Hi and welcome back on Registrar Trek. Although I am not around that frequently anymore due to real life and also due to my new job, the registrar’s community is still close to my heart.
So, what is going on right now?
I am very glad I can announce that the second edition of Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections is hot off the press. You can get it on a bookstore close by, at Rowman&Littlefield https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538190654/Managing-Previously-Unmanaged-Collections-A-Practical-Guide-for-Museums-Second-Edition or of course over Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Previously-Unmanaged-Collections-Practical-ebook/dp/B0D7R1N7KC/
I did a presentation about what is new with Museum Study LLC in November. You can watch the recording here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2BOt8S17M
I am also very glad that right now negotiations are going on to have it translated into Spanish. Right now it is just a matter of finding a fitting publisher, the translators are at the ready. By the way, this time around I secured the publishing rights for all other languages than English, so if you happen to know an interested publisher in your own language…
I was also very happy to hear from Susan Maltby, who was my conservator’s second pair of eyes in the first edition https://world.museumsprojekte.de/unmanaged-collections-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends/ She has contributed to a great new resource called “Collections Management as Critical Museum Practice”, edited by Cara Krmpotich and Alice Stevenson, that is published as free PDF here: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/collections-management-as-critical-museum-practice/
You’ll find her article “Public art and artefacts – who cares: caring for art and artefacts in the public realm; ethical considerations “ on page 401, but the whole thing is well worth a read. Trying to sum it up would be likely just rewording what is said better by Christina Kreps from the University of Denver, Colorado:
“A groundbreaking volume that critically assesses collections management from alternative perspectives. The book’s contributors destabilize the orthodoxy of “best practices” by shifting the focus to culturally appropriate models of stewardship, pushing for a more integrated, holistic praxis. Reaching beyond the typical domains of collections management, chapters cover the most salient topics in museology today. A “must read” for museum anthropology and museum studies students, practitioners, and scholars.“
A fun thing happened. I got lost in Rome. Okay, no, that is not the fun thing about it, the fun thing is that I missed the right way to the European Registrars Conference and while completely unnecessarily climbing one of those famous hills the city was founded upon, I met another registrar on her way to the conference. While finding our right way together, it turned out that Sandy Esne is more than just a registrar (okay, you could argue that this is more than enough, it is a job for two people, but you know what I mean), in her free time she also writes fiction! Her protagonist Alex Philothea gets herself caught in quite an adventure that involves Ancient Egypt, magic, mysteries, crimes… I am not saying more. You can find her KHNM series here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5NWH5FW
And speaking of books… A friend of mine who isn’t in the museum business (yes, they do exist!) is currently writing a riveting and fun book that has a curator and collections manager as main hero. It also involves Ancient Egypt and the collective registrars’ trauma of a borrowed object suddenly missing from an exhibition. It gets even more nightmarish if you think that a 7 feet statue of Ramses II one morning simply isn’t there anymore. Statues can’t simply walk away. Or can they?
I am a consultant for this project, making sure he doesn’t write something completely off about our profession while giving him enough artistic license to make it still a fun read for the public (Read: I infodump him with long explanations about loan agreements and condition reporting and he then writes “it’s on loan”.). I’ll keep you posted when it is out.
What else is going on? In February I will do my course on Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections for Museum Study LLC https://www.museumstudy.com/managing-previously-unmanaged-collections and there are still seats available. I am looking forward to Collective Imagination, Gallery Systems’ user conference which this time around is “at home” in Berlin and where I will do a few workshops and presentations https://ci.gallerysystems.com/. Otherwise, I am trying not to be too pessimistic about the future, which gets increasingly hard to do, given the current state of the world. But I am trying to focus on the good things and our profession and the sense of community I feel whenever I get a chance to meet some of you is definitely among those.
Have a good start into the New Year 2025!
Angela