WHAT IS COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT POLICY?
These are policies that ensure museums, collections institutions or individual collectors define how they handle their collections. The policies explain how you should handle your art collection and care for each piece.
Collection management policy details the protocols for loaning or removing objects from your collection. This ensures that you don’t skip any necessary procedure in collections management.
WHAT IS COLLECTIONS DOCUMENTATION?
Collection documentation includes permanent records and related evidence of care in the lifetime of individual artwork objects in your collection.
The records may include each object’s preservation, acquisition, preservation, management, intellectual use, and display details. The documentation protects the information and data about your collection for security reasons.
WHAT IS OBJECT CATALOGUING?
Cataloguing involves taking records of objects in your collection such as description, history and other details. It also involves recording specific details in the life of artwork objects such as location changes, handling requirements, accessioning, condition reports, loan history, and exhibition history.
WHAT ITEMS ARE INCLUDED IN A CATALOGUE RECORD?
A catalogue record features various items. They include an object’s accession number for linking it to the record as a unique identifier, the maker of the object or artist, object name or title, names of the manufacturer’s geographic location, cultural affiliation with the maker or artist, and materials.
Others include object classification, dimensions, location, and provenance, including condition.
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF A COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS)?
This is a software or application developed to support conservation documentation organization, collection objects’ cataloguing and management, loans and exhibitions planning and management, publishing online collections, and digital assets management.
Good management policies of collections and a sound CMS are key to improving care of objects in your collection. A CMS also allows for the creation of a digital strategy to help you sort and manage data regarding your collections efficiently.