The Evolution of Museums

The Evolution of Museums

Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust (@NickPoole1)

And I visit a lot of these…

4

The Collections Trust is the international professional association for
Collections Management

Working with and on behalf of our community, we promote excellence,
innovation and engagement through the management & use of collections.

Welcome!
The Collections Trust believes that working
with you is the best way to test our ideas, to
question them and to help shape the next
generation of practice.

Our teaching is designed to:

•Inspire you to see Collections Management as the
enabler of anything you want to achieve in the museum

•Give you the practical skills you will need in the
workplace

•Encourage you to become an activist, or to keep going if
you already are!

The Cultural Imperative
The biggest challenges facing society
will only be addressed through “There are 4 things worth doing
collective action. with your life. Fix society. Fix
health. Fix the economy. Fix the
planet. Which one are you?”
It is not enough for museums to be
good, we must also do good, we have
to make a difference by inspiring and
supporting our communities in civic
action, encouraging them to
understand the need for interpersonal
responsibility.

The biggest single challenge facing
museums worldwide isn’t funding, it’s
relevance
Jon Voss, We Are What We Do
http://www.wearewhatwedo.org

The FARO Convention
The best European document you’ve never heard of

Every EU Member State (including the UK) agrees to:

•Recognise that rights relating to cultural heritage are inherent in the right to participate
in cultural life, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

•Recognise individual and collective responsibility towards cultural heritage;

•Emphasise that the conservation of cultural heritage and its sustainable use have human
development and quality of life as their goal;

•Promote the role of cultural heritage in the construction of a peaceful and democratic
society, and in the processes of sustainable development and the promotion of cultural
diversity

The Cultural Commons
Commons are resources that are held in common by a community

Commons cannot be commodified or ‘enclosed’

The ownership of the commons is inclusive – the Commons grows through sharing

Commons must be preserved regardless of their return of capital – all members of
the community have a shared responsibility to pass on the Commons to each
generation ‘in equal or greater quality and abundance than we received them’.

Commons is not anti-commerce, it is anti-enclosure. It actively promotes
commercial business models where these are based on the addition of value, not
the prevention of use.

Why a Cultural Commons?
It is time to re-write the terms of the contract between museums and society

The crisis in museum funding in the UK (and elsewhere) is not about the value of
museums, it is a crisis in the advocacy of the public subsidy of museum services.

The question is not ‘are museums a good and important thing?’, but ‘given that
we have museums, what value does public subsidy add that the free market
cannot provide?’

The free market does not promote universal equality of provision or equality of
access. We have to remind society both of the universal right to cultural
engagement and the collective responsibility to preserve culture as a Commons.

Authority & the Commons
A Commons community (like Wikipedia) is a self-organising economy based on
the addition of value.

The Commons is not antithetical to the idea of authority, but it is a system for
assigning status based on authority, rather than authority based on status.

The real threat of the Cultural Commons is not therefore that museums will not
be the holders of expertise, but that they will have to earn their position as
authorities.

After this paradigm shift, we will wonder why we ever worried. Before it, it looks
like an existential threat to the foundation of the industry.

A global museum opportunity
The management and sharing of our material, digital and immaterial heritage as
a Commons is the mission of our global community.

This mission is naturally inclusive – bringing the museum and its publics together
under a common opportunity and a common obligation.

Many of the debates in our sector, of technology, collecting, interpretation,
copyright, reproduction and representation, social justice, social media,
participation and engagement flow naturally from the principle of the Commons.

“We could have a ceremony, each year, where the museum symbolically hands
on to the next generation the Cultural Commons in our care. We can be proud of
having handed it on, and in doing so, we can celebrate both the right to culture
and the responsibility we share to protect it.”
National Museum Director(!)

“Think big, start small, move fast. But move”
Mike Edson, Director of Web and New Media, Smithsonian Institution

The Participatory Museum takes
the idea of the Cultural Commons
and turns it into practice, in the
process, unifying our existing skills
in learning, technology, collections
and interpretation.

This is about turning the museum
from a broadcast to a
conversation.

