Presentation to the Renaissance London 'Information & Records Management Symposium', at the Museum of London, Docklands on the 29th February 2012

1. New Contexts for Museum
Information
29th February 2012
Museum of London, Docklands

2. 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’)

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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….

7. The changing face of culture…
Physical artefacts
Oral history
Ephemera
Time-based media
Born-digital art
Born-digital everything
Social media
Ice core samples
Boats
Buildings
‘The Olympics’
Ugly Renaissance Babies…
Culture is everywhere, and everything…

8. 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.

9. 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…

10. CONSERVATION
EXHIBITION
DONOR
IPR
RESEARCH
ENVIRONMENT
DATA
CATALOGUE
DIGITAL
SURROGATE
DIGITISATION
LOCATION
PERSONNEL
LOAN
USER
EDUCATION
GENERATED
PACK
CONTENT
COMMUNITY
WEB CONTENT
RESPONSES
ESTATES
FINANCE PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS

11. Many different types of information
CATALOGUE LOAN IPR
DIGITAL
SURROGATE
DONOR COLLECTIONS
INFORMATION
CONSERVATION DIGITISATION EXHIBITION
ENVIRONMENT
LOCATION
‘MUSEOLOGICAL’
DATA
INFORMATION
USER
GENERATED
COMMUNITY
RESPONSES
EDUCATION
PACK
WEB CONTENT RESEARCH INTERPRETIVE
CONTENT
INFORMATION
FINANCE PERSONNEL
PERFORMANCE
ESTATES
MARKETING BUSINESS
INDICATORS MATERIAL
INFORMATION

12. 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

13. The ‘vertical’ organisation
Education Management Retail Collections Estates
Each ‘vertical’ activity develops programmes, systems, competencies and
information specific to its function

14. ‘Vertical’ systems
Collections Web Content Digital Asset Resource Building
Management Management Management Management Management
System System System System System
A ‘stovepipe’ model evolves which satisfies immediate needs & reflects funding
priorities, but which ultimately militates against information flow

15. The future demands integration…
Visitor
experience
Source Management
material Systems
People
Integration is key to enabling information to flow across multiple contexts to
achieve both efficiency and authenticity

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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…)

19. 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’

20. 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.

21. SPECTRUM 4.0
Connecting people,
processes, systems and
information into a
coherent framework….

22. Continue the conversation at
OpenCulture 2012, 26th & 27th
June at the Oval, London
Find out more at
http://www.collectionslink.org.uk
Follow us:
@collectiontrust
@NickPoole1
Thank you!