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New Contexts for Museum Information
The white paper discusses the evolving relevance of museums, archives, and libraries in a complex cultural landscape, emphasizing the need for coherence, flexibility, and responsiveness in information management. It critiques traditional siloed approaches to knowledge management and advocates for integrated systems that enhance communication and flow of information across organizations. Key priorities include treating knowledge as an asset and ensuring that collections management aligns with organizational missions to maximize impact for users.
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New Contexts for Museum Information
- 1. New Contexts forMuseum Information 29th February 2012 Museum of London, Docklands
- 2. New White PaperNew Contexts for Museum Information published today on Collections Link to support this discussion. Please read/circulate and comment! www.collectionslink.org.uk (‘Manage Information’)
- 3. Key points • Newcontexts for museums, archives and libraries • The changing face of culture • The way we think about information • Treating knowledge as an asset • The role of trust and authority • A look ahead
- 4. Collections Trust The leadinginternational voice for Collections Management in galleries, libraries, archives and museums • Helping individuals build leadership & expertise in Collections Management • Working with organisations to define & achieve excellence • Supporting organisations to share their Collections online safely & sustainably • Helping commercial partners build profile & share knowledge and expertise with the sector
- 5. New contexts forour organisations The single most significant strategic challenge for museums, archives and libraries today is relevance – helping people to understand how what we do adds meaning, value, depth & enjoyment in a complex & connected world From relevance stems resilience, growth, profile and audience Achieving relevance demands: • Coherence and authenticity • Flexibility • Reach • Responsiveness Meeting the challenge of relevance is fundamentally a question of information
- 6. The changing faceof culture… What a cultural organisation is and does, the range of inputs it is expected to manage, and the range of uses it is expected to support have expanded dramatically in the past 10 years….
- 7. The changing faceof culture… Physical artefacts Oral history Ephemera Time-based media Born-digital art Born-digital everything Social media Ice core samples Boats Buildings ‘The Olympics’ Ugly Renaissance Babies… Culture is everywhere, and everything…
- 8. The BFI Collectingpolicy… Collecting activity is focussed on British production, as defined in appendix B. We aim to collect all British films certified for cinema exhibition . We will also collect a selection of other fiction, factual and documentary films, television programmes and other materials that exemplify the art of filmmaking (broadly defined), its history – including both use and form – and its impact on and relationship to the people of the UK. We collect film on physical media of all types, and in digital file formats that are independent of physical media. We will not exclude material by production type, medium, distribution channel or platform: television, amateur films, corporate material, material on the internet, born-digital material, DVD and computer games may all be considered. We collect objects and records related to the creative process of filmmaking and to the promotion, distribution and consumption of film in the UK. These include personal papers of key individuals in the industry, scripts, designs, stills, posters and other ephemera, especially where these relate to the moving image collections. We collect books, periodicals and other information resources that support research into the art, history and impact of film We create records and knowledge resources around the subject. The key priorities are the documentation of the collections and the creation of knowledge resources supporting the BFI’s cultural programme. These records feed into a developing UK filmography, covering British production intended for public distribution.
