Determining research significance in archaeological collections from historic sites

This thesis presents a model for assessing the research significance of Australian historical archaeological collections. It identifies the criteria, and provides step-by-step guidelines, for conducting such an assessment. The model is an important tool for managing and justifying the long term preservation of increasing numbers of archaeological collections.

Archeological collections management at Minute Man National Historical Park, Massachusetts /

Includes bibliographies.

A site planning brief for Dickson Mounds Museum.

"7 Aug. 2000"--Prelim. page.

Popular official guide to the Royal botanic gardens, including an historic notice and descriptions of the collections in the botanic gardens proper, the glasshouses, museums and arboretum.

At head of title: Royal botanic gardens, Kew.

Narratives Around Iberian Culture at Valencia Museums and Archaeological Sites: From Official Discourses to Social Perceptions

Museums and archaeological sites are considered the most authoritative places for talking about the past and the heritage from a scientific perspective. In fact, visitors assume their discourses as reliable and indisputable. In spite of that, professionals of archaeology must critically analyse the production of narratives at heritage sites, since they often reflect social, political and identity issues related to the present-day realities. The aim of this paper is to study official and popular discourses about the Iberian culture (Iron Age) collected in museums and archaeological sites from Valencia region.

Museums and quality, from the concept of the museum that carries out functions to the museum that provides services

Quality management Self-evaluation of the organisation Citizens/customers satisfaction Impact on society evaluation Key performance evaluation Good practices comparison (Benchmarking) Continuous improvement In professional environments, when quality assessment of museums is discussed, one immediately thinks of the honourableness of the directors and curators, the erudition and specialisation of knowledge, the diversity of the gathered material and study of the collections, the collections conservation methods and environmental control, the regularity and notoriety of the exhibitions and artists, the building’s architecture and site, the recreation of environments, the museographic equipment design. We admit that the roles and attributes listed above can contribute to the definition of a specificity of museological good practice within a hierarchised functional perspective (the museum functions) and for the classification of museums according to a scale, validated between peers, based on “installed” appreciation criteria, enforced from above downwards, according to the “prestige” of the products and of those who conceive them, but that say nothing about the effective satisfaction of the citizen/customers and the real impact on society. There is a lack of evaluation instruments that would give us a return of all that the museum is and represents in contemporary society, focused on being and on the relation with the other, in detriment of the ostentatious possession and of the doing in order to meet one’s duties. But it is only possible to evaluate something by measurement and comparison, on the basis of well defined criteria, from a common grid, implicating all of the actors in the self-evaluation, in the definition of the aims to fulfil and in the obtaining of results.

Collecting diversity: the changing relationships between museums and culturally diverse communities

 Much of the focus of scholarship around cultural diversity and museums has taken the advent of multiculturalism in 1973 as a starting point. However, public museums also collected and exhibited items relating to culturally diverse communities from the time they were set up from the 1850s onwards, and my research seeks to produce a pre-history of contact between museums, governments and culturally diverse communities and individuals. By using objects and collections life histories from the time they enter the museum for collection and/ or exhibition purposes, I will analyse the way that these relationships have changed over time. One case study is of the gamelan Digul, parts of which are currently on display in the Australian Journeys gallery at the National Museum of Australia. The gamelan Digul first entered the collection of the National Museum of Victoria in 1946 when the museum accepted the donation of these musical instruments from Indonesians who were being deported after World War II. The gamelan remained in this collection until 1976 when it was deacessioned to Monash University who restored and exhibited it in 1999. The National Museum of Australia borrowed some instruments from the gamelan in 2009. Some of the questions I will explore are: What were the motivations behind the former political prisoners/ Indonesian citizens in donating the gamelan Digul to the National Museum of Victoria and why did the museum accept it? Why was the gamelan Digul deaccessioned to Monash University?  How does the display of these instruments at the NMA represent the historical Indonesian communities in Australia which was deported? 

Commissioning for purpose: investigating commissioning as a collecting strategy for municipal museums and galleries 2000-present

