Museum collections, documentation, and shifting knowledge paradigms

Despite recent technical advances in museum collections access, most notably on the World Wide Web, a number of key issues still remain. One of the most compelling one concern the questions of data quality. The rate at which museum data have been brought online has not been reciprocated by the critical evaluation of the actual significance or utility of the data. The incongruence between this current lack and the potential for significant expansion via new technology also has invoked more fundamental questions about the types of information and the epistemological foundations of that knowledge. In this paper I will draw on research findings from the Knowledge Objects project. This study offers fresh insights into ways that collections documentation might be reconceptualised to form new knowledge models in line with contemporary theoretical, pedagogic and public access concