collections trust seminar - colchester, march 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Aims for today
Our aims today are to:
• Introduce you to the work of the Collections Trust, highlight our tools, resources and services to support your work
• Share experience in collections management practice, and network
• Update from Isabel Wilson (ACE); Local Spotlight Case Study from Tom Hodgson (Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service) and a Museum Development Update from Amy Cotterill, MDO Essex
Key messages for today – effective Collections Management:
• Creates sustainable collections
• Starts and finishes with the audience, and is driven by mission/organisational purpose
• Is about organisational change
Resources
• In your delegate pack, you have:
• Information sheets about today’s resources
• Information about further Collections Trust events
• A Feedback & Evaluation Form
• Today’s slides can be downloaded from www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust
• All other resources available from www.collectionstrust.org.uk
Getting started
• Please do:
• Be an active participant
• Ask questions, comment and share your experience
• Respect information shared in confidence
• Take the opportunity to network!
What do you want to get out of today?
Talk to the person/people next to you
Write down 2-3 things that you want to get out of today
The Collections Trust is...
...the professional association for people who work in
collections management
Established 1977
• To promote the education of the public by the development of museums and similar organisations by all appropriate methods;
• To develop, promote, maintain and improve standards of collections and information management in museums, art galleries, heritage organisations and other collections institutions;
• To provide services and resources which improve the standards and methods of collections management and use.
Our programmes
We focus on issues that are relevant to collections management:
• Documentation
• Digital development
• Systems development (DAMS, CMS, Web, Mobile)
• Governance
• Security
• Insurance
• Pest Management
• Copyright & IPR
• Cultural property
• Participation and engagement
Special programmes
Recently we have developed resources, guidelines, factsheets and interactives around a series of special programmes:
• Security www.collectionstrust.org.uk/security
• Energy efficiency www.collectionstrust.org.uk/energy-efficiency
• Pests! www.collectionstrust.org.uk/pest-management
• Insurance www.collectionstrust.org.uk/insurance
• Participation www.collectionstrust.org.uk/participation
• Going Digital www.collectionstrust.org.uk/going-digital
• Copyright & licensing www.collectionstrust.org.uk/copyright-and-licensing
Copyright and licensing
We provide free resources to help museums with copyright issues and we’re addressing how recent legal reforms to copyright affect museums.
• Free resources at www.collectionstrust.org.uk/copyright-and-licensing
• Copyright: A Practical Guide by Naomi Korn- updated edition to be published later this month and available from www.collectionstrust.org.uk/shop
The Collections Trust website
• Re-launched in July 2014
• Hundreds of practical, free resources
• The latest news from the sector
• Blog posts
• Online shop (forms and registers, publications, eBooks)
• Comprehensive listing of sector events www.collectionstrust.org.uk/upcoming-events
• Register to receive a fortnightly e-newsletter
Practical Guides
• Simple practical guides to key areas of collections management:
• Titles:
o Collections Management: A Practical Guide
o Documentation: A Practical Guide
o Copyright: A Practical Guide (Updated)
o Governance & Collections: A Practical Guide
o Integrated Pest Management: A Practical Guide
• Available from www.collectionstrust.org.uk/shop
(RRP £24.99 and ebook £20.00)
Forms and registers
• Leading supplier of museum forms and registers
o Object Entry Forms
o Object Cards
o Exit Forms
o Simple Catalogue Cards
o Object Movement Tickets
o Transfer of Title Forms
o Accession Registers
• Available from www.collectionstrust.org.uk/shop
Keep in touch
• We offer several ways of keeping in touch with our work and with each other
o Collections Management LinkedIn community (8,600 members)
o Fortnightly email newsletter
o www.twitter.com/collectiontrust
o www.facebook.com/collectionstrust
o www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust
Update from the Arts Council England
Isabel Wilson, Senior Manager Quality & Standards,Arts Council England
Aims for this session
• To focus on audience, and how audience needs can contribute to the management and use of collections
• Introduce market segmentation and visitor centred design
• Start thinking about the relationship between your museum and its audiences
“Not only is a friend just a
tweet away, but so is virtual
access to just about
anything under the sun.
This über-comfort level with
all things wired and
wireless gives millennials
an unprecedented level of
ease and capability with
ever-changing technology.”
