The Evolution of Museums

The Evolution of Museums

Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust (@NickPoole1)

2

3

My office is here….

4

And I visit a lot of these…

The Collections Trust is the international professional association for Collections Management

Working with and on behalf of our community, we promote excellence, innovation and engagement through the management & use of collections.

The Collections Trust believes that working with you is the best way to test our ideas, to question them and to help shape the next generation of practice.

Our teaching is designed to:

•Inspire you to see Collections Management as the enabler of anything you want to achieve in the museum

•Give you the practical skills you will need in the workplace

•Encourage you to become an activist, or to keep going if you already are!

Welcome!

The biggest challenges facing society will only be addressed through collective action.

It is not enough for museums to be good, we must also do good, we have to make a difference by inspiring and supporting our communities in civic action, encouraging them to understand the need for interpersonal responsibility.

The biggest single challenge facing museums worldwide isn’t funding, it’s relevance

The Cultural Imperative

“There are 4 things worth doing with your life. Fix society. Fix

health. Fix the economy. Fix the planet. Which one are you?”

Jon Voss, We Are What We Dohttp://www.wearewhatwedo.org

http://www.wearewhatwedo.org/

The best European document you’ve never heard of

Every EU Member State (including the UK) agrees to:

•Recognise that rights relating to cultural heritage are inherent in the right to participate in cultural life, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

•Recognise individual and collective responsibility towards cultural heritage;

•Emphasise that the conservation of cultural heritage and its sustainable use have human development and quality of life as their goal;

•Promote the role of cultural heritage in the construction of a peaceful and democratic society, and in the processes of sustainable development and the promotion of cultural diversity

The FARO Convention

Commons are resources that are held in common by a community

Commons cannot be commodified or ‘enclosed’

The ownership of the commons is inclusive – the Commons grows through sharing

Commons must be preserved regardless of their return of capital – all members of the community have a shared responsibility to pass on the Commons to each generation ‘in equal or greater quality and abundance than we received them’.

Commons is not anti-commerce, it is anti-enclosure. It actively promotes commercial business models where these are based on the addition of value, not the prevention of use.

The Cultural Commons

It is time to re-write the terms of the contract between museums and society

The crisis in museum funding in the UK (and elsewhere) is not about the value of museums, it is a crisis in the advocacy of the public subsidy of museum services.

The question is not ‘are museums a good and important thing?’, but ‘given that we have museums, what value does public subsidy add that the free market cannot provide?’

The free market does not promote universal equality of provision or equality of access. We have to remind society both of the universal right to cultural engagement and the collective responsibility to preserve culture as a Commons.

Why a Cultural Commons?

A Commons community (like Wikipedia) is a self-organising economy based on the addition of value.

The Commons is not antithetical to the idea of authority, but it is a system for assigning status based on authority, rather than authority based on status.

The real threat of the Cultural Commons is not therefore that museums will not be the holders of expertise, but that they will have to earn their position as authorities.

After this paradigm shift, we will wonder why we ever worried. Before it, it looks like an existential threat to the foundation of the industry.

Authority & the Commons

The management and sharing of our material, digital and immaterial heritage as a Commons is the mission of our global community.

This mission is naturally inclusive – bringing the museum and its publics together under a common opportunity and a common obligation.

Many of the debates in our sector, of technology, collecting, interpretation, copyright, reproduction and representation, social justice, social media, participation and engagement flow naturally from the principle of the Commons.

“We could have a ceremony, each year, where the museum symbolically hands on to the next generation the Cultural Commons in our care. We can be proud of having handed it on, and in doing so, we can celebrate both the right to culture and the responsibility we share to protect it.”

National Museum Director(!)

A global museum opportunity

“Think big, start small, move fast. But move”

Mike Edson, Director of Web and New Media, Smithsonian Institution

The Participatory Museum takes the idea of the Cultural Commons and turns it into practice, in the process, unifying our existing skills in learning, technology, collections and interpretation.

This is about turning the museum from a broadcast to a conversation.

“How can cultural institutions reconnect with the public and demonstrate their value and relevance in contemporary life? I believe they can do this by inviting people to actively engage as cultural participants, not passive consumers.

People expect the ability to respond and be taken seriously. They expect the ability to discuss, share, and remix what they consume. When people can actively participate with cultural institutions, those places become central to cultural and community life.”

http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute

http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute

Museums are changing from the outside in, from becoming more open and participatory at their periphery to changing their core identity, values and behaviours.

It is only by changing the whole organism that the change will become permanent.

This means changing the Mission, changing the procedures, changing the systems and changing the skills we use to do the job.

Our challenge is to re-tune every part of the museum so that participation isn’t just skin-deep, bringing the past 30 years of modernisation, professionalisation and documentation into the next 30 years of openness, participation, engagement and relevance.

Making the change permanent

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198 ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

STRATEGIC PLANNING

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL

COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT

MINIMUMSTANDARDS

COLLECTIONS CARE

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198 ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

STRATEGIC PLANNING

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL

COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT

MINIMUMSTANDARDS

COLLECTIONS CARE

The edifice of professional standards is still essential, but instead of acting as the shield for our professional authority, they, too must adapt proactively to promote engagement, participation and the free, sustainable and incremental exchange of knowledge and ideas

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198

ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY (7,600)

COMPLIANCE(23,000)

GUIDANCEPDF/XML/PRINT+ SCHEMA

NEW IDEAS

A ‘Code of Practice for Cultural Collections Management’ produced by the BSI, sponsored by the Collections Trust

Defining Collections Management as the connection between mission and delivery in museums, archives and libraries

Promoting a common understanding of management processes across domains

Defining the terms we use everyday

Promoting a culture of ongoing review and improvement

The defining document of ‘Strategic Collections Management’

BSI PAS 197

‘Strategic Collections Management’

Users Funders Politicians



Organisational Mission




Collecting Policy




Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare




Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare

InformationProceduresSystemsPeople




Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare


Evaluation & improvement




Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare



Open, participatory, seamlessly physical, digital, intellectual and emotional experiences for our users

The demand for participation…

Digital is dead, long live ‘engaged’

http://www.digitalengagementframework.com/ from MuseumNext!

http://www.digitalengagementframework.com/

There is a ‘golden thread’ that connects the cataloguing work we did in the 1970’s with the future of a digitally engaged, socially-active and responsive museum.

