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Date: | Wed, 6 Jan 1999 12:15:32 -0500 |
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I can understand Mr. Scafidi's concern in disseminating too much
information about collections; I had similar concerns when the board
of the Arrow 2000 Project first proposed putting our collections
database on the Web. But consider this: the heart of most museums are
their collections. The mandates of most museums cannot be met by
simply hoarding objects, or by displaying them with no interpretation.
Some information about the object has to be communicated to the
public. Certainly, some information should be extremely limited in
it's circulation (such as personal donor information, financial
information, etc.), but what's the harm in making information that
would be available in your exhibitions available to the everyone with
WWW access? A brief description of the object, plus the object's
accession number, would be enough identification for most Web-visitors
and researchers, and would provide the necessary information for
requests to the institution for more detailed info on any one item.
We have made the decision to put a limited version of our collections
database on our website, but as we are still computerizing our
information (we're still a young museum, just over a year old) and our
website needs some work, we have not yet publicized our collections
info in this manner. I would like to see more dialogue on this
topic--it will help to guide our actions.
Incidentally, a big factor in easing my mind over the decision to put
collections info on our website was seeing what Artefacts Canada has
done with the collections information from museums across Canada.
Interested persons may wish to check this out for themselves at:
http://daryl.chin.gc.ca/Artefacts/e_MasterLayout.cgi?db=1
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Tim McShane
Curatorial Assistant, Parks Canada
(also, Co-Chair of the Museum Division, Arrow 2000 Project)
Views and opinions expressed are entirely my own, and do not
necessarily reflect those of Parks Canada or the Arrow 2000 Project
Association
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