>
>I am on a task force at the National Museum of American History trying to
>define what the minimum amount of documentation is needed to make our objects
>useful to the telling of our story. What do you in the field consider the
>minimum? What is the "practical ideal." Does information storage technology
>have an impact on the data collected? How far beyond administrative and
>descriptive data should we go in documenting a historic object? What is the
>best means of making this collected documentation accessible to the museum's
>staff, scholars and the public? What forms might this documentation take?
>Photographs? digital images? Letters? Journal articles? Catalog worksheets?
>Computer files?
>
>Any answers?
>
 
I do not think that there is any easy answer to your question as each object
has different needs.
 
As a person who works in small museums I have found that we probably do to
much documenting. The reason often sited for much of the detail in cataloguing
is that researchers would need the material and yet in my experience few if
any researchers request information at small museums. The usual request is
from family members of the donor.
 
I have come to the conclusion that the most important information is historic
use rather than how many centimeters the spout of the tea pot is.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Lee Boyko Sooke Region Museum [log in to unmask]