“How can cultural institutions
reconnect with the public and
demonstrate their value and
relevance in contemporary life? I
believe they can do this by inviting
people to actively engage as
cultural participants, not passive
consumers.

People expect the ability to
respond and be taken seriously.
They expect the ability to discuss,
share, and remix what they
consume. When people can
actively participate with cultural
institutions, those places become
central to cultural and community
life.”

http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute

Making the change permanent
Museums are changing from the outside in, from becoming more open and
participatory at their periphery to changing their core identity, values and
behaviours.

It is only by changing the whole organism that the change will become
permanent.

This means changing the Mission, changing the procedures, changing the
systems and changing the skills we use to do the job.

Our challenge is to re-tune every part of the museum so that participation isn’t
just skin-deep, bringing the past 30 years of modernisation, professionalisation
and documentation into the next 30 years of openness, participation,
engagement and relevance.

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198 ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL COLLECTIONS MINIMUM COLLECTIONS
PLANNING CONTROL MANAGEMENT STANDARDS CARE

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198 ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL COLLECTIONS MINIMUM COLLECTIONS
PLANNING CONTROL MANAGEMENT STANDARDS CARE

The edifice of professional standards is still essential, but instead of acting as the shield for our
professional authority, they, too must adapt proactively to promote engagement, participation and the
free, sustainable and incremental exchange of knowledge and ideas

BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198

ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS

PDF/XML/PRINT
GUIDANCE
+ SCHEMA

COMPLIANCE
NEW IDEAS (23,000)

WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY (7,600)

BSI PAS 197
A ‘Code of Practice for Cultural Collections Management’ produced by the BSI,
sponsored by the Collections Trust

Defining Collections Management as the connection between mission and
delivery in museums, archives and libraries

Promoting a common understanding of management processes across domains

Defining the terms we use everyday

Promoting a culture of ongoing review and improvement

The defining document of ‘Strategic Collections Management’

‘Strategic Collections Management’
Users Funders Politicians


Organisational Mission



Collecting Policy



Collecting Policy

Care Learn Develop Use



Collecting Policy


People Systems Procedures Information



Collecting Policy



Evaluation & improvement



Collecting Policy





Open, participatory, seamlessly physical, digital, intellectual and emotional experiences for our users

The demand for participation…

Digital is dead, long live ‘engaged’

http://www.digitalengagementframework.com/ from MuseumNext!

Documentation to Engagement
There is a ‘golden thread’ that connects the cataloguing work we did in the
1970’s with the future of a digitally engaged, socially-active and responsive
museum.

The reason why we are able to open up our knowledge is because of the
structures that were established in the 1970’s and 1980’s

Nothing about what is happening now is revolutionary – it represents a linear
evolution of the museum from the Victorian era to the Connected Age


Collecting Policy





Open, participatory, seamlessly physical, digital, intellectual and emotional experiences for our users

The Museum works to illustrate for everyone the importance of the sea, ships, time
and the stars and their relationship with people

The Museum's responsibilities are to safeguard and enhance the value of its pre-
eminent assets: its collections, its expertise, its buildings. The Museum's objectives
are to spread the benefits of these assets by:

•Maximizing access and inspiration for all users
•Satisfying stakeholders, locally, nationally and internationally
•Effective organization and sound financial management

The Museum works to illustrate for everyone the importance of the sea, ships, time
and the stars and their relationship with people

The Museum's responsibilities are to safeguard and enhance the value of its pre-
eminent assets: its collections, its expertise, its buildings. The Museum's objectives
are to spread the benefits of these assets by:

•Maximizing access and inspiration for all users
•Satisfying stakeholders, locally, nationally and internationally
•Effective organization and sound financial management

Royal Museums Greenwich, National Maritime Museum

The Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge.

The Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge.

Smithsonian Institution, Washington

To be the best museum in the world for inspiring people to learn about, engage with
and create media.

To be the best museum in the world for inspiring people to learn about, engage with
and create media.

National Media Museum, Bradford

The greatest collection representative of human cultural achievement, ancient and
modern, in the world.

