diverse array of narrative understandings of collections, and that such differences

should be taken into account in the context of potential convergence of these

domains.

Cultural theorist Mieke Bal’s work concerning the defining practices of collecting

can be used to help understand the significance of such differences. Drawing on a

theatrical analogy to describe the structure of museum representation, her ideas can

be extrapolated to archives and libraries in their primary role in gathering together

and documenting collections. Bal (2004) envisions the basic practice of collecting as a

form of narrative production, where the narrator (in this case the librarian, archivist

or curator) communicates a story by giving an account of a series of events, or plot,

using actors (the collection objects). In a broad sense, the holdings of libraries,

archives and museums all evidently conform to Bal’s narrative definition of a

collection, in that each of these institutions focus the acquisition of collection items

within particular parameters of selection, classification and documentation, in order

to present an intelligible whole. However, there are a number of contingencies that

differentiate the information that can be gleaned from these different collection

types, primarily because their plotting strategies are different. In other words, to

borrow the phrasing of another scholar, each collecting domain can be seen as a

particular ‘category of experience’ (Findlen 2004); a framework for perception,

corresponding to the specific ways in which each institution orders and assembles

information resources.

We may, for example, consider the particular collection management and

description standards of each collecting domain as plotting devices, where the

objects are arranged to communicate different stories (e.g. respect des fonds, or

provenance, as the organising principle in archives, hierarchical subject groupings via

the LCSH or DDC in libraries, or thematic, typological or taxonomical sets in

certain museums). When data are channelled into various information clusters

according to these ordering principles, it follows that the derivative knowledge or

Museum Management and Curatorship 423

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 13: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

historical narrative will also be differentiated and plural. This diversity holds the

potential for multifaceted classifications and interpretations of meaning around even

similar collection holdings, simply as a result of their position within one type of

collecting institution or another. The variety of models for organising and describing

objects across the collecting sectors therefore creates polyphony around what

constitutes historical awareness, collective and individual memory and the articula-

tion of culture.Second, in the case of museum objects, Bal reminds us that the legibility of

the narrative hinges on the use of normative codes for meaning-making that both the

narrator and the audience can understand (Bal 2004). In museums, for example, the

effective delivery of the narrative requires both the curator and the visitor to be

literate in museum communication methods, accompanied by the expectation of a

particular collection experience. In order to satisfy these preconditions, there is value

in conforming to the norms and devices of information arrangement that are

characteristic of the museum context. Similarly, it can be inferred that archives and

libraries are also only effective if their users can navigate their way through the

particular methods used by each institutional type to present the content of their

collections.

Several issues arise here, especially when considering the physical convergence of

collection domains from this point of view. First, if the motivations of the collector

are the centre or ‘motor’ of the narratives produced through the collection objects(Bal 2004), it follows that if the identity of the narrator shifts from a single entity to a

converged amalgamation of two or more, so too must the motivations behind the

collection, thereby inevitably altering the shape of its narratives in some way. In cases

of physical convergence, we may reasonably ask how changing a collection rationale

through the combination of institutions, including the development of a new

mission, strategic plan, organisational structure, collection policies or the introduc-

tion of cross-disciplinary methodologies for the documentation and presentation of

objects, may effect the ‘re-plotting’ of existing collections to produce new meanings.

When this occurs, do we diminish the potential for collections to deliver a variety

of important cultural narratives in favour of a single or more homogenous

perspective? Furthermore, as part of the utopian ideal of creating universal access

to digital collection resources from across the domains, does the need for

standardised metadata obscure the significance of particular naming conventions

of individual institutions, and therefore the imprint of institutional identity and the

overall shape of each collection in favour of accessing individual, isolated objects?

And, in the case of museums, where does digital convergence leave room for the kindof additional interpretative, historiographic interface that produces coherent

narratives and meaning around groups of collection objects?

Bal’s ideas regarding the plotting strategies distinctive to collectors, and the

different narratives that these strategies evoke, resonate with questions of ‘memory’

and history relating to libraries, archives and museums as collecting institutions.

From this perspective, not only each domain, but also an each individual

organisation imparts a certain ‘identity’ to its collection via its practices of

representation � some limited to the ways in which collections are selected and

organised, others enhancing their interpretive footprint through active approaches to

representing collections through specific narrative contexts. Each organisation in this

rich constellation offers a potentially different snapshot of ‘memory’ and history,

424 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 14: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

sometimes through a variety of entry points into the collection. The danger in the

current usage of the term ‘memory institutions’ � in concert with discussions about

digital convergence, or in referencing the so-called obsolete distinctions between

libraries, archives and museums � is that the variety of avenues into memory andhistory provided by these organisations may be overlooked.

