Webinar Review – Day-to-Day Management of Collections
Hi everyone! We have another Connecting to Collections Care webinar review for you. This webinar, Day-to-Day Management of Collections, is part of a four part series Collections Management for Smaller Institutions. This series ran from February 12 – March 5, 2019.
This webinar focuses on the daily management of collections, including their organization, registration, and cataloging. This webinar would be a great crash-course for volunteers helping in museum collections or as a refresher course. The instructor, John E. Simmons also stresses the importance of maintaining adequate collection storage environments, proper object enclosures and supports, and provides some tips for inventories and housekeeping.
Simmons begins the webinar by discussing how to get started with cataloging or registering a collection. He notes that this process can be overwhelming, but it is important to not get distracted. When you are beginning a registration, cataloging or inventory process it might be appealing to focus on what objects you believe are most important to the collection, however, this can quickly distract you from getting started. Instead, Simmons suggests that you start by simply counting how many objects you have, and then start separating them into logical groups – this could be by storage requirements, subject matter, cultural affiliation, whatever makes most sense for your institution. The next step is to gather documentation for the objects. During this step, it should become apparent if there are objects that have become disassociated from their information, which can save you from future headaches. This will also make apparent any issues with provenance. If there isn’t enough information about an object, whether that be regarding provenance or the significance of an object to the collection, the object can be highlighted for further research which will focus future research efforts.
Once the collection has been organized and documentation has been gathered, the next step can begin. Before moving any objects, it is a good idea to take pictures of the objects and their current storage locations, in case these were arranged in a certain way. You may also choose to make sketches of the storage space. Look for immediate problems in the storage space. If something looks dangerous, should not be kept with other objects, or if anything is in danger of being disconnected from documentation, proceed accordingly.
Simmons believes that registration information should be taken down manually on acid-free paper with permanent ink and kept in a bound ledger (so that pages cannot be rearranged), and then additionally noted in the digital database. This is now understood as a dated approach, as it creates twice the amount of work and will ultimately slow down the process. The current understanding is that cataloguing should be done directly in the collections database and then the information can be printed out to as a physical copy if desired. To test the efficacy of your registration system, Simmons outlines 3 criteria; 1) the system should be user friendly enough that any intelligent person should be able to use the system without explicit instruction. 2) When using the system, you should be able to find every object reasonably quickly. 3) You should also be able to find the accompanying documentation.
Simmons then breaks down some definitions for collections language: acquisition, accession, accessioning, accession number and accession record, catalogue, cataloging, catalog number. Again, this webinar would be a great resource for anyone coming from outside collections care to get a refresher or crash course. I would just be wary of stressing ownership of objects too much, especially as it relates to cultural objects. The ethical concerns in collections could take up at least a whole series of courses on their own, so keep in mind this is just a basic set of definitions.
When it comes to accession numbers, I agree with Simmons that if you inherit an accession numbering system, you should follow those conventions to avoid confusion. On this practice we disagree. The old system should be used until the end of the year, and then a new year can begin with the current accepted standard of year.lot.item. He also suggested shortening accession numbers since digital systems are searchable. We also disagree here. I think more information is usually better and I am reminded of when museums used to shorten their accession numbers by simply using the last two digits of the year. This of course was just one of the many systems that failed at Y2K.
From here, Simmons breaks down the importance of preventative conservation as a way to prevent future expenditures on conservation. In other words, if we can prevent damage, we won’t have to spend as much money on fixing objects in the future. He notes that the best way to prevent damage is to understand the agents of deterioration, or the causes of damage. They are: physical force, thieves and vandals, fire, water, pests, contaminates, radiation, incorrect temperature, incorrect relative humidity (RH), and dissociation. These should be common knowledge to most museum professionals, but Simmons also warns that some museum professionals may be too wary of these dangers and inadvertently cause harm. He gives the example that some museums will opt out of installing sprinklers since these can be set off easily, but that the damage of water hoses from the fire department far exceeds the damage from ceiling sprinklers.
Simmons finishes the webinar by discussing good building and storage space design. It is unlikely that small community museums will have the budget or resources to completely tailor their storage space, but I found his tips on persuading boards of directors and potential funding agencies of the importance of a good collections space to be very useful.
If you would like to check out this webinar, it can be found alongside the rest of this part series Collections Management for Smaller Institutions, and a wide variety of others in their archive on Youtube and their website.
~ Emilie