Freedom of choice…”I choose”
Customisation…”I want to change this to suit
me”
Collaboration…”I want to work with
you on this”
Entertainment …”I want this to be
fun”
Innovation….”I want this to be new
and different”
Speed…”I want this now”
“Primarily by communicating with the
communities who use it. By capturing
more knowledge about our collection we
are keeping the collection alive, and by
working with communities to do this we
are making the collection sustainable.
There is a constant relationship between
the museum and the people who use
the collection.”
Daniel Martin, Curator
Leeds Industrial
Museum at
Armley Mills
The ‘user journey’...
...describes how people discover your museum, what they do while they’re there and how you maintain the
connection after they leave.
Pre-visit (discovery)
Visit (engagement)
Post-visit (relationship)
The key challenge for collections is to find ways of enhancing and extending the user journey so that people are:
• More likely to find your museum
• More likely to visit
• More likely to develop a lasting relationship with the museum afterwards
Pre-visit (discovery)
Visit (engagement)
Post-visit (relationship)
‘Snackable’ content – quick, shareable, interesting, quirky & fun, shared as widely as
possible with as many people as possible
Pre-visit (discovery)
Visit (engagement)
Post-visit (relationship)
‘Snackable’ content – quick, shareable, interesting, quirky & fun, shared as widely as
possible with as many people as possible
Location-specific (iBeacon!) content that is relevant – enabling people to
explore, discover, socialise and promote to their networks
Pre-visit (discovery)
Visit (engagement)
Post-visit (relationship)
‘Snackable’ content – quick, shareable, interesting, quirky & fun, shared as widely as
possible with as many people as possible
Location-specific (iBeacon!) content that is relevant – enabling people to
explore, discover, socialise and promote to their networks
Deep, relevant, personal and engaging stories, targeted
events and experiences, fresh ideas and offers
Discussion
• How does your museum capture knowledge about your visitors?
• How do you use this knowledge to inform your services planning?
• What role do the public play in managing & developing your collection?
We need to keep moving
The financial model for museums is changing, our role
is changing & peoples expectations of your museum (online and off) are changing
Aim for this session
• To focus on organisational culture change in the museum as a response to changing audience expectations and a changing world
Three models of change
• Internal bottom-up change – a growing dissatisfaction with the operation and/or culture of your museum eventually tips over into a will to change things and the energy to see changes through
• Internal top-down change – a new manager or Board of Trustees set a new direction and drive change through restructuring and re-defining your mission
• External – an external trigger, such as a loss of funding, change of focus, merger or other external factor forces the organisation to change
• Museums are not inherently conservative, but most museums are structured around the idea of managed and purposeful change.
Mission
• Mission matters more than people think!
• Two commons types of Mission Statement
– “We are going to change the world,” or
– “We will collect and preserve the history and heritage of [insert name of town] and interpret it for the benefit of the public to support education”
• It doesn’t really matter what the words are. It matters whether you believe them, whether they inspire you and whether you are proud to say it out loud
Brand
• Your museum’s ‘brand’ is the expression of who you are, what you care about, how your museum feels about itself and the relationship you want to have with your audience
• The brand of your museum is what people identify with, volunteer to be part of, have in their mind when planning a visit
• Every member of staff should be a champion for the brand – if its controlled through the marketing team, you’ll never achieve reach and scale
Curators may be sceptical but branding is vital for
museums, Robert Jones, Guardian 1 May 2014
“All this has led cultural organisations, in various ways,
to think more deeply about what they stand for, to
manage their identity more deliberately, and to
externalise it more clearly – both in the way they
communicate and in the experience they offer visitors.
It's a way for museums to win audiences and funding,
to sign up partners and to unify and energise their own
people.”
The ‘responsive’ museum...
Visitor experience
Collections
Learning
Retail
Online
Visitor Services
Facilities
Social
Mobile
The ‘traditional’ museum...
Museums sometimes operate in silos
Education Management Collections Retail IT
Being an Agent for Change
Video - “IT and Copyright as a driver for change”
Carolyn Royston, Head of Digital Media, Imperial War Museums
“You can see our collections but we don’t want you to enjoy them in any way”
Culture change
Culture change
Buy in from the top
Engage all staff
Plan and share
Started small
Create a ‘team’
mentality
Discussion
• What are the main changes impacting on your museum?
• What are the drivers for making changes (eg. survival, doing things better)?
• Is the need for change understood across the whole museum?
• What are the barriers that prevent your museum changing? What might help?