Correspondingly, the diverse potential for interactions with collections in

particular ‘memory’ contexts may be diminished. Moreover, there is the basic

conceptual premise, as examined in this paper, that each domain in its approach to

collections offers a particular contribution to the production of memory, from the

implicit subjectivity of library and archival collection practices, to the more explicit

curatorial interventions applied by museums to overtly develop narrative content by

selective use of collection resources. Each of these approaches addresses differentaspects of the production of memory, doing so to quite different extents. In the

context of possible convergence of the domains is it therefore useful, or indeed

responsible, to speak of libraries, archives and museums as ‘memory institutions’ in a

single breath, without acknowledging the ways in which these important distinctions

are actualised?

Conclusion

In order to make the convergence of collection domains appear uncomplicated and

perhaps more palatable, the term ‘memory institutions’ has been applied to classifylibraries, archives and museums together, and thereby create the semblance of

compatibility across their activities. While convenient, this choice of terminology

obscures fundamental differences in the ways in which libraries, archives and

museums acquire, record and interpret their collections. In particular, the important

sense-making function of museum narrative techniques, which have evolved as a

defining characteristic of the museum experience and offer an interpretive tier that

extends beyond the subjectivity of archival and library collection practices, are not

differentiated within the generic usage of this term.Though sometimes now seen as redundant, the particular collection manage-

ment, documentation and interpretive traditions of libraries, archives and museums

have the potential to bring forth an elaborate and nuanced environment for the

creation of historical consciousness and cultural knowledge, with each institution

imparting certain characteristics to the information presented to the end-user, and

thus engaging with concepts of knowledge and ‘memory’ to various degrees. The pre-

supposition of compatibility between museums, libraries and archives, as implied

within the ‘memory institution’ concept, is problematic because it is an over-simplification. A comparative delineation of the epistemological frameworks relative

to each field, and the ways in which these approaches package collection

information, channel linkages across collections, and structure the user experience

is a necessary precondition to genuine debate about convergence and its long-term

implications for collections of culturally significant materials.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Associate Professor Jennifer Barrett of the University ofSydney for her insightful critique of the text and invaluable editorial advice.

Museum Management and Curatorship 425

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 15: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

Notes

1. In Australia, the most widely cited example is the Albury LibraryMuseum (Albury,NSW). Others include the Western Plains Cultural Centre (Dubbo, NSW), ParramattaHeritage Centre (Sydney) and the Hurstville Library Museum Gallery (Sydney). PukeAriki, an institution in New Plymouth (New Zealand) has often been referred to inAustralia as a prototype of full convergence.

2. Other authors who have recently used the term ‘memory institution’ to refer generically tolibraries, archives and museums include Kallinikos, Aaltonen, and Marton (2010). In theirpaper titled A theory of digital objects, these authors describe digital objects � anyinformation item including text, music, video, image, etc. � as ‘borderless’ and distributed,only connecting transiently when assembled for a particular purpose (Kallinikos,Aaltonen, and Marton 2010, 4). Within this notion of the digital, as opposed to physicalcultural object, the item becomes liberated from its original setting, again supporting theidea that the institutional repository of an online cultural resource is not important indigital space.

3. Interestingly, while many of the authors cited above point to digital convergence as aresponse to user demand for more seamless cross-domain collection searches, I have notcome across any user evaluation research that specifically articulates such concerns amongusers.

4. See also Sharon Cosentino, who writes in Public Libraries journal that ‘connecting userswith information is at the very heart of the library profession’ (Cosentino 2008, 42).

5. The term ‘Folksonomy’, coined in 2004 by information architect Thomas Vander Wal,denotes the practice of online users bookmarking, labelling or ‘tagging’ content accordingto their own keywords (Cosentino 2008; Gruber 2007). This user-generated metadataprovides an alternative vocabulary to established search terms (such as those set out bylibrary cataloguing systems), where terminology may not be in tune with current languageusage or may omit contemporary subjects of interest. According to Gruber, the benefit offolksonomies lies in their potential to reveal popular themes of interest among users ofonline content (such as images, websites, audio-visual material, etc.) and patterns in theterminologies attributed to this content (Gruber 2007, 3).

6. For a detailed analysis and critique of edutainment-based programmes in libraries seeDilevko and Gottlieb (2004, Ch. 1, 2).

7. Figure obtained from the website of the OCLC (Online Computer Library Centre),located in Dublin, Ohio. The OCLC is the administrator of the Dewey system.

8. Sean Cubitt, writing on the library concept and the practices of contemporary libraries,indicates that the penultimate goal of standardised library databases is universal access, or‘global library services forming a single agglomerate’ (Cubitt 2006, 582), now technicallyconceivable via the possibility of integrated digital networks. It is interesting to note thatthis vision, apparently emanating from the library domain, has become a driver for digitalconvergence of libraries with archives and museums as well.

