It's that time again when many museums and galleries across England will be focusing on their next NPO application and working out what their priorities are for the next round. If we could make one plea to museums as they prepare their bid, it would be this: commit to achieving and maintaining 100% inventory-level documentation of your collections.
I know that might not sound as exciting as talking about audiences, participation, social impact or digital innovation. Nor is it an easy fix – I understand that well enough from my own museums. But the older I get, the more convinced I become that so many of our ambitions depend on getting the basics right first.
The Collections Trust has put this challenge at the heart of its strategic plan, setting out an ambition for all Accredited museums to achieve and maintain inventory-level documentation. For me, that shouldn't just be a Collections Trust ambition. It should be a sector ambition.
Because before we can tell stories with collections, before we can share them online, before we can engage communities in interpreting them, before we can use AI, before we can support research, before we can even properly care for them, we need to know what we have. It sounds obvious, but I don't think we talk about it enough.
Museums are increasingly being asked to demonstrate public impact. We need to show how collections improve lives, contribute to education, support wellbeing, foster belonging and generate new knowledge – but before we can do any of that we need confidence in our collections data. Because if we don't know what we hold, where it is, what condition it is in, or what stories it can tell, everything else becomes harder.
The museums that are able to do really ambitious things with their collections are usually the museums that have invested in understanding them first. That isn't glamorous work. It is painstaking, often repetitive and rarely generates headlines. But it is some of the most important work we do.
Advertisement
Most of us inherited collections and documentation systems that weren't designed for the expectations museums face today. Many museums are still dealing with documentation backlogs that have built up over decades. The Collections Trust's emphasis on initiatives such as Banish the Backlog recognises just how widespread this challenge is across the sector. We shouldn't be embarrassed about that, but we should be ambitious about addressing it.
In the same way that we would never accept a major financial system where we couldn't account for significant assets, we shouldn't accept collections systems that leave us uncertain about what we hold. Funders increasingly talk about resilience and sustainability. Achieving robust inventory documentation is one of the clearest examples of both.
Another conversation I think we need to have more openly is about disposal. It's a subject that can still make people uncomfortable, but I have come to believe that thoughtful and ethical disposal is a sign of healthy collections management, not poor collections management. Museums have finite resources, finite storage, finite (or increasingly little) conservation capacity and finite staff time. We cannot simply keep acquiring without thinking about the long-term consequences.
Good stewardship is not just about bringing objects in. It is also about making informed decisions about what we continue to hold and why. Sometimes the most responsible thing a museum can do is transfer material to another organisation where it is more relevant, more accessible or better used. The Collections Trust's strategic vision includes work to make disposals more efficient and auditable, recognising their role within strategic collections management. If we are serious about sustainable collections, disposal needs to be part of the discussion.
We also fully understand that the world is increasingly digital, which is why our strategy focuses on digital infrastructure and FAIR data principles – data that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The vision recognises that inventory-level documentation is only the beginning. Museums are encouraged to build richer collections information over time, share data more effectively and participate in wider national infrastructure initiatives such as the Museum Data Service (MDS).
The next round of NPO applications presents a significant opportunity. Museums should absolutely continue to champion audiences, inclusion, participation and learning. Those things matter enormously. But I would encourage every museum leader, trustee and funder to recognise that strong collections management is not separate from those ambitions. It is what enables them.
Advertisement
Imagine what could be achieved if every museum committed to the simple but powerful goal of 100% inventory-level documentation. Imagine the research opportunities, the increased public access and the ability to share collections nationally and internationally. The sector talks a great deal about transformation. Perhaps one of the most transformative things we could do is return to the fundamentals of knowing what we hold, where it is and why it matters.
That is why we believe achieving 100% inventory should become one of the defining ambitions for museums over the next decade – and why we hope to see it reflected prominently in NPO applications across the country.
Laura Pye is the director of National Museums Liverpool and chair of the Collections Trust
I completely agree with what Laura Pye has stated above, but when there is only one of you with all the other pulls on your time, requirements to get jobs done, then the ‘can we have this on display for next week?’ requests and general enquiries, entry level documentation is all I have largely been able to achieve in the last decade or two. At least I have achieved that, but because I now have so much other information in my head about the collections, archives and photo archives it is a struggle to get it all down on to a usable system before I end up retiring in next 5 years? Museum Data Service will be a big help with that, but it will only be basic documentation for tens of thousands of objects, because basic documentation was what I inherited from my predecessors! My only other comment is: should not this article be directed (in particular) at some of the big institutions such as the British Museum, especially in light of their particular failures in this area which allowed for the theft of so many artefacts that had not ever been catalogued? The big institutions set themselves up as the leading lights, but it is evident they cannot lead by example. In my opinion the BM should have had its Accreditation withdrawn until such time as it got itself in a better place! If the smaller museums had worked like that and such thefts had occurred they would immediately have had Accreditation withdrawn, but apparently that does not apply when it is the BM!
Well said Laura for stating that the ambition of all museums should be a 100% inventory. Knowing what you have and where to find it is fundamental to every collection and should be at the heart of everything we do. The recent report from the Heritage Fund and the MA’s Collections for the Future state clearly that nothing can be achieved in collections development, use and access, and even attracting funding without a full account of the objects in our care. Laura states that this is not glamorous work but in my experience of helping under-resourced museums as a contract collections manager with Matassa Toffolo, undertaking an inventory is a work of great satisfaction and bringing order into chaos (or backlog) often leads to a new-found appreciation and new uses of the collection. And once the inventory is established it is far easier to keep it up to date.
I absolutely agree with all of your points Laura and can entirely sympathise with Sarah Williams.
I volunteer at my local museum – a charitable trust which also receives money from our local authority.
Cataloguing was my profession, and yes, I had to lobby hard for cataloguing to be taken seriously as a valid and fundamentally important (transferable) skill, which enhanced search and discovery and facililitated collection management.
On my retirement from HE I relished the opportinity to describe and classify museum objects and archival resources as opposed to books.
Our collections are AMAZING but presently no one knows this but the staff and volunteers …
Sadly, 4 years on we still don’t have a CMS.
Lack of staff time, financial crises and the general reactivity and precarity of the Museum sector has seen the task of documenting the collections slip down the list of priorities.
We rely instead on searching catalogue cards/ Object Entry Forms and a data dump in CSV format (for a proportion of the collections) from the previously used system, to try and get a handle on what we have and where it might reside.
Regarding the MDS, it’s a great idea; but for us contributing data will only ever be an aspiration unless we see a concerted effort by the Sector to level the playing field via-a-vis data creation, management and sharing.
Residing in Wales I am hopeful that we can do something as a national initiative – time will tell …
Meanwhile our extensive museum, archival and library collections remain hidden from our community – the very people who could bring them to life.
Perhaps there is room here for the MA, the Collections Trust and AIM to collaborate to create a practical programme for tackling the Backlog?
There is afterall an ethical imperative to documentation. If we hold collections in trust for our communities then surely we have the responsibility to share them with that community by documenting and describing the objects and resources that we have accrued?
The Cataloguing Code of Ethics 2021 has 10 clear statements that encapsulate what we do (or should be doing) and why.
https://sites.google.com/view/cataloging-ethics/home