Inventorying Cultural Heritage Collections

Inventorying Cultural Heritage Collections PDF Author: Sandra Vanderwarf
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538107260
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
This two-part text opens with an argument few collections practitioners would contest: Regular inventories are central to meaningful, sustainable, and ethical collections preservation and access. But Vanderwarf and Romanowski argue that in practice—some 25 years working with diverse collections between them—inventories are uncommon: instead of functioning as a commonplace feature of collections care, they tend to be evoked as a last resort when a museum has lost control of its collection. Part I offers a flexible project management framework that illustrates strategies for reining in control of collections now. From identifying objectives that best serve the collection in question to securing stakeholder support and planning time and resources, Part I eliminates some guesswork around what may be an unprecedented and intensive project. To maintain the benefits of a project-style inventory, the authors then encourage practitioners to embrace inventory as an ongoing, evolving collections care function that reflects changing professional values and expectations from the communities museums serve. By centering computerized databases, barcoding, and digital collections, the authors further acknowledge these technologies as permanent, evolving features of collections and inventory practice that merit increased resourcing. Part II gives voice to practitioners around the world through case studies that affirm the vital role of inventories in regaining control of collections. Some of these inventories occurred during the course of everyday work, while others were responses to natural disasters and armed conflict. Still others may be seen as expressions of social justice. As much as the authors offer a guide to performing inventories, thereby filling a longstanding gap in the literature, they invite cultural heritage institutions to rethink how the stories held in collections can be better told and preserved through enhanced inventory practice. The book will benefit seasoned museum collections practitioners as well as those who lack access to formal museology education and training. The book targets stewards of cultural heritage and material culture collections with varying resources

Inventorying Cultural Heritage Collections

Inventorying Cultural Heritage Collections PDF Author: Sandra Vanderwarf
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538107260
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book Here

Book Description
This two-part text opens with an argument few collections practitioners would contest: Regular inventories are central to meaningful, sustainable, and ethical collections preservation and access. But Vanderwarf and Romanowski argue that in practice—some 25 years working with diverse collections between them—inventories are uncommon: instead of functioning as a commonplace feature of collections care, they tend to be evoked as a last resort when a museum has lost control of its collection. Part I offers a flexible project management framework that illustrates strategies for reining in control of collections now. From identifying objectives that best serve the collection in question to securing stakeholder support and planning time and resources, Part I eliminates some guesswork around what may be an unprecedented and intensive project. To maintain the benefits of a project-style inventory, the authors then encourage practitioners to embrace inventory as an ongoing, evolving collections care function that reflects changing professional values and expectations from the communities museums serve. By centering computerized databases, barcoding, and digital collections, the authors further acknowledge these technologies as permanent, evolving features of collections and inventory practice that merit increased resourcing. Part II gives voice to practitioners around the world through case studies that affirm the vital role of inventories in regaining control of collections. Some of these inventories occurred during the course of everyday work, while others were responses to natural disasters and armed conflict. Still others may be seen as expressions of social justice. As much as the authors offer a guide to performing inventories, thereby filling a longstanding gap in the literature, they invite cultural heritage institutions to rethink how the stories held in collections can be better told and preserved through enhanced inventory practice. The book will benefit seasoned museum collections practitioners as well as those who lack access to formal museology education and training. The book targets stewards of cultural heritage and material culture collections with varying resources

Guidance on Inventory and Documentation of the Cultural Heritage

Guidance on Inventory and Documentation of the Cultural Heritage PDF Author: John Bold
Publisher: Council of Europe
ISBN: 9287165572
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Improved heritage management and the inclusion of heritage in planning and sustainable development processes necessitate inventory and documentation. More than mere scientific tools recommended in international agreements, inventory and documentation play a strategic role. The complexity of the heritage items that now have to be inventoried and their interaction with our everyday living environment require the clear definition and harmonisation of practices at the European level. Through its work in the 1960s, the Council of Europe helped to lay the methodological bases for inventorying architectural, archaeological and movable heritage. The efforts to systematise the process came in answer to the broadening meaning of heritage, and today new considerations lead us to address such notions as heritage groups. The guidelines proposed in this book reflect the work done so far and provide a basis for future research. It is part of a series produced under the Technical Co-operation and Assistance Programme to present the experience derived from the projects implemented by the Council of Europe.

Valuing Your Collection

Valuing Your Collection PDF Author: Freda Matassa
Publisher: Facet Publishing
ISBN: 1783301872
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book addresses the issue of valuing objects in cultural collections, ranging from high-value to low or no-value and featuring a range of collections including fine art, archives, science and photography. Practical advice is given on how to assign values and best practice examples are drawn from museums, libraries and archives. The subject of valuation has always been challenging for museums and public collections and is becoming more urgent as monetary values of many items continue to break records. There is an increase in lending, with more loans requiring a value for insurance. Cultural collections and exhibitions are expanding to all corners of the world, while, at the same time, lenders are becoming more risk-averse. Valuing Your Collection will address the issues and offer some solutions. Content covered includes: questions of valuing public and private cultural collectionsassigning values to individual objects or an entire collectionlegal and ethical considerationsdiscussion of authentication and attributionthe insurance business and valuationguides to valuing different types of collectionsa range of case studies showing valuation across multiple sectorssample templates with criteria for valuing different objects. This book will be useful for curators of cultural collections, professionals in museums, libraries and archives, cultural heritage students, private collectors, those involved with art insurance, art business and anyone requiring practical guidance on valuation.

