Uses of museum collections: online resources
Policies and context
- UK - Museums, libraries and archives council
- UK - Ministry for culture, media & sport - museums and galleries
- Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture & Science General policy papers
- Netherlands
- Minister for Culture, "Culture as confrontation" Principles
on cultural policy in 2001 - 2004
- Denmark - 2001 museums act Sets out the conditions for care of and access to collections for publicly funded museums
- Denmark - ministry of culture publications
- Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority
- Safeguarding our national collections
- Australian national museums - audit of collections stewardship, 1998
- Museum Collections on the Move
- - conference held as part of the Netherlands presidency of the European Union, 2004
- MUSEUM-L Archives
- - November 2004, week 5, discussion of how to justify collections
Top
The values of collections
- ICOM's useful links to sources of museum statistics
- Australian museums: Significance Assessment
- Method devised after wide consultation by the Australian Heritage Council, to be applied to objects in museum and other cultural collections so as to understand their significance at a number of levels. Also training course from AMOL.
- Canadian Heritage: policy publications
- Including characteristics, impacts and benefits of heritage institutions in Canada; economic benefits case studies
- Economic benefits: The Canadian Museum of Civilization: A case study
- National Museum Directors' Conference (UK)
- Their own study, Valuing Museums: Impact and Innovation among National Museums, plus a guide to other similar UK studies
- Demos: Valuing Culture conference
- Influential conference held by the New Labour thinktank, attended by past and present ministers for culture and top consultants, as well as a few museum trusties. 2003.
- Capturing cultural value: how culture has become a tool of government. Demos, 2004.
- (When was it not?) Booklet from John Holden, member of Demos, the UK Labour government's cozy thinktank
- Canadian
Cultural Network Colloquium, 2003
- Culturescope: the Canadian cultural observatory
- Values and heritage conservation: research report
- Erica Avrami, Randall Mason, Marta de la Torre, eds.. Getty Conservation Institute, 2000. Much cited report on cultural values, economic and other. Authors include well known names such as Lowenthal, Throsby
Museums & collections
Countries and their museums
- World Bank Group - Data and Statistics
- Richer countries, more museums?
- National Statistics Online
- London - a great cosmopolitan city - we are proud that 45% of minority ethnic people in the UK live in our captial city, where they comprise 29% of all residents.
- Barcelona - a museum of a great European city
- Aegis Trust - Confronting Genocide
- This trust funded the construction of the Kigali Memorial Centre, a site of burial for around 250,000 victims of the Rwandan genocide
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- Welcome to Manega Museum of Bendrologie
- - A thriving private museum in Africa
- Royal Museum for Central Africa
- in Brussels, a legacy of Belgian colonialism in Central Africa and the Congo. The museum ethnography displays are as if frozen in time - but are being redesigned. The museum has a large research institute working with people in Africa, too.
- Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre and Saskatchewan First Nations Virtual Keeping House
- The Cultural Centre serves local people. Through the Keeping House, Aboriginal people and those interested in Indian culture in Saskatchewan can view the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre's permanent Aboriginal art collection and also its collection of artifacts.
- The Museum of Communism - in Prague - revisiting history?
- The Norwegian Canning Museum
- a wonderful museum celebrating a major local industry in Stavanger
- China - Guanxi Museum and Guanxi Ethnic Relics Centre
- Japan - Nara National Museum; and the Shoso-in repository
- The wonderful Shoso-in has safely stored ancient treasures for over twelve hundred years
Ecomuseums
- An introduction to the Danish Lake District Ecomuseum
- International Museum Day 2001 - all about ecomuseums and the movement
Collections
- Designated Collections in UK museums
- 50 collections outside national museums have been designated as nationally important. There are special grant streams for which they can bid.
- Captain Cook
- I wondered, where are the objects that Captain Cook collected during his voyages of exploration? The answer is, all over the place. Some major holdings: the British Library (lovely online exhibit); the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; the British Museum; the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge; the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow; the small local museum in Staithes, Yorkshire, near Cook's birthplace; and, I simply have to mention, the cottage in which Cook was born, transported and re-erected in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne
- The UK National Archives storage proposal
- Off to the salt mines! - is this the future for collections? The National Maritime Museum is also considering this as a site for collections storage
Uses: research
Combined lists or catalogues
- AHDS (Arts & Humanities Data Service) Visual Arts
- Online Register of Scientific Instruments (ISIN)
- Cornucopia - listing of collections in UK museums, but very incomplete
- National Biological Information Infrastructure: museums and collections, global
- AMOL - Australian Museums OnLine, Open Collections
- Artefacts Canada
- The National Inventory of European Paintings 1200-1900, UK
- A
Complete Catalogue of Johannes Vermeer's Paintings A private enterprise
catalogue. What about image copyright!