9. It is important to acknowledge here that institutional archives work within a legislativeframework in which certain collections must be preserved for a minimum period, andwhere records are seen as a potential source of evidence of the operations of anorganisation. In this context, the administrative role of institutional archives differs fromthat of collecting archives, which primarily focus on the accumulation of originaldocumentary material for posterity (although many archives serve as an amalgamationof both).

10. Another indication that the extrapolation of meaning is not seen as one of the roles ofarchivists is presented in the content of the Archives of Australia website (2010), which,for example, does not cite interpretation of collections among the six core areas oftheoretical and applied knowledge necessary for archival practice.

11. Cook (2009) highlights the absurdity of the notion of the objective, neutral archive byciting the statistic that only about 1�5 per cent of the available documentation from majorinstitutions (and far less from private citizens) is actually preserved (504). This fact in itselfis evidence that records pass through a rigorous process of selection and appraisal toqualify for archival preservation � and these decisions fall to archivists. Furthermore, healso notes that the systematised arrangement of archive records according to their

426 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 16: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

institutional origin/creator produces a simulation of order that may not have existed inoperational reality (528). Marlene Manoff explores similar territory in her account ofJacques Derrida’s Archive Fever (1995), noting that processes of ‘archivization’ activelyshape the historical record, rather than merely preserving an account of it (Manoff2004, 12).

12. Writing about the function of museum objects as signs, Edwina Taborsky (1990) reinforcesthe idea that the construction of historical consciousness in museums is not a passive one-way process; audiences bring their own interpretive action to the equation, creating adialogue where objects function as the locus of the meaning-exchange between museumsand their visitors.

13. See, for example, the various methodologies for artefact study outlined in ThomasSchlereth’s Material Culture Studies in America (1982) and Susan Pearce’s InterpretingObjects and Collections (1994).

14. Ray Lester, writing in 2001 on the possibility of convergence between museums andlibraries, makes a similar differentiation between the way in which the two institutionaltypes treat their collections. He writes: ‘A key distinction between museums and librarieshas been that, generally, museums have seen their role as providing such context � or‘‘interpretation’’ � ahead of the event; libraries have for the most part been concerned notto make such value judgements’ (Lester 2001, 187). He believes that museums see theiressential role as interpreters of collections, whereas librarians do not � even though theirpractices do contextualise their collections to a certain extent, as discussed earlier inthis paper.

Notes on contributor

Helena Robinson is a practicing curator and researcher with interests spanning art and socialhistory collections, as well as the history and theory of museums. She has previously publishedresearch examining multidisciplinary approaches to the documentation of museum objectsand the development of digital collection databases. She is currently a PhD candidate with theDepartment of Museum Studies at the University of Sydney.

References

Bal, M. 2004. Telling objects: A narrative perspective on collecting. In Grasping the world: Theidea of the museum, ed. D. Preziosi and C. Farago, 84�102. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.

Bettington, J., K. Eberhard, R. Loo, and C. Smith, eds. 2008. Keeping archives. 3rd ed.Canberra: Australian Society of Archivists.

Boaden, S. and C. Clement. 2009. Beyond co-location to convergence: Designing andmanaging new model public library spaces and services to reflect trends in convergence andintegration. In IFLA preconference satellite: Libraries as space and place, August 9�21, inTurin.

Carr, D. 2006. Mind as verb. In Museum philosophy for the twenty-first century, ed.H.H. Genoways, 11�18. Oxford: AltaMira Press.

Cathro, W. 2001. Smashing the silos: Towards convergence in information management andresource discovery. Paper read at Information Orienteering Conference, April 5, atCanberra, Australia.

Chung, J., S. Wilkening, and S. Johnstone. 2008. Museums & society 2034: Trends and potentialfutures. Center for the Future of Museums. http://www.futureofmuseums.org/reading/publications/upload/MuseumsSociety2034.pdf

Cook, T. 2009. The archive(s) is a foreign country: Historians, archivists, and the changingarchival landscape. The Canadian Historical Review 90, no. 3: 497�534.

Cosentino, S.L. 2008. Folksonomies: Path to a better way? Public Libraries 47, no. 2: 42�7.Crane, S., ed. 2000. Museums and memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Crane, S.A. 2006. The conundrum of ephemerality: Time, memory, and museums. In

A companion to museum studies, ed. S. Macdonald, 98�109. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Cubitt, S. 2006. Library. Theory, Culture & Society 23, nos. 2�3: 581�90.

Museum Management and Curatorship 427

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 17: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

De Laurentis, C. 2006. Digital knowledge exploitation: ICT, memory institutions andinnovation from cultural assets. Journal of Technology Transfer 31: 77�9.

Dempsey, L. 2000. Scientific, industrial, and cultural heritage: A shared approach: A researchframework for digital libraries, museums and archives. Ariadne 22, no. 22. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue22/dempsey/

Dilevko, J., and L. Gottlieb. 2004. The evolution of museum and library partnerships:Historical antecedents, contemporary manifestations, and future directions. In The librariesunlimited library management collection, ed. G. McCabe. Westport, Connecticut, London:Libraries Unlimited.

