A Tweet a Day Keeps Museum Documentation Ready to Play!
Most work done behind the scenes in a museum is not visible to the public eye. But there is one field that is literally invisible: good museum documentation! Rupert Shepherd @rgs1510 Museum documentation manager @HornimanMuseum started an initiative:
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I propose everyone working in #MuseumDocumentation tweets once a day what they’re doing & why it’s important using this hashtag. Please RT!
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What a cool idea! Museum documentation is commonly believed to be a boring field – even by museum professionals. Can a twitter initiative reveal what museum documentation is and why it is vital for museums? Even the first tweets show how broad the range and responsibility of museum documentation is:
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Finishing checking exhibition list is correct and all locations up to date for http://www.horniman.ac.uk/get_involved/news/at-home-with-music-at-the-horniman … @HornimanMuseum #MuseumDocumentation
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@NickPoole1 Also just added image comparison to our public @iipimage viewer http://research.ng-london.org.uk/projects/exhibitions/the-sunflowers/images/N-3863-00-000053/5/0.74274/0.38432/0/1/tv/117/L-1162-00-000004/5/0.74345/0.4381/0/1 … #MuseumDocumentation
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Weekly back-up of collection management system to txt-file, to be able to help in “ooops-I-accidentally…”-situations. #museumdocumentation
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Today starts with measuring new acquisitions for the @HornimanMuseum handling collection #MuseumDocumentation pic.twitter.com/mDvwt5HXbQ -
“Portrait of a Man” full length figure of a man, white knee-length robe… 1978.069.002 #New #MuseumDocumentation pic.twitter.com/J8kYNBnio3 -
While these tweets are more or less what to expect, there were some that enhanced view on the work behind the scenes:
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Explaining, why “Let’s just look through the storage instead of database” is not the best idea. #museumdocumentation pic.twitter.com/EUNNPJWNTN -
Yes, yes, yes! This picture says more than 1,000 words. A good data base is the good friend of the collection manager. It leaves the artifacts safe and sound in the storage because all important information can be found with a few clicks on the computer.
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Reviewing some of our coffee pots @HornimanMuseum #ITweetMuseums #MuseumDocumentation pic.twitter.com/1H3cBK6k6i -
What's also great about this initiative is that you get an impression of all the fantastic people who work in museum documentation:
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Mary & Norman getting to grips with the museum database & object condition reports. #museumdocumentation pic.twitter.com/myaokY1VHl -
Assistant Curator Jack is photographing Greek costume today! Such lovely things. #MuseumDocumentation pic.twitter.com/7PpQlsIfxd -
Although it sometimes leads us into a common problem of terminoly: Are the following fine people all working in museum documentation or is it a museum documentation of the staff @BrooksMuseum
Whatever it may be: You are a wonderful bunch of colleagues! -
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Museum documentation is a serious business. But we take our humor where we find it…
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I’m think of a Chas &Dave song every time it comes to documenting these #Museumdocumentation pic.twitter.com/ZNGneWf4IU -
#MuseumDocumentation …. At least the writing is legible pic.twitter.com/cpKwmT7bUl -
And sometimes a oh-so-true picture leads to a cascade of memories…
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#museumdocumentation because otherwise this pic.twitter.com/mkjjQrgqZH -
.@erikajoy Been there… “capacitors, electrolytic, 48 parts” and colleague says “oh, I remember they came with some of the radios”…
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@erikajoy @RegistrarTrek my favorite is “assorted random ephemera”. Thanks, Captain McVague!
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@BergFulton @erikajoy same as “some parts of some machine” (facepalm)
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@RegistrarTrek @BergFulton the best I found was “something old”… Literally the only description of it. Never to be found lol
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@erikajoy @RegistrarTrek hah, love that. Much like “it is blue.” Sometimes I hope & pray it’s a prank, Punkd style or something
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@BergFulton @RegistrarTrek have had “wot not” s. And not the furniture kind!
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@KateR0sered @RegistrarTrek @erikajoy hah, that can be read in a v different way in American English…
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@BergFulton @RegistrarTrek @erikajoy I think it can be read in a different way in ANY kind of English!
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So, I hope this storify informed you that tweeting #museumdocumentation is both useful and fun. This will be a fantastic project and I hope many people working in documentation will join. A great sign is that it is not limited to English. There is at least one German entry I found:
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MT @MuseumStuttgart: Wir fragten: schneiden, falzen oder knicken? Die Antwort: http://ow.ly/tzXlZ
#MuseumDocumentation #crowdsourcing -
I think more will follow when the project becomes wider known. Don't forget to read the fantastic blog entry Rupert Shepherd wrote for the Horniman Museum Blog:
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Our Documentation team is led by @rgs1510. He’s written a blog trying to raise the profile of #MuseumDocumentation – http://bit.ly/MuseumDocumentation …
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So, if you are into museum documentation I hope you will contribute using the #museumdocumentation so the public can learn why our job is so important. It's a fact that museum documentation normally only is visible if it's done wrong. Let's do something about it, so people will know how it looks if it's done right!
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Cheers!
Angela
storify.com