- The Rollin Vermeer "A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals"
- Subject of a long research project to establish whether Vermeer was the artist
Collections as research resources
- UMAC - University Museums and Collections
- COM UMAC conference
2001
- ICOM UMAC conference 2002
- ICOM UMAC conference 2002
- Pitt Rivers Museum - Research
- Pitt Rivers Museum - Notes for Visiting Researchers
- Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford
- The Surrey
Institute of Art & Design, University College - Craft Study Centre
- Goldstein Museum ~ Collections
- Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior
- Blackwell Museum, Illinois: History of Education Collection
- Peabody Museum-LEWIS AND CLARK
- A research project to understand the collections from the famous expedition
- Oregon Historical Society
- Collections, a library and archive and photgraphic collections, with helpful guides to research
- Making room for the past
- Research project at Deakin University, Melbourne, researching the implications of the growing archaeological collections in the State of Victoria
- Virtual Museum of Canada - Community Memories
- Exhibits from museums across Canada, but searchable to find individual items or images
Ongoing learning
- Universeum /The Universeum Project/
- This is a rather wonderful project developed by a group of European universities, to showcase and celebrate their collections and museums
- Fathom :: The Source for Online Learning
- Fathom was set up by Columbia University and various major museums and libraries, as an investment for income from adult education. Little income, so some of the content continues to be available - and very good, too
- AllLearn: Online
Course on The History of Nature: Darwin
- Courses in Museums and Collections
- At the National Museum of Australia, Canberra
- Smithsonian Resident Associate Program
- performances, films, study tours, courses, children's workshops, studio arts classes, seminars, celebrity interviews, slide-illustrated lectures & more!
- The Clemson University
Arthropod Collection
- The Museum of English Rural Life, Reading University
- Inspiring Learning for All
- Report published by the UK Museums, libraries & archives council, on what works in museum education, and how it can be measured, through Generic Learning Outcomes
- V&A - British Galleries
- A website to be used to understand and learn about the styles that characterise each period
- Adult education at The Natural History Museum, London
Memory and identity
- Indigenous Australia - on the Australian Museum website
- Museums in China: from Chinese Culture Online: news of a Cultural Revolution museum
- The Imperial War Museum's collections online
- Cultural traditions in Rwanda
- AMOL - Australian Museums OnLine
- guide to cultural policies and strategies
Indigenous knowledge and culture centres
- Museum Development Officer Network
- Museums out and about in Queensland, Australia
- Beamish
- This open air museum in County Durham has collections of life in rural England that are of national importance
Collections for enjoyment
Stores tours - visitable storage
- London's Transport Museum
- The Depot - their visitable off-site storage centre, open regularly
- The Science Museum's programme of stores tours
- The 2004-5 programme is finished, but was featured quite extensively in the press, for example The Guardian "Searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant? Curious about the location of the Holy Grail?"
- The National Railway Museum
- The warehouse is the museum's visitable store
- The National Music Museum
- "The national shrine to music - on the campus of the University of North Dakota" - how to enjoy a music collection, virtually and actually
- Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia
- 35,000 ethnographic objects in open storage
- Museum of London
- Repacking and re-storing the Ceramics & glass collection so that it can be visited, researched and enjoyed
Engaging with collections
- Glasgow Museums' Open Storage project report - A Catalyst for Change
- Greater Pollock Kist Museum - part of the project
- National Museums Liverpool - the Treasure House Theatre project
- National Museum of Ireland
- The decorative arts collection exhibited and in visitable storage at Collins Barracks
Creativity
Books and poetry
'Fragments' includes four poems. Where can you find more by these poets?
James Fenton, The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Published in:
Children in Exile. Various publishers, 1984-1994.
Amazon UK
Saadi Youssef (Trns: Khaled Mattawa), Poetry. Published in:
Without an alphabet, without a face: Selected poems of Saadi Youssef.
Greywolf Press, 2003. Amazon
UK
Trns: Howell D. Chickering, Jr.Beowulf . Published in: Beowulf:
parallel text. Doubleday, 1975 (and other editions). This translation
is highly recommended: "you will be drawn into a world incomparably
remote from our own and yet as compelling as any contemporary work of
fiction, poetry, or film" says a reviewer. Compare translations for
yourself in Syd Allan's
website. Amazon
UK / Amazon
USA
Movies
- Internet Movie Database
- Search for 'museum' in the synopsis and see what turns up ...
