New Contexts for Museum Information

29th February 2012Museum of London, Docklands

New White Paper New Contexts for Museum Information published today on Collections Link to support this discussion.

Please read/circulate and comment!

www.collectionslink.org.uk (‘Manage Information’)

Key points

• New contexts 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

Collections Trust

The leading international 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

New contexts for our 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

The changing face of 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….

The changing face of culture…

Physical artefactsOral historyEphemeraTime-based mediaBorn-digital artBorn-digital everythingSocial mediaIce core samplesBoatsBuildings‘The Olympics’Ugly Renaissance Babies…

Culture is everywhere, and everything…

The BFI Collecting policy…

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.

The changing nature of 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…

CATALOGUE

LOAN

IPR

DIGITAL SURROGATE

DONOR

CONSERVATION

DIGITISATION

EXHIBITION

ENVIRONMENTDATA

LOCATION

USER GENERATED

CONTENT

COMMUNITY RESPONSES

EDUCATION PACK

WEB CONTENT

RESEARCH

FINANCE

PERSONNEL

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

ESTATES

MARKETING

MATERIAL

Many different types of information

CATALOGUE COLLECTIONS INFORMATION

‘MUSEOLOGICAL’ INFORMATION

INTERPRETIVE INFORMATION

BUSINESS INFORMATION

LOAN IPR DIGITAL SURROGATE DONOR

CONSERVATION DIGITISATION EXHIBITION ENVIRONMENTDATA LOCATION

USER GENERATED

CONTENT

COMMUNITY RESPONSES

EDUCATION PACK WEB CONTENT RESEARCH

FINANCE PERSONNEL PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ESTATES MARKETING

MATERIAL

The changing forms of 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

The ‘vertical’ organisation

Education Management Retail Collections Estates

Each ‘vertical’ activity develops programmes, systems, competencies and information specific to its function

‘Vertical’ systems

Collections Management

System

Web Content Management

System

Digital Asset Management

System

Resource Management

System

Building Management

System

A ‘stovepipe’ model evolves which satisfies immediate needs & reflects funding priorities, but which ultimately militates against information flow

The future demands integration…

Visitor experience

Management Systems

People

Source material

Integration is key to enabling information to flow across multiple contexts to achieve both efficiency and authenticity

Enterprise Knowledge Management

What we’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

Why KM fails in 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

Learning from Business Intelligence 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…)

Some emerging themes

Some of 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’

BSI Standard for Collections 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.

SPECTRUM 4.0

Connecting people, processes, systems and information into a coherent framework….

Continue the conversation at OpenCulture 2012, 26th & 27th June at the Oval, London

Find out more at http://www.collectionslink.org.uk

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@collectiontrust@NickPoole1

Thank you!