Collections reviews
Many museums have objects or collections that are underused or not used at all. This can be for a variety of reasons:
- over-enthusiastic collecting - or can't say no to anything that was offered
- collected for the display or exhibition that never was
- the purpose (or ‘Mission’) of your museum has changed over the years and objects that were responsibly collected in the past are no longer relevant
A first step in ensuring your collections remain relevant, sustainable and accessible is to conduct a Collections Review. This consists of five main stages:
- Curatorial review
- Use
- Significance
- Collections care
- Museum context
A review can help enhance collections through better use at your museum or by disposal, transfer or loan of the collection to an appropriate alternative location. It can identify ways of freeing up resources and reassigning them to manage and improve the core collections.
The MA also publish articles on Collections Reviews in Museum Practice and offer funding via their Effective Collections programme.
For other methodologies and resources click here for the Australian Collection Council’s Significance 2.0or here at Collections Link and University College London have published their toolkit here
If you want to discuss or offeer any case studies for our web site contact the Collections Development Manager.