The reason why we are able to open up our knowledge is because of the structures that were established in the 1970’s and 1980’s

Nothing about what is happening now is revolutionary – it represents a linear evolution of the museum from the Victorian era to the Connected Age

Documentation to Engagement




Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare






Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare





Our strategic DNA….

Some museum Missions…

The Museum works to illustrate for everyone the importance of the sea, ships, time and the stars and their relationship with people

The Museum's responsibilities are to safeguard and enhance the value of its pre-eminent assets: its collections, its expertise, its buildings. The Museum's objectives are to spread the benefits of these assets by:

•Maximizing access and inspiration for all users•Satisfying stakeholders, locally, nationally and internationally•Effective organization and sound financial management

The Museum works to illustrate for everyone the importance of the sea, ships, time and the stars and their relationship with people

The Museum's responsibilities are to safeguard and enhance the value of its pre-eminent assets: its collections, its expertise, its buildings. The Museum's objectives are to spread the benefits of these assets by:

•Maximizing access and inspiration for all users•Satisfying stakeholders, locally, nationally and internationally•Effective organization and sound financial management

Royal Museums Greenwich, National Maritime Museum

The Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge.

The Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge.

Smithsonian Institution, Washington

To be the best museum in the world for inspiring people to learn about, engage with and create media.

To be the best museum in the world for inspiring people to learn about, engage with and create media.

National Media Museum, Bradford

The greatest collection representative of human cultural achievement, ancient and modern, in the world.

A space ‘not only for the ‘learned and curious’ but also ‘for the benefit of the general public’ – a centre of research and inquiry at all levels.

A collection preserved and held for the benefit of all the world, present and future, free of charge.

A forum for the expression of many different cultural perspectives.

A place to increase understanding of the cultural connections and influences linking Britain and the world.

A place where the UK’s diverse population can explore its common inheritances.

The greatest collection representative of human cultural achievement, ancient and modern, in the world.

A space ‘not only for the ‘learned and curious’ but also ‘for the benefit of the general public’ – a centre of research and inquiry at all levels.

A collection preserved and held for the benefit of all the world, present and future, free of charge.

A forum for the expression of many different cultural perspectives.

A place to increase understanding of the cultural connections and influences linking Britain and the world.

A place where the UK’s diverse population can explore its common inheritances.

The British Museum

A museum’s Mission Statement defines, in a subtle but absolutely pervasive way, the culture and priorities of the organisation.

Most people spend their working lives in museums largely ignorant of the mission but absolutely steeped in the culture that it generates.

A socially-activist Mission produces a socially-engaged museum – see World Museums Liverpool, Brooklyn Museum or the Museum of East Anglian Life.

A self-serving Mission produces a self-serving museum.

The days of the self-serving museum are over.

The Museum Mission

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

focusPractice-based

expertise

Specialist academic

knowledge

Subject knowledge

transfer

SOFT SKILLS Mentoring, facilitation, negotiation, communication, networking




Collecting Policy

UseDevelopLearnCare




Collections Management is political.

It can promote and protect inertia – enabling the museum to remain morally silent by appealing to the objectivity of rules, procedures and data structures.

Or, it can power and embed change, enabling us to make good on the promise of our socially-activist, participatory museum (and making the change permanent and incremental).

Collections Management is ultimately a set of tools. You can decide whether you use them to build a temple or an agora.

The new Collections Management

Over to you…

You are the new Head of Collections at an accredited museum of your choice.

You are tasked with creating and implementing a new collections development policy which responds to your organisational vision and mission, serves the needs of your users, and complements your museum’s other collections management policies.

Congratulations!

Your collection is a typical local authority collection, reflecting the social history, archaeology and natural history of the area.

It also includes a decorative and fine art collection, which has a wider geographical and thematic focus. The objects listed in your Leicester Arts and Museum Loan are broadly representative of your museum’s collection.

Your Collection

1. Describe your museum, its vision and mission, its users, its staff and its organisational structure.

(Handy hint: think of museums you admire, look at their vision and mission, think how this translates into what you want to do and the skills you’ll need to do it)

Group exercise

2. Using PAS 197:

• Define and illustrate your museum’s collections development framework

• Scope your new collections development policy, defining its structure and content.

Group exercise

3. Plan the implementation of your policy. You are going to ensure that it is a) endorsed by your senior management team and b) adopted by all museum staff.

Group exercise

4. Be prepared to discuss your museum’s collections development framework and your approach to your collections development policy at the final Collections Trust session on the afternoon of Friday 14th December.

Group exercise

Thinking out loud since 2008….

Like a self-help group for Collections Management geeks…

Looking forward to speaking again via Skype on the 10th December!

Nick PooleChief Executive, Collections Trust

[email protected]

http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole

twitter @NickPoole1

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole

Documents

The Evolution of Museums