Mike Jones - Somehow the Vital Connection is Made: Developing Generous Collection Data
Channel: NDF - National Digital Forum
Date: 29/11/2017

Tuesday November 21, 2017 14:30 - 14:55 
Rangimarie 2, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 

For as long as there have been museums some have been concerned by the lack of information available to the public. In 1784, William Hutton was aggrieved when he found the British Museum showed objects with no context, and little more than their names attached. More than a century later, David Murray (1904) noted that museum visitors were keen to know more of the history of the curiosities they had come to see; and Benjamin Gilman (1918) asserted that museums should to do more than just set out their contents to be looked at; they needed to provide interpretation. Today, another century down the line, there are more ways we can interact with and explore museums and archives than ever before. Physical institutions and printed catalogues remain, along with online collections, APIs, triplestores, immersive collection browsers, and virtual reality galleries. But the institutional collection data used to drive such innovations has in many cases not kept up with technological change, and increasingly fails to meet the needs of researchers working with museums and archives inside and outside institutions. Meanwhile, key knowledge about collections and the connections between objects, archives, publications and other resources often remains trapped in narrative text, or the heads and personal filing systems of researchers and institutional staff. While some links may be inferred by other means, much of this work relies on the knowledge, experience and interpretive intelligence of people. This paper will argue that, when pursuing digital innovations, we should not take the foundational data of our institutions as a given. Instead, we need to work toward an expanded view of collection description and documentation, one which encompasses rich connectivity, relationality, and the complex structures required to represent contemporary understandings of collections-based knowledge. Through the use of key examples, and drawing on three years of research (including numerous interviews, and visits to more than fifty museums and archives) the author will explore what generous collection data might look like, opening up new possibilities for participatory practice and digital research.


Mike Jones
Mike Jones is a Consultant Research Archivist at the University of Melbourne's eScholarship Research Centre, a PhD Candidate with the University’s School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, a Research Associate at Museum Victoria, and a freelance consultant. Since 2008 he has worked as a researcher and consultant on numerous paper-based and digital archival projects, and with academics, government departments, community organisations and the GLAM sector to explore the potential of structured informatic systems to support organisational and public knowledge. His PhD research looks at the history of archives in museums, and investigates new approaches for capturing, managing and disseminating interconnected artefactual and archival collections. @mikejonesmelb