The use of the ‘commission-accession’ principle as a mechanism for sustainable collecting in public museums and galleries has been significantly under-researched, only recently soliciting attention from national funding bodies in the United Kingdom (UK). This research has assessed an unfolding situation and provided a body of current evaluative evidence for commission-based acquisitions and a model for curators to use in future contemporary art purchases. ‘Commission-accession’ is a practice increasingly used by European and American museums yet has seen little uptake in the UK. Very recent examples demonstrate that new works produced via commissioning which then enter permanent collections, have significant financial and audience benefits that UK museums could harness, by drawing on the expertise of local and national commissioning organisations. Very little evaluative information is available on inter-institutional precedents in the United States (US) or ‘achat par commande’ in France. Neither is there yet literature that investigates the ambition for and viability of such models in the UK. This thesis addresses both of these areas, and provides evaluative case studies that will be of particular value to curators who seek sustainable ways to build their contemporary art collections. It draws on a survey of 82 museums and galleries across the UK conducted for this research, which provide a picture of where and how ‘commission-accession’ has been applied, and demonstrates its impacts as a strategy. In addition interviews with artists and curators in the UK, US and France on the social, economic and cultural implications of ‘commission-accession’ processes were undertaken. These have shed new light on issues inherent to the commissioning of contemporary art such as communication, trust, and risk as well as drawing attention to the benefits and challenges involved in commissioning as of yet unmade works of art.

Using the semantic grid to build bridges between museums and indigenous communities

In this paper we describe a Semantic Grid application designed to enable museums and indigenous communities in distributed locations, to collaboratively discuss, describe and annotate digital objects and documents in museums that originally belonged to or are of cultural or historical significance to indigenous groups. By extending and refining an existing application, Vannotea, we enable users on access grid nodes to collaboratively attach descriptive, rights and tribal care metadata and annotations to digital images, video or 3D representations. The aim is to deploy the software within museums to enable the traditional owners to describe and contextualize museum content in their own words and from their own perspectives. This sharing and exchange of knowledge will hopefully revitalize cultures eroded through colonization and globalization and repair and strengthen relationships between museums and indigenous communities.

Collaborating to develop research data management services and collections

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Library, like many other academic and research institution libraries in Australia, has been collaborating with a range of academic and service provider partners to develop a range of research data management services and collections. Three main strategies are being employed and an overview of process, infrastructure, usage and benefits is provided of each of these service aspects. The development of processes and infrastructure to facilitate the strategic identification and management of QUT developed datasets has been a major focus. A number of Australian National Data Service (ANDS) sponsored projects - including Seeding the Commons; Metadata Hub / Store; Data Capture and Gold Standard Record Exemplars have / will provide QUT with a data registry system, linkages to storage, processes for identifying and describing datasets, and a degree of academic awareness. QUT supports open access and has established a culture for making its research outputs available via the QUT ePrints institutional repository. Incorporating open access research datasets into the library collections is an equally important aspect of facilitating the adoption of data-centric eresearch methods. Some datasets are available commercially, and the library has collaborated with QUT researchers, in the QUT Business School especially strongly, to identify and procure a rapidly growing range of financial datasets to support research. The library undertakes licensing and uses the Library Resource Allocation to pay for the subscriptions. It is a new area of collection development for with much to be learned. The final strategy discussed is the library acting as “data broker”. QUT Library has been working with researchers to identify these datasets and undertake the licensing, payment and access as a centrally supported service on behalf of researchers.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centres in experience-scapes

In the experience economy, the role of art museums has evolved so as to cater to global cultural tourists. These institutions were traditionally dedicated to didactic functions, and served cognoscenti with elite cultural tastes that were aligned with the avant-garde’s autonomous stance towards mass culture. In a post-avant-garde era however museums have focused on appealing to a broad clientele that often has little or no knowledge of historical or contemporary art. Many of these tourists want art to provide entertaining and novel experiences, rather than receiving pedagogical ‘training’. In response, art museums are turning into ‘experience venues’ and are being informed by ideas associated with new museology, as well as business approaches like Customer Experience Management. This has led to the provision of populist entertainment modes, such as blockbuster exhibitions, participatory art events, jazz nights, and wine tasting, and reveals that such museums recognize that today’s cultural tourist is part of an increasingly diverse and populous demographic, which shares many languages and value systems. As art museums have shifted attention to global tourists, they have come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. The art museum now seems ideally suited to tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure forums. These include sites such as Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, and the Chateau La Coste winery and hotel complex in Provence. It can be argued that in a global experience economy, art museums have become experience centres in experience-scapes. This paper will examine the nature of the tourist experience in relation to the new art museum, and the latter’s increasingly important role in attracting tourists to urban and regional cultural precincts.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centers in experiencescapes

Art museums are playing an important role is attracting cultural tourists to global cities and regions. Traditionally, art museums were primarily known for their didactic role. In a post-avant-garde era however museums are more focused on appealing to a broader clientele that want art to be novel and entertaining. Art museums have also come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. This is because they are ideally suited for tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences, and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure platforms. These "experiencescapes" include Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Shanghai Bund, and the Broad project in Los Angeles. The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart Australia is a boutique player in the global market for experiencescapes. It is smaller than many of its competitors and is situated in a remote part of the world, yet it has made an important contribution to Tasmania’s tourism industry.