Aims for this session
• Define Collections Management
• Introduce the concepts of Strategic Collections Management and the Collections Management Framework
• Introduce Investors in Collections model
Collections Management
“Collections Management” is defined as:
“The strategies, policies, processes and procedures relating to a collection’s development, information, access and care”…for the benefit of its users.
Collections Trust/BSI Code of Practice for Collections Management (BSI PAS 197:2009)
Key elements
• Collections Management is:
• About the management of physical, digital and intellectual material
• At its best its integrated across all aspects of running a museum (front of house and behind the scenes)
• Never ‘finished’ – an ongoing process not a finite project – and an ever improving practice
• About achieving public trust and accountability through professional, transparent practice , and promoting audience engagement and participation
Key elements
• A Collections Management Framework is:
“A set of components that provide the foundations and organizational arrangements for designing, implementing, monitoring, reviewing and improving collections management processes throughout the organization to support the achievement of its mission.”
‘Strategic Collections Management’
Organisational Mission
Strategy/Forward Plan
CareAccessInformationDevelopment
Collections Management Policies and Plans
‘Strategic Collections Management’
Organisational Mission
Strategy/Forward Plan
CareAccessInformationDevelopment
ProceduresSystems
Collections Management Policies and Plans
‘Strategic Collections Management’
Organisational Mission
Strategy/Forward Plan
CareAccessInformationDevelopment
ProceduresSystems
Collections Management Policies and Plans
Evaluation & improvement
Rich experiences/services for users
Investors in Collections
Investors in Collections is:
- A model which describes museum wide collections management activity, which enables a museum to demonstrate improvement in those areas
Longer term, this model could be used to validate museums, and demonstrate that they show a commitment to delivering public value through their collections.
The aim is to award an Investors in Collections marque, after a museum has been through a process of review and assessment.
Museum development
MISSION
FORWARD PLAN
POLICIES
PLANNING
PROCEDURESSYSTEMS
COMPETENCIES
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT
Key points
• Understanding what Strategic Collections Management is, will enable you to organise your activity, deliver your mission, collect the data you need so that you advocate and plan for improvement
• Good collections management is the foundation of great museum experiences; it drives both accountability and creativity
• Having a well-managed, well understood framework promotes flexibility rather than constraining it
• Any kind of development – audience participation, income generation, brand development, outreach or digital – depends on having the basics of good collections practice in place
Aims for this session
• Introduce professional standards for Collections Management
• Introduce the Collections Management Standards Toolkit
‘Strategic Collections Management’
Organisational Mission
Strategy/Forward Plan
CareAccessInformationDevelopment
ProceduresSystems
Collections Management Policies and Plans
Evaluation & improvement
Rich experiences/services for users
Why do we need standards?
• A language to describe the work we do• A synthesis of ‘distilled wisdom of a
community’ • Frameworks to work in• Advocacy tools • Quality indicators
• PAS 197: code of practice for cultural collections management
• SPECTRUM: the UK museum collections management standard
PAS 197 – what is it?
• Publicly Available Specification 197: Code of practice for cultural collections management
• Created by a sponsoring organisation (Collections Trust) and BSi ……the UK National Standards body
• A consensus based informal standard, developed by an industry, to pull together best practice guidance
PAS 197
• Defines Collections Management as the strategies, policies, procedures and processes that need to be in place and how they are managed within a museum, library, archive (to deliver benefit to the users of collections)
• Defines several key collections management principles which help to frame collections management activity to deliver mission
• The concept of the Collections Management Framework
SPECTRUM is an open, and freely available collections management standard ….the primary specification for collections management activity in museums.
