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Articlesintruding enemy. If we search forcommon denominators for all ouritems - fear could be the connectingword in our collection. Perhaps we canfind concepts to use as keywords orfilters when we collect instead ofcollecting and classifying a specificcategory. Let us say that fear plays animportant role when one organizes thearmed forces in a country. (Perhapsfear plays an important role in societyall the time; we have fear of illness,fear of death, fear of being unluckyetc.) Out of the keyword fear we cancollect war heads from the SovietUnion or items from the Swedisharmed forces, and we don’t necessaryneed one of each kind. We needexamples to help us remember. Onekey to collecting items can be to letthem pass through the ‘gate of fear’and to use this gate as a collectingfilter. If it passes it is an item for ourmuseum weather it was used by theSwedes or not.We have more things in societynowadays and we cannot possiblycollect one of each kind as in the 19thcentury when many museums wereborn. Finding keywords would be ofgreat help, and, I therefore ask all ofOne key to collectingitems can be to let thempass through the ‘gate offear’ and to use this gateas a collecting filter.you for such words. An internationalnetwork for collecting issues is gettingstarted called collectingnet where Ihave raised my question as well asnow among my ICOMAM colleagues.We don’t need 2000 pairs of boots tounderstand the idea of a shoe – or dowe? Museums must take control overthe collections – get rid of unidentifiedobjects in the collections - make surethe register works and make sure allitems are included. In the ArmyMuseum we started to take aninventory at high speed, whereby allmuseum objects were registered withshort facts and photograph. Theaverage speed was two hundred itemsa day, as the purpose was to get aquick overview. Fifteen personsworked together – moved andcontrolled and checked almost100,000 objects. This was possible aswe got extra money to do this but alsothrough very strict work. We only didwhat we had to do. If we had addedone minute extra to each object theproject would have needed an extraeight months in the end. The UFO’sare identified and can be seen at ourwebsite www.armemuseum.se inSwedish – but hopefully in English inthe near future. And now, knowingwhat we have, we are more active incollecting issues.ISSUE 01 MAGAZINE 27