The campaign aims to take forward work done by the Museums Association's 2005 report, Collections for the Future, and the report by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Understanding the Future: Museums and 21st Century Life.
'Over the next year, we want to have a dialogue with the sector about the direction of museums' information and we want to see an action plan come out of it,' said Nick Poole, the MDA's director.
Poole wants to see the action plan in place in time for the Comprehensive Spending Review in 2007, so that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) can lobby DCMS for increased resources for collections management.
He is also hoping that available funding channels such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Arts and Humanities Research Council will support the campaign.
Reena Suleman, the curator of collections research at Leighton House Museum and a member of the Collections for All steering committee, backed the development of the campaign, but had reservations about its practicality in the short term.
'It sounds fantastic in principle, but I'm not sure how many museums will sign up to it,' she said. 'Thinking strategically is great, but, before widening access, museums need to address the cataloguing backlog. Broader and more diverse interpretation needs resources.'
Suleman helped oversee the relaunch of the Leighton House Museum website with a reinterpretation of the museum's Arab Hall and the introduction of an artist in residence as part of the Revisiting Collections project run by Archives, Libraries and Museums, London (ALM).
This work is also being used as a pilot for a new initiative: Documentation for Diversity, which is a collaboration between ALM London and the MDA, and is part of Collections for All. It launches on 3 November and aims to encourage museums to look again at their collections and document the wider cultural significance of objects.
Patrick Steel
'Over the next year, we want to have a dialogue with the sector about the direction of museums' information and we want to see an action plan come out of it,' said Nick Poole, the MDA's director.
Poole wants to see the action plan in place in time for the Comprehensive Spending Review in 2007, so that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) can lobby DCMS for increased resources for collections management.
He is also hoping that available funding channels such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Arts and Humanities Research Council will support the campaign.
Reena Suleman, the curator of collections research at Leighton House Museum and a member of the Collections for All steering committee, backed the development of the campaign, but had reservations about its practicality in the short term.
'It sounds fantastic in principle, but I'm not sure how many museums will sign up to it,' she said. 'Thinking strategically is great, but, before widening access, museums need to address the cataloguing backlog. Broader and more diverse interpretation needs resources.'
Suleman helped oversee the relaunch of the Leighton House Museum website with a reinterpretation of the museum's Arab Hall and the introduction of an artist in residence as part of the Revisiting Collections project run by Archives, Libraries and Museums, London (ALM).
This work is also being used as a pilot for a new initiative: Documentation for Diversity, which is a collaboration between ALM London and the MDA, and is part of Collections for All. It launches on 3 November and aims to encourage museums to look again at their collections and document the wider cultural significance of objects.
Patrick Steel