• Launched in 1994 after an extensive collaborative development project
• Supported and developed by the worldwide SPECTRUM Community
SPECTRUM Facts & Figures
• 25,000 licensed users
• 40 countries
• 8 languages
• 17 SPECTRUM Partner systems
• Adoption as a national quality standard in 4 countries
• Interest from 5 new territories
• Published by Collections Trust with support from Arts Council England
• Current edition SPECTRUM 4.0 • 21 Procedures in workflows in SPECTRUM 4.0 • Units of Information in SPECTRUM 4.0 Appendix 1 – information capture
• SPECTRUM Advice guidance
• Essential procedures - the Primary Procedures - are mapped across to Accreditation Section 2: Collections
‘Primary’ procedures
The primary SPECTRUM procedures must be in place in a basic accountable museum documentation system, otherwise you are creating documentation backlogs
• Object entry
• Acquisition (includes labelling and marking)
• Location and movement control
• Cataloguing
• Object exit
• Loans in
• Loans out
• Retrospective documentation
Standards Toolkit
• Produced by Collections Trust with support from Arts Council England
• http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/standards-toolkit/introduction
• Structured around the four PAS 197 sections:
– Collections Development standards
– Collections Information standards
– Collections Access standards
– Collections Care & Conservation standards
SESSION FIVE
Local Spotlight
Tom Hodgson, Colchester Museums Manager,
Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service
Aims for this session
• Introduce the Collections Management Competency Framework
• Think about skills development in your museum and your own CPD
Collections Management Competency Framework
Defining the skills and competencies of the
professional & volunteer collections management
workforce
What is a Competency Framework?
A Competency Framework brings together the skills, knowledge technical abilities and behaviours needed for a particular role, or to carry out a particular activity. It is a statement, or blueprint, which defines performance expectations, and supports the measurement of performance at an organisational and individual level.
How we created the Collections
Management Competency framework
• Funded by Arts Council England
• Open Culture Conference Sessions
• NMDC Collections Managers Group
• Much discussion with colleagues – CT; ACE; Museums
• Reference to Job Descriptions, person specifications
• Reference to other Frameworks in museums – NHM, EUColComp
• Reference to other Competency Frameworks from other worlds
• Tested it with the Collections Trust Trainees -www.collectionstrust.org.uk/traineeships
Who might use the Framework?
• By national sector organisations to define roles and inform the maintenance development and management of competencies at a national level
• By governing bodies to identify the skill sets needed to deliver their mission and strategy, to set quality standards, and plan development
• By managers to deliver the strategic goals of the organisation, to ensure that the skills are in place to carry out a role or project, to fill skills gaps, and to measure the performance of staff, create JDs, person specs
• By employees, volunteers and individuals to understand the competencies needed to carry out a role effectively, demonstrate performance and plan to improve (CPD)
• By HE/FE and training providers to plan course structure and content so that the learning objectives of their courses meet the needs of the industry that their learners wish to enter
Key questions
• Do you have a Competency Framework in place in your museum?
• Would a Framework be useful?
• How would you develop and use a Competency Framework?
Aims for this session
• Introduce the role of Collections & Collections Management in Museum Accreditation
• Describe the Collections Management requirements of Accreditation
Guiding principle
Collections are central to the function of a museum.
The management of the collections within an Accredited museum is consistent with the statement of purpose, policies and strategic vision for the organisation.
To do this effectively, and to allow for regular review and improvement, a coherent set of policy statements, plans and procedures should be put in place – a collections management framework.
This will address collections development, information, access, care and conservation.
Accreditation pulls SPECTRUM and PAS 197 together and asks you to have:• An organisational purpose• 2.1 Satisfactory arrangements for ownership of collections• Strategic Plans including plans for the collections (Forward Plan)• 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 Collections Management Policies - Collections
Development, Documentation, Care and Conservation • 2.7 Collections Management Procedures – 8 SPECTRUM Primary
Procedures – described in your Procedural Manual• 2.5, 2.6 Operational Plans – Documentation, Care and conservation• Expert assessment of your security arrangements
This is a Collections Management Framework
Collections Trust Accreditation support
We can
• Publish standards and guidelines
• Share case studies
• Share questions & answers with our networks
• Provide statements of support
We can’t
• Answer questions directly over the phone or by email
Online support
www.collectionstrust.org.uk/collections
Aims for this session
• Identify key trends in ‘going digital’ for museums and collections
- Creating content for audiences
- COPE
- Open publishing
• Introduce guidance and resources for museums wanting to make better use of technology for collections
- Digital Design Principles
- Digital Benchmarking Tool
• Explore Digital Strategies
CONTENT
METADATA
A BIT A LOT
FUN
RESEARCH
LEARNING
DATA MINING
COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT
AGGREGATION
OUTREACH
Digitize relatively few things & spend your money on quality and context
Digitize lots of things, use standards and don’t worry too much about promotion
Creating content for audiences:
what do people want?
‘Create Once, Publish Everywhere’
We need to learn to COPE…if collections and collections-based information are to play their part in enhancing and extending the visitor experience, they need to be discoverable and usable outside the museum and its website
COPE in practice, from this...
