Procedural standards and guidelines can assist museums in the documentation of their collections. They are often offered as general frameworks and guides to good practice, with the expectation that individual museums will use them as a basis to build their own, institution-specific procedures and practices. The following standards and resources may be helpful to museums that are defining their own internal documentation practices or policies.
Museums Alberta Standard Practices Handbook for Museums, 2nd Edition, and Museum Excellence Program Guide
The Standard Practices Handbook "not only outlines standards of museum practice but suggests how the standards can be implemented. The Handbook is divided into four units: Museums and Society looks at how a museum interacts with its communities; Administration focusses on museum governance and management; Collections examines collections management, conservation and research; and, Programming looks at public programs, exhibits and publications"1. The Museum Excellence Program Guide can be used to "measure their performance against recognized standards of practice. The guide encourages museums to reflect on their own policies and practices and to plan for improvement. Arranged in the same four units as the Handbook, the Guide is a practical, self improvement tool for all museums"2. Available in English only, print format, from Museums Alberta at info@museumsalberta.ab.ca
Association of Manitoba Museums Standards for Manitoba Museums
This Association of Manitoba Museums publication is a guide to good standards of practice for Manitoba museums. Available in English only, print format, at www.museumsmanitoba.com.
Museum Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Guidelines for the Operation of Community Museums
"This resource tool includes information about Museum Management, Collections, Exhibitions, and Public Programming. All aspects of museum operation are explored from mission statements to insurance, from safety to museum visitors to museum shops, from cataloguing artifacts to pest control, from public relations to research"3. Available in English only, print format, at http://www.manl.nf.ca/guidelines.htm
Collections Management Policy for the Nova Scotia Museum
Includes Nova Scotia Museum policy for many museum functions, including collection development, acquisition, documentation, preservation, use, deaccessioning, and repatriation. Available online, in English only.
Association Museums New Brunswick Guidelines for Museums in New Brunswick.
This publication of the Association Museums New Brunswick provides guidelines for administrative management, program management, and collections management within New Brunswick museums. Publication currently not available online. Related links: http://www.gnb.ca/0131/mus-e.asp
http://www.heritagenetworkatlantic.ca/what_is_amnb.htm
Museums Association of Saskatchewan Standards for Saskatchewan Museums
This publication "articulates goals for achievement in all areas of museum operation. The standards document was initially developed in consultation with the museum community and its comprehensive guidelines provide the base upon which a healthy, relevant museum community is built"4. Available in English only, print format, at http://www.saskmuseums.org/programs_services/standards.php
SPECTRUM: The UK Museum Documentation Standard
Created by the mda (previously the Museum Documentation Association) in the UK, SPECTRUM is a guide to "good practice for museum documentation, established in partnership with the museum community. It contains procedures for documenting objects and the processes they undergo, as well as identifying and describing the information which needs to be recorded to support the procedures"5. As such, it is both a standard for museum collections documentation, and a procedural standard. SPECTRUM provides museums with a procedures and which they can use to help identify their own information needs. As a statement of current 'real-life' good practice in museum documentation, SPECTRUM allows for an awareness of a multitude of implementations while at the same time ensuring a reliable and consistent approach which can be built upon in the future"6. SPECTRUM is available in English only; it can be ordered from mda at www.mda.org.uk/spectrum.htm.
Registration step by step: when an object enters the museum (Un objet arrive au musée: Enregistrement étape par étape)
This CIDOC fact sheet is available online in English, French, and Spanish.
Labelling and marking objects (Etiquetage et marquage des objets)
This CIDOC fact sheet is available online in English, French, and Spanish.
mda Fact Sheets
The mda has produced numerous fact sheets to assist with museum processes such as entry, exit, accessioning, indexing, location and movement control, loans, labeling, etc. These fact sheets are available online in English only.
The New Museum Registration Methods. 4th Edition. 1998. Edited by Rebecca A. Buck and Jean Allman Gilmore.
This reference book includes information on procedures for museum registration, object care and storage, collections management, documentation, computerization, insurance, security, ethics, legal issues, etc. Prepared by the Registrars Committee, a Standing Professional Committee of the American Association of Museums (AAM). Available in print format, English only, from the AAM online Bookstore. A version of this publication for small museums is also available from AAM online bookstore.
Benchmarks in Collection Care for Museums, Archives, and Libraries: A Self-assessment Checklist
This handbook was developed by Resource, the council for museums, libraries and archives in the U.K. It is a self-assessment checklist to help libraries, archives, and museums identify best practices in stewardship of their collections, to help them determine where improvements are needed, and to assist them in measuring progress.