these are some thoughts that I am bouncing about as I try to put a paper
together. I would welcome any criticisms:
1. yes, documentation is mind blowingly tedious, and a great deal of the
human resources ploughed into it disappear into the ether, never to be of
any further use to anybody. It is also however potentially one of the
most interesting and creative aspects of museum work - because its
content is that of vast creative potential
2. Why?
a] by removing the need for specialist curators - ie the need for
curators to walk around with their heads full of the dates, grid
references, dimensions, owners, historical associations etc relating to
their collection (they can retrieve them at the touch of a button), they
can allocate more of their brains to thimking creatively and
imaginatively about the stories they tell (documentation systems as big
virtual memory caches)
b] the way in which systems retrieve data (if it is ok in the first
place) is non-professional, and neutral - ie they can search across a
number of specialist discipines, and give equal priority to different
categories of information. This makes it easier to develop thematic
displays relating to human acticity and experience, rather than academic
categories.
c] they can, through public access both on site and over the 'net,
involve a great deal more people in telling the stories about the
collection, and contributing information. They can extend the organic
base of any collection related project, bring in new perspectives, make
bigger teams.
3. But it's not happening:
a] systems are still too technical and clumsy - only a few can use them.
We might replace the hegemony of the curator with the hegemony of the
geek.
b] systems reflect the existing hierarchies and prejudices (eg the Quixis
system which places 'curator's information' in a higher field than
'researcher's information'. They are also far too object centred, rather
than exploring their potential to relate to human elements - we do not
want simply a faster index card system, but a qualitative change in
documentary records.
c] systems have under-utilized new technology such as AI and Multimedia,
to really put data to use.
4. we need to extend ownership of documentation/information to realize
its full potential
Any comments?
Nat Edwards, the Open Museum
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