- 9. The changing natureof information The nature, types, formats and scope of information in galleries, libraries, archives and museums have continued to adapt to reflect the changing nature of what we do…
- 10. CONSERVATION EXHIBITION DONOR IPR RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT DATA CATALOGUE DIGITAL SURROGATE DIGITISATION LOCATION PERSONNEL LOAN USER EDUCATION GENERATED PACK CONTENT COMMUNITY WEB CONTENT RESPONSES ESTATES FINANCE PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
- 11. Many different typesof information CATALOGUE LOAN IPR DIGITAL SURROGATE DONOR COLLECTIONS INFORMATION CONSERVATION DIGITISATION EXHIBITION ENVIRONMENT LOCATION ‘MUSEOLOGICAL’ DATA INFORMATION USER GENERATED COMMUNITY RESPONSES EDUCATION PACK WEB CONTENT RESEARCH INTERPRETIVE CONTENT INFORMATION FINANCE PERSONNEL PERFORMANCE ESTATES MARKETING BUSINESS INDICATORS MATERIAL INFORMATION
- 12. The changing formsof interaction Information flow is not one-way – it emerges across multiple contexts, both internal and external. Our approach to information is expected to support multiple forms of interaction: • Management reporting • Direct online use • Aggregation and syndication in controlled contexts • Federated/3rd party reuse in uncontrolled contexts • Internal, inter-departmental use • Loans, transfers, exchanges of knowledge • Research and interpretation
- 13. The ‘vertical’ organisation Education Management Retail Collections Estates Each ‘vertical’ activity develops programmes, systems, competencies and information specific to its function
- 14. ‘Vertical’ systems Collections Web Content Digital Asset Resource Building Management Management Management Management Management System System System System System A ‘stovepipe’ model evolves which satisfies immediate needs & reflects funding priorities, but which ultimately militates against information flow
- 15. The future demandsintegration… Visitor experience Source Management material Systems People Integration is key to enabling information to flow across multiple contexts to achieve both efficiency and authenticity
- 16. Enterprise Knowledge Management Whatwe’re talking about is a move away from organisational silos and towards enterprise Knowledge Management. Knowledge management is fundamentally not about systems or processes, it’s about people. It depends on several key elements: • Promoting a culture of communication across the whole organisation • Understanding that the flow of information is a flow of value • Recognising that knowledge is incremental – it grows through use – and behaviours or systems which inhibit this growth directly obstruct our cultural purpose
- 17. Why KM failsin cultural organisations There seem to be at least 4 reasons why Knowledge Management has failed in libraries, galleries, archives and museums: • The sporadic, staccato nature of funding & development • The control of knowledge as an artefact of identity and status • Lack of management/strategic engagement • ‘It’s hard, and we can’t be bothered’ All of these inhibitors stem from a common cause – the need to articulate the benefit of knowledge, information &records management in terms which will be understood and valued by the people who can help or hinder them
- 18. Learning from BusinessIntelligence systems Business Intelligence describes systems which draw both qualitative and quantitative information from multiple sources and assemble them into simple interfaces to support: • Better management decision-making • Long-term strategic planning • Ongoing operational efficiency These systems demonstrate their own value by allowing the organisation to benefit not just from the information, but from understanding its meaning, value, impact and implication. What can your Collections Management System tell your line-manager that helps them do their job (and not just how much more money you need for cataloguing…)
- 19. Some emerging themes Someof the key themes of the new information management landscape are already emerging: • Understanding & managing knowledge & information as assets • Systems which draw information from multiple sources (ResearchSpace) • Trust, authenticity, credibility & provenance as digital currency • Integrated or modular systems which adapt to different uses • From databases to ‘workflow engines’ • Less ‘standard’ and more ‘self-assembly’
- 20. BSI Standard forCollections Management Joint Collections Trust/BSI Code of Practice for Collections Management (BSI PAS 197:2011) is a vision of strategic collections management in which physical, digital and information are managed under a common framework. • Every activity and decision about collections and information should be connected to an organisational mission that delivers value for an end-user (i.e. that collections management should always be for someone, and never regarded as an end in itself); • That every activity relating to collections and information (care, learning, development and use) ought to be regarded as integral parts of the same process, and not as separate functions; • That to be effective, knowledge and information must flow freely across all of these activities; • That to maximise its impact for the museum, Collections Management must be an ongoing process of review and improvement, rather than a set of finite states.
- 21. SPECTRUM 4.0 Connecting people, processes,systems and information into a coherent framework….
- 22. Continue the conversationat OpenCulture 2012, 26th & 27th June at the Oval, London Find out more at http://www.collectionslink.org.uk Follow us: @collectiontrust @NickPoole1 Thank you!