Samdok - Nordiska museet

connecting collecting: merritt
could acquire, and why, they will be more likely to find
the funds to make the purchase possible. Similarly, a wellarticulated
case for why the museum wants this object,
and how it will help the museum deliver on its mission,
and interpret its chosen themes, can help the museum
convince an individual donor to support its acquisition.
Another important decision made in the process of
collections planning is the strategies the museum will
pursue in building its collections. Some museums aggressively
raise funds to purchase collections, and if this
is to be their approach, it has to be integrated into their
development and financial planning. Other museums
don’t have such resources and build their collections
passively, by accepting donations. But without an effective
filter, such a strategy is likely to result in the modern
equivalent of a cabinet of curiosities – an interesting assemblage
of objects that fill the storage room to capacity
but don’t support the thorough exploration of any coherent
stories or themes.
Participants at the National Collections Planning
Colloquium discussed how these strategies might explicitly
include collections sharing or niche partitioning
– effectively, joint planning by two or more museums.
Maritime museums, in particular, are ahead of the curve
in recognizing that they cannot each take on huge collections,
perhaps because the collections they care for are so
inherently unstable and expensive to care for. And they
have led the way in their plans in identifying what they
will not collect – areas that may be covered by sister institutions.
Joint planning might mean a museum can obtain
these collections by loan when they need them, or it may
mean they actually partition areas of interpretation, so
they are not addressing stories or issues covered by other
museums serving the same audiences.
And last but not least, because a collections plan is
actually going to be implemented in real time and not
just a vision or a wish list, it has to be translated into
concrete action steps. One of the most important steps
is assessment of needed resources – and not just the
money to purchase collections. A museum might need to
assess the available storage space and find out if it needs
to be expanded, or if other collections need to be deaccessioned
to make room for higher priority material. An
assessment may reveal the need for new conservation
facilities or training, for specialized preparation equipment,
or increased security. And, if planning shows that
these resources cannot be obtained, then the museum
may have to circle back and modify its goals regarding
the content of the collections. They are not theoretical,
they are real physical object with real needs that have to
be met, and the museum has to think ahead regarding
whether it can meet these obligations.
Collections planning in the real
museum
This process is not without challenges. For one thing, we
rarely can simply abandon our past. Many museums find
that they have legacy collections from a founder or major
donor that it is politically impossible for them to deaccession.
The founder or donor may still be alive, or the
public may be so enamored of something you own that
they will never, ever let you get rid of it. It is too deeply
associated with their memories of your institution and
rational thought has nothing to do with it.
For another, it is extremely difficult to project future
needs. If your museum undertakes collections planning,
at some point someone on staff, probably a curator, will
say ‘How could we ever turn anything down? It might
be useful in the future.’ Well yes, it might, but there is
possibility and probability, and with good data and hard
thought it is possible to distinguish one from the other.
And it is reasonable to assume that a museum, by trying
to project future need is not going to do any worse than
random chance (accepting everything that comes in the
door) and may well do better.
The most difficult challenge, however, is cultural.
Collections planning calls for profound change in the culture
of how decisions are made in museums, and therefore
the power structure, and status, and everything that
goes with it. Traditionally, decisions regarding what goes
into the collections were made by curators, and maybe by
committees of the board. This new model of collections
planning is based on truly institutional decision-making,
involving all relevant stakeholders. The community the
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