Collections Vol 9 N2

Collections Vol 9 N2 PDF Author: Collections
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442267852
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
"Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals" is a multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the discussion of all aspects of handling, preserving, researching, and organizing collections. Curators, archivists, collections managers, preparators, registrars, educators, students, and others contribute.

Collections Vol 4 N4

Collections Vol 4 N4 PDF Author: Collections
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442267674
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
"Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals" is a multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the discussion of all aspects of handling, preserving, researching, and organizing collections. Curators, archivists, collections managers, preparators, registrars, educators, students, and others contribute.

Practical Approaches to Collections Care

Practical Approaches to Collections Care PDF Author: Samantha Forsko
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000782816
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
While cultural heritage practitioners and caretakers are often intimidated by "best practices," Practical Approaches to Collections Care helps to alleviate those concerns, offering a stepped approach to preservation encompassing a variety of collections care programs. The author, drawing on over a decade of experience working in libraries, museums, archives, and other historic sites, and specifically building off of her work as a Preservation Specialist at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, discusses realistic, efficient, and sustainable approaches to collection housing, space planning, environmental management, facilities care, emergency preparedness, and much more. Giving examples of implementation and easy-to-follow guides that will allow readers to start from scratch or improve an already existing program, Forsko demonstrates how preservation can become a component of any collections care program. Encouraging the reader to start by taking small, manageable steps, the author shows that even the smallest of actions can make a difference that will ultimately help to preserve collections and ensure that the world’s heritage will remain intact for future generations. Practical Approaches to Collections Care takes an applied approach, making suggestions the reader can immediately implement no matter the size of their institution. It is an essential tool for stewards of cultural heritage collections, particularly collections managers, registrars, and preservation specialists. It will also be useful to students who are engaged in the study of collections care.

A Research Agenda for Cultural Heritage Law

A Research Agenda for Cultural Heritage Law PDF Author: Lucas Lixinski
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1035324423
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This Research Agenda recasts cultural heritage law, emphasising the importance of developing rigorous and socially engaged scholarly research in the field. It analyses tensions and methodologies, using the return of colonial cultural objects as a key case study.

Collections Vol 7 N1

Collections Vol 7 N1 PDF Author: Collections
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442267763
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
"Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals" is a multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the discussion of all aspects of handling, preserving, researching, and organizing collections. Curators, archivists, collections managers, preparators, registrars, educators, students, and others contribute.

The Preservation Management Handbook

The Preservation Management Handbook PDF Author: Ross Harvey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0759123160
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
Cultural heritage professionals—museum curators, museum professionals, archivists and librarians— work with their specialized knowledge to prioritize the needs of their collections. Preservation managers draw on experts in climate control, fire safety, pest management and more in developing the large overview of a collection and its needs. And all the special materials within the collections have their experts too. Here, in one volume, is a wide range of topic-specific expertise that comprises both an enduring text for preservation students as well as an essential one-stop reference for cultural heritage professionals—particularly those in small- to medium sized organizations where resources are limited and professional help is not always at hand. The editors introduce the reader to the essential tools and principles of a preservation management program in the twenty-first century, addressing the realities of diverse collections and materials, and embracing the challenges of working with both analog and digital collections. The sections on planning and managing a preservation program contain the basic starting point for any kind of collection, regardless of size and content. Written with the small collection in mind, the principles are nevertheless scalable and widely applicable.

Collecting and Provenance

Collecting and Provenance PDF Author: Jane Milosch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153812758X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
The study of provenance—the history of the creation and ownership of an artefact, work of art, or specimen—provides insights into the history of taste and collecting, illuminating the social, economic, and historic trends in which an object was created and collected. It is as much a history of people as it is of objects, and its study often reveals intricate networks of relationships, patterns of activity and motivations. This book promotes the study of the history of collecting and collections in all their variety through the lens of provenance, and explores the subject as a cross-disciplinary activity. Perhaps for the first time in a publication, it draws on expertise ranging from art history and anthropology, to natural history and law, looking at periods from antiquity through the 18th century and the Holocaust era to the present, and materials from Europe and the Americas to China and the Pacific. The issues raised are wide-ranging, touching on aspects of authenticity, cultural meaning and material transformation and economic and commercial drivers, as well as collector and object biography. The book fills a gap in the study of collecting and provenance, taking the subject holistically and from multiple standpoints, better to reflect the widening interest in provenance from a range of disciplinary perspectives. This book will be a service to the field, from established scholars and museum professionals to students of collecting history, cultural heritage, and museum studies.