I remember when all this was fields
Nick Poole
Chief Executive
Collections Trust
http://vintagedocumentation.tumblr.com
#vintagedocumentation
http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-PRM-Artefact-Documentation.html
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/whalestrandings/blog/2013/02/13/100years-of-stranding-records-at-nhm?fromGateway=true
SPECTRUM Facts & Figures
• 26,000 licensed users
• 40 countries
• 8 languages
• 19 SPECTRUM Partner systems
• Core part of Museum Accreditation in the UK
STANDARD
PDF/XML/PRINT
+ SCHEMA
GUIDANCE
NEW IDEAS
COMPLIANCE
(19)
WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY (26,000)
http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/spectrum
SPECTRUM-i
• An international Committee
• Made up of SPECTRUM National Partners
• Developing the roadmap for SPECTRUM 5.0
• Undertaking research into the value & impact of SPECTRUM
• Providing support to new countries
• Developing an international community of practice
SPECTRUM 5.0
• Due for publication in Spring 2016
• Comprehensive revision
• Developed in partnership with Axiell & KE Emu Users
• Aiming to provide a futureproof standard
• Available free of charge
• Costs supported by SPECTRUM Partners & SPECTRUM-i
The road ahead
The 10 key challenges for
documentation in the years
ahead
Mission
Knowledge
Advocacy
Mobility
IOT
Challenges
UGC
Digitisation
Richness
DAM
COPE
Core Mission and Purpose
MONEY
PEOPLE
STUFF
MISSION & PURPOSE
COLLECTING POLICY
PRACTICES, PROCEDURES AND SYSTEMS
PEOPLE AND SKILLS
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Core Mission and Purpose
MONEY
PEOPLE
STUFF
MISSION & PURPOSE
COLLECTING POLICY
PRACTICES, PROCEDURES AND SYSTEMS
PEOPLE AND SKILLS
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
The advocacy gap
• We have internalised the ‘back office’ mentality
• No museum can or should run without investing in documentation and
collections management
• Short-term, tangible cost offset against long-term, intangible benefit
• We have to become better champions for the work, which means building
both evidence and influence
‘Create Once, Publish Everywhere’
• 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’ is an approach to developing collections information and collectionsrelated content that supports:
•
•
•
•
Collections care
Collections discovery & re-use
Learning and intepretation
Visitor engagement
COPE in practice, from this...
BYOD
Museum
website
COLLECTIONS
DOCUMENTATION
Social
media
Aggregators
SYSTEMS OF
ENGAGEMENT
Gallery
interactives
DIGITAL ASSET
MANAGEMENT
USER CHANNELS &
PLATFORMS
INFORMATION /
RECORDS
SYSTEMS OF RECORD
To this...
Mobile
Something
new!
Social
Collections
Content &
systems
Wearable
Website
BYOD
Onsite
‘Choose a CMS’ database
http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/choose-a-cms
‘Choose a DAMS’
Due at the end of this month!
Digital Asset Management
• Launched SPECTRUM DAM in 2013
• Providing guidance on how to manage photographs, scans and recordings
alongside the collection
• Launched SPECTRUM DAM Partners Scheme in 2014, validating software
providers who can demonstrate they work with collections systems
• Integrating DAM fully into SPECTRUM 5.0
• http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/spectrum/spectrum-digital-assetmanagement
Protecting the richness
• The risk of COPE is that it becomes reductive
• We need to find better ways of modelling the richness, contextuality and
interconnections in our collections-related knowledge
• Rebuilding the SPECTRUM Units of Information using the CIDOC CRM
• Promoting the development of applications and functionality which
promote the creation of semantically-rich documentation and the use of
semantic references to augment the cataloguing process
Solving UGC
• The acquisition, management and re-use of User Generated Content is not a
solved problem in museums
• Most UGC implementations remain peripheral, without a structured
approach to assessing the knowledge, internalising it or assimilating it into
the museum’s own knowledge
• If our museums are becoming more open, participatory and inclusive, but our
documentation isn’t, real change & relevance won’t happen
• Large-scale participatory crowdsourcing is about to become a real movement
in museums…
Looking ahead to IoT
• To an extent, our business is the forensic re-creation of the connection
between an object and its informational content
• What are the implications for our business when the things we acquire come
encoded with all of the information about their design, function, purpose and
use?
• The sheer volume of data about things is set to increase hugely
• How do we deal with integrity, authenticity and provenance of material and
its associated knowledge in an Internet of Things which is inherently
changeable?
http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-PRM-Artefact-Documentation.html
Keep in touch
• We offer several ways of keeping in touch with our work and with each
other
– Collections Management LinkedIn community (8,900 members)
– Fortnightly email newsletter
– www.twitter.com/collectiontrust
– www.facebook.com/collectionstrust
– www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust
Thankyou!
Thanks to KE Emu Users, KE
and Axiell for all of your
support, ideas and hard work