Doucet, M. 2007. Library and archives Canada: A case study of a national library, archivesand museum merger. RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage 8,no. 1: 61�6.

Dupont, C. 2007. Libraries, archives, and museums in the twenty-first century: Intersectingmissions, converging futures? RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and CulturalHeritage 8, no. 1: 13�9.

Enser, P. 2001. On continuity, culture, competition � cooperation and convergence, too. NewLibrary World 102, no. 11/12: 423�9.

Featherstone, M. 2006. Archive. Theory, Culture & Society 23, nos. 2�3: 591�6.Findlen, P. 2004. The museum: Its classical etymology and renaissance genealogy. In Grasping

the world: The idea of the museum, ed. D. Preziosi and C. Farago, 159�91. Aldershot:Ashgate Publishing.

Given, L.M., and L. McTavish. 2010. What’s old is new again: The reconvergence of libraries,archives, and museums in the digital age. The Library Quarterly 80, no. 1: 7�32.

Gomez, M. 2010. Changing definitions and roles of museums and libraries. In UpNext: Thefuture of museums and libraries. IMLS. http://imlsupnext.wikispaces.com/Theme+1-+Changing+Definitions+and+Roles+of+Museums+and+Libraries

Gruber, T. 2007. Ontology of folksonomy: A mash-up of apples and oranges. InternationalJournal on Semantic Web & Information Systems 3, no. 1: 1�11.

Hedstrom, M. and J.L. King. 2004. On the LAM: Library, archive, and museum collections inthe creation and maintenance of knowledge communities. In Mapping innovation: Six depthstudies. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/63/32126054.pdf

Hetherington, K. 2006. Museum. Theory, Culture & Society 23, nos. 2�3: 597�603.Hjorland, B. 2000. Documents, memory institutions and information science. Journal of

Documentation 56, no. 1: 27�41.Kallinikos, J., A. Aaltonen, and A. Marton. 2010. A theory of digital objects. First Monday 15,

no. 6.Kavanagh, G. 1996. Making histories, making memories. In Making histories in museums,

1�14. London & New York: Leicester University Press.Lawrence, G. 1990. Object lessons in the museum medium. In Objects of knowledge, ed.

S.M. Pearce, 103�24. London: The Athlone Press.Lester, R. 2001. The convergence of museums and libraries? Alexandria 13, no. 3: 183�91.Macnaught, B. 2008. Podcast of seminar given at Powerful Places conference [Podcast].

Museums & Galleries NSW 2008. http://mgnsw.org.au/data/podcasts/277/2_Bill_Macnaught.mp3

Manoff, M. 2004. Theories of the archive from across the disciplines. Libraries and theAcademy 4, no. 1: 9�25.

Martin, R.S. 2004. Libraries and librarians in the 21st century: Fostering a learning society.C&RL News (December), 668�71.

Martin, R.S. 2007. Intersecting missions, converging practice. RBM: A Journal of Rare Books,Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage 8, no. 1: 80�8.

Miller, P. 2000. A little bit of joined-up thinking: Some issues of convergence in our memoryinstitutions. In European libraries automation group. Paris: European Libraries AutomationGroup (ELAG).

Olson, H.A. 2001. The power to name: Representation in library catalogs. Signs 26, no. 3:639�68.

Pearce, S.M., ed. 1994. Interpreting objects and collections. London: Routledge.

428 H. Robinson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14

Page 18: Remembering things differently: museums, libraries and archives as memory institutions and the implications for convergence

Schlereth, T., ed. 1982. Material culture studies in America. Nashville: AASLH.Taborsky, E. 1990. The discursive object. In Objects of knowledge, ed. S.M. Pearce, 50�77.

London: The Athlone Press.Tanackovic, S.F., and B. Badurina. 2009. Collaboration of Croatian cultural heritage

institutions: Experiences for museums. Museum Management and Curatorship 24, no. 4:299�321.

Tibbo, H.R. and C.A. Lee. 2010. Convergence through capabilities: Digital curation educationfor libraries, archives and museums. In Archiving 2010: Preservation strategies and imagingtechnologies for cultural heritage institutions and memory organizations. Den Haag, theNetherlands: Society for Imaging Science and Technology.

Trant, J. 2009. Emerging convergence? Thoughts on museums, archives, libraries, andprofessional training. Museum Management and Curatorship 24, no. 4: 369�87.

van Mensch, P. 1990. Methodological museology; or, towards a theory of museum practice. InObjects of knowledge, ed. S.M. Pearce, 141�57. London: The Athlone Press.

Museum Management and Curatorship 429

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 0

6:50

01

Sept

embe

r 20

14