- such as Popeye and Olive Oyle's museum visit, unexpectedly interactive
- Peter Greenaway: Darwin
- Peter Greenaway's film about Darwin, designed around museum metaphors
Architecture for collections storage
- The architecture of the Natural History Museum
- The original Waterhouse building, inspired by things from nature, and the new Darwin Centre, for the collections
- The Museum of Civilization, Ottawa
- "Written in the stone" - online tour of the architecture and design, including that of the curatorial / collections building - starting with the design brief
- Another building designed by Douglas Cardinal
- University of Alaska Museum of the North - watch the construction
- The National Museum of the American Indian
- The Resource Centre, for the museum collections, was designed by a team including many native Americans and also Douglas Cardinal, architect of the Museum of Civilization. Article by the first Director of the NMAI.
- The Downland Gridshell building
- Built of green oak struts, connected as a lattice that allows the wood to move, the curving Gridshell building houses the collections, the conservation, and is a base for the educational activities of the Weald & Downland Museum in Sussex.
- The Oxfordshire Collections Resource Centre, Standlake
Patenting inventions
- The Rothschild Peterson Patent Model Museum
- Objects as records of creativity and invention - this museum houses many of the objects lodged in USA patent applications.
Digitisation
- MINERVA: Listing of inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingualism issues
- Canadian Museum of Civilization: virtual store
- I always love this virtual store - complete with cute racks - enjoy while it's still there
- The Australian Museum collections
- Or how about an elegant polished mahogany cabinet with slide-out drawers?
- The Australian Museum fish collection
- Unbeatable - and beautiful - a fabulously comprehensive collection website, complete with collaborative features and a list of publications by outside researchers based on the collections.
Virtual communities and communication
- Creating museum based virtual communities
- Museums could do a better job of fostering online community. Papers from an Internet Society conference,8. Regulation, policy, and governance, i-Net Japan, July 2000.
- Sino-net: for the Chinese Canadian community
- Members of a diaspora can keep in touch through community websites like this one.
- Canada's Digital Collections
- Using public resources such as images and information from Canadian museums, the digital collections were created by Canadian youth, as part of the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy.
- A Chinese Canadian Story: The Yip Sang Family
- This digital collection was produced under contract to Canada's Digital Collections program, Industry Canada.
- HistoryQuest.US
- The goal of HistoryQuest.US is to bring students together virtually in cooperative and community-building experiences that foster a deeper understanding of the true issues at the heart of history and contemporary culture. It aims to use close-up access to important historical and cultural objects to stimulate appreciation for history as more than just a set of dates.
- Moving Here: 200 years of migration to England: tracing your roots
- 30 local, regional and national Museums, Archives and Libraries from across England collaborated to build a website with access to their records and the ability for people to add information about their own experiences of moving to live in England.
- 24 Hour Museum: RSS newsfeeds
- A good clear explanation of RSS: Really Simple Syndication. Syndication is a technology little used by museums as yet, but it's a way to offer your stuff to others to make use of.
Museums collaborating ... in partnership
- AMOL: Australian Museums & Galleries Online
- Evolving into the Collections Australia Network, AMOL is well established, offering a huge combined collections database, advice on looking after collections, showcase 'trails', and a forum for professionals.
- Horniman Museum, London: Projects to inspire
- The Horniman Museum Education Department has been working in partnership with the arts organisation Cloth of Gold on an art, internet and literacy project inspired by objects and ideas. Artists have collaborated with African and Caribbean writers, storytellers and musicians
- The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO)
Finding stuff: classifying and searching
- Michael Lesk's Home Page
- Michael Lesk, an internet guru, argues that the web and the internet now offer such a quantity of information that it is impractical to classify it - instead, we must rely on developing ways to search and fine what we want.
- The Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco, 'Thinker' image search
- Search for whatever interests you - pictures have been tagged by volunteers with terms that make sense to them, rather than by using art historical classification. A museum example, ahead of the game, of the use of folksonomy (in contrast with taxonomy). Description (4thDimension: developers' website)
- MuseumFinland collections search - tutorial
- MuseumFinland has a facility to search across multiple databases with prompts for associated objects and so on. Although the main site is in Finnish - a bit of a challenge! - it has an excellent tutorial, which is a clear explanation of how it works. Also article in Museums and the Web conference papers.
- PictureAustralia - metadata
- Very clear description and definition of metadata, in case you wondered what this is? (And PictureAustralia's website, a great collection of images from museums, libraries and archives all across Australia)
Fragments
home
Fragments links
Papers and presentations
Links
Policy and context
Values of collections
Research
Ongoing learning
Memory + identity
Creativity
Enjoyment
Digitisation