COLLECTIONSDOCUMENTATION
DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION / RECORDS
SYSTEMS OF RECORD
SYSTEMS OF ENGAGEMENT
USER CHANNELS & PLATFORMSBYOD
Museum
website
Gallery
interactives
Social
mediaAggregators
To this...
Collections Content &
systems
Mobile
Social
Website
OnsiteBYOD
Publications
Something new!
Open Publishing
• Creating content that is transparent to users – stories are created and appear instantly; content is copied and shared (IWM Case Study – shared WW2 memories)
• Editorial decisions may be made by users (Wikipedia)
• “not wrong for long”
• Implies very unrestrictive/open licences, copyright controls – very few barriers to publishing
Open Publishing – where are you?
• Attitudes and approaches to ‘open’ reuse of museum content exist along a sliding scale:
‘Radically’ open
Fully commercial
Thinking about it
Toe in the water
Mission driven
Tate Digital Strategy
• Implicitly linked to the Strategic Plan
• ‘Digital as a Dimension of Everything’
• Aligning the development of:
• Content
• IT infrastructure
• Social media
• Publishing & distribution
• Retail & income generation
Historic Royal Strategic Planning
• No separate ‘Digital Strategy’
• 4 principles:
• Guardianship
• Discovery
• Showmanship
• Independence
• Digital underpins and supports the achievement of these principles, rather than acting as a standalone priority
Digital Benchmarks:
a good place to start
• A simple diagnostic tool
• Mapping progress
• Celebrating success
• Planning development
• An integrated approach
Digital Benchmark “Range Statements”
StrategyLevel Description0 The organisation has no strategic plan or statement of mission or purpose 1 The organisation has a strategic plan or mission which does not reference engagement
through technology2 The organisation has a strategic plan, which includes projects and programmes, some of
which make use of technology. Digital is not fully integrated into the strategy, which is not regularly reviewed.
3 The organisation has a strategic plan, which includes projects and programmes, some of which make use of technology.
Digital is integrated into the strategy, which is regularly reviewed. 4 The organisation has a strategic plan/mission in place which references the use of digital
technologies to support core delivery, or it has a separate (but connected) digital strategy in place.
There is at least one digital champion within the senior management of the organisation. The strategic plan is regularly reviewed and updated.
5 The organisation has a strategic plan/mission in place which integrates the use of digital technologies to support core delivery.
The digital elements of the plan are owned and championed at a senior (Board & management) level and supported by appropriate budgets.
Digital technologies are embedded across all teams/departments of the organisation. Digital delivery and engagement through technology are embedded within the
organisation’s performance framework. The strategic plan is regularly reviewed and updated.
Mid-sized regional museum
0
1
2
3
4
5
STRATEGY
PEOPLE
SYSTEMS
DIGITISATION
CONTENT DELIVERY
ANALYTICS
ENGAGEMENT
REVENUE
Smaller museum
0
1
2
3
4
5
STRATEGY
PEOPLE
SYSTEMS
DIGITISATION
CONTENT DELIVERY
ANALYTICS
ENGAGEMENT
REVENUE
Showing progress
0
1
2
3
4
5
STRATEGY
PEOPLE
SYSTEMS
DIGITISATION
CONTENT DELIVERY
ANALYTICS
ENGAGEMENT
REVENUE
2012
2011
Additional resources
• Collections Trust Digital Benchmarks Toolhttp://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/digital/digital-benchmarks-for-the-culture-sector
• Going Digital resources, toolkits, simple guides and glossary:http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/going-digital
• Guidance on developing digital strategieshttp://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/digital-strategy
• Free Simple Guide to Digitisationhttp://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/digitisation
Aims for today
Our aims today are to:
• Introduce you to the work of the Collections Trust, highlight our tools, resources and services to support your work
• Share experience in collections management practice, and network
• Update from Isabel Wilson (ACE); Local Spotlight Case Study from Tom Hodgson (Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service) and a Museum Development Update from Amy Cotterill, MDO Essex
Key messages for today – effective Collections Management:
• Creates sustainable collections
• Starts and finishes with the audience, and is driven by mission/organisational purpose
• Is about organisational change
Keep in touch
• We offer several ways of keeping in touch with our work and with each other
– Collections Management LinkedIn community (8,200 members)
– Fortnightly email newsletter
– www.twitter.com/collectiontrust
– www.facebook.com/collectionstrust
– www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust