Collections for people: museums' stored collections as a public resource

Collections in UK museums grew enormously in the latter half of the 20th century yet museum collections, mostly maintained at public expense, are perceived as an underused resource. The Museums Association’s 2005 report, Collections for the Future1, together with press comments and books such as Treasures on Earth (2002)2 and Fragments of the World (2005)3, brought this issue into sharp focus. Collections for People set out to understand the scale of museum stored collections, and the main parameters of their access and use: • What is the size and nature of collections as a resource? How are they distributed, geographically and among different types of museum? • How much are different types of collection used by people other than museum staff? What sort of people use collections? What do they use them for: research, teaching and learning, creative activities, visits for enjoyment such as store tours? • How do users perceive this service? Do museums actively market collections access? Do they publicise what is in their collections? • How do museums facilitate collections use? What are the factors associated with greater use of collections? What do museums see as the barriers to more use

The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections

The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology first opened its doors in 1915, and since then has attracted visitors from all over the world as well as providing valuable teaching resources. Named after its founder, the pioneering archaeologist Flinders Petrie, the Museum holds more than 80,000 objects and is one of the largest and finest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in the world. Richly illustrated and engagingly written, the book moves back and forth between recent history and the ancient past, between objects and people. Experts discuss the discovery, history and care of key objects in the collections such as the Koptos lions and Roman era panel portraits. The rich and varied history of the Petrie Museum is revealed by the secrets that sit on its shelves

Designing interoperable museum information systems

Museum collections are characterized by heterogeneity, since they usually host a plethora of objects of categories, while each of them requires different description policies and metadata standards. Moreover the museum records, which keep the history and evolution of the hosted collections, request proactive curation in order to preserve this rich and diverse information. In this paper, the architecture of an innovative museum information system, as well as its implementation details is presented. In particular the requirements and the system architecture are presented along with the problems that were encountered. The main directions of the system design are (a) to increase interoperability levels and therefore assist proactive curation and (b) to enhance navigation by the usage of handheld devices. The first direction is satisfied by the design of a rich metadata schema based on the CIDOC/CRM standard. The second direction is fulfilled by the implementation of a module, which integrates the museum database with a subsystem appropriate to support user navigation into the museum floors and rooms. The module is expressed as a navigation functionality, which is accessed through handheld devices and peripherals, such as PDAs and RFID tags. The proposed system is functional and operates into the Solomos Museum, situated in Zakynthos island, Greece

The Development of a Methodology to Understand Climate-induced Damage in Decorated Oak Wood Panels

Climate-induced damage in decorated oak wood panels is considered to be a high risk for pre-eminent museum collections. To advise museums on the development of sustainable future preservation strategies and rational guidelines for indoor climate specifications, the risk of this type of damage – physical and mechanical is analysed in full depth in this research. A comprehensive methodology is required that meets the requests of the conservation community and also helps to bridge the gap between scientists and conservators. Therefore, this research couples an extensive examination of empirical data obtained from naturally aged museum objects, i.e. a collection analysis, with numerical modelling and experimental testing. A multidisciplinary collaboration has been initiated, whereby conservators and scientists are working together to fulfil the common objectives of sustainable and low-risk preservation of valuable museum collections. In this paper, the methodology is outlined and some results are presented

Our Endangered Heritage Exhibition General Guidelines

OklahomaThe inspiration for the traveling exhibit came about after seeing the Illinois traveling exhibit. Oklahoma modified its panels to appeal to a public audience, as one of its goals is to engage the public in supporting collections care.Traveling Exhibit, Our Endangered HeritageInstitute of Museum and Library Service

News from Academy Bay

Plant nursery at CDRS. Tortoises from Cerro Paloma, Isabela Threatened. Goats damage Volcán Alcedo, Isabela. Collections at the CDRS Museum. Goats on Pinta again? Is there a Guadalupe River in Galápagos? Eastern kingbird sighting. Words out of the past

"To design for the future you must leaf through the past": Museums as part of systems of innovation

Museums are not conventionally associated with innovation or viewed as part of innovation systems. After all, we could argue, museums are about the past, heritage, and nostalgia, whereas innovation is about the future. Yet, if this is the case, why does a company such as BMW co-locate its archive, museum, and innovation center? In this preliminary essay on the combination of past and present knowledge in innovation, we revisit the academic literature on innovation systems. We explore how, historically, museums and their collections have contributed to innovation and to the development of innovative designs. We ask: How have organizations set up to preserve the past contributed to the future, and what has encouraged and inhibited these processes? We focus primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century experience in the United Kingdom and on the relationships among the arts, design, and industry on the one hand and museum collections on the other

Zoo Store 1 at the Natural History Museum: Meeting National Standards

The Natural History Museum (NHM), London is at the forefront of natural history science, and a major player in developing standards for the care of these collections in museums. Around ten years ago, there was a great deal of activity developing policies and standards for the care of the different museum collections. Despite this, the feeling in the museum is that the management of the collections was neglected for some years. Since the Museum Registrar was appointed in 2004, the Museum hosted the International SPNHC Conference and has been working on implementing these policies. This paper examines how the NHM’s collections storage compares to the standards and policies to which the museum aspires. Zoo Store 1, one of the NHM’s oldest storerooms, is used as a case study. The investigation found that the store falls short of the aspired standards in documentation, security, storage and environmental conditions, but significant progress has been made in the last two years. Reasons range from historical problems inherited from previous generations of museum workers, the attitudes of personnel, and the sheer time that it takes to implement a series of standards across very large collections and numbers of staff

A Key and Annotated List of the Scutelleroidea of Michigan (Hemiptera)

Excerpt: Although Hussey (1922) compiled a list of the Hemiptera of Berrien County, and Stoner (1922) contributed a list of the Scutelleroidea of the Douglas Lake region, no publications have dealt with Michigan Scutelleroidea on a state-wide basis. However, collections in the Entomology Museum of Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing, and in the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan (UMMZ), Ann Arbor, indicate that collecting has been extensive throughout the state (Fig. 1). The key and annotated list are based on material I identified in these two collection

The public domain vs. the museum: the limits of copyright and reproductions of two-dimensional works of art

The problem of museums and public institutions handling reproductions of works in their collections is not only a legal question but also one of museum ethics. Public museums are committed to spreading knowledge and to making their collections accessible. When it comes to images of their holdings, however, they often follow a restrictive policy. Even for works in the public domain they claim copyright for their reproductive photographs. This paper offers an analysis of the different interests at stake, a short survey of important cases, and practical recommendations