A space ‘not only for the ‘learned and curious’ but also ‘for the benefit of the general
public’ – a centre of research and inquiry at all levels.

A collection preserved and held for the benefit of all the world, present and future, free
of charge.

A forum for the expression of many different cultural perspectives.

A place to increase understanding of the cultural connections and influences linking
Britain and the world.

A place where the UK’s diverse population can explore its common inheritances.

The greatest collection representative of human cultural achievement, ancient and
modern, in the world.

A space ‘not only for the ‘learned and curious’ but also ‘for the benefit of the general
public’ – a centre of research and inquiry at all levels.

A collection preserved and held for the benefit of all the world, present and future, free
of charge.

A forum for the expression of many different cultural perspectives.

A place to increase understanding of the cultural connections and influences linking
Britain and the world.

A place where the UK’s diverse population can explore its common inheritances.

The British Museum

The Museum Mission
A museum’s Mission Statement defines, in a subtle but absolutely pervasive
way, the culture and priorities of the organisation.

Most people spend their working lives in museums largely ignorant of the
mission but absolutely steeped in the culture that it generates.

A socially-activist Mission produces a socially-engaged museum – see World
Museums Liverpool, Brooklyn Museum or the Museum of East Anglian Life.

A self-serving Mission produces a self-serving museum.

The days of the self-serving museum are over.

ENTRY-LEVEL ACADEMIC MID-CAREER LEADERSHIP LEGACY

CORE VALUES Integrity, accountability, openness, honesty, diversity, efficiency

Organisational
Collections Environment, Strategic CM,
PROFESSIONAL Housekeeping, knowledge
theory, research, IPM, security, Collections
PRACTICE handling, packing transfer,
documentation labelling etc. development
research

PPM, Risk, HR, Strategic
Time- Project Continuity
MANAGEMENT Finance, planning,
management Management planning
Marketing advocacy

Specialist Subject
SUBJECT General subject Practice-based
Broad interest academic knowledge
EXPERTISE focus expertise
knowledge transfer

SOFT SKILLS Mentoring, facilitation, negotiation, communication, networking

The new Collections Management
Collections Management is political.

It can promote and protect inertia – enabling the
museum to remain morally silent by appealing to the
objectivity of rules, procedures and data structures.

Or, it can power and embed change, enabling us to
make good on the promise of our socially-activist,
participatory museum (and making the change
permanent and incremental).

Collections Management is ultimately a set of tools.
You can decide whether you use them to build a
temple or an agora.

Congratulations!
You are the new Head of Collections at an accredited
museum of your choice.

You are tasked with creating and implementing a
new collections development policy which responds
to your organisational vision and mission, serves the
needs of your users, and complements your
museum’s other collections management policies.

Your Collection
Your collection is a typical local authority collection,
reflecting the social history, archaeology and natural
history of the area.

It also includes a decorative and fine art collection,
which has a wider geographical and thematic focus.
The objects listed in your Leicester Arts and Museum
Loan are broadly representative of your museum’s
collection.

Group exercise
1. Describe your museum, its vision and mission,
its users, its staff and its organisational
structure.

(Handy hint: think of museums you admire, look at
their vision and mission, think how this
translates into what you want to do and the
skills you’ll need to do it)

Group exercise
2. Using PAS 197:

• Define and illustrate your museum’s collections
development framework

• Scope your new collections development policy,
defining its structure and content.

Group exercise
3. Plan the implementation of your policy. You are
going to ensure that it is a) endorsed by your
senior management team and b) adopted by all
museum staff.

Group exercise
4. Be prepared to discuss your museum’s collections
development framework and your approach to
your collections development policy at the final
Collections Trust session on the afternoon of
Friday 14th December.

Thinking out loud since 2008….

Like a self-help group for
Collections Management geeks…

Looking forward to speaking again via Skype on the 10 th December!

Nick Poole
Chief Executive, Collections Trust

nick@collectionstrust.org.uk

http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole

twitter @NickPoole1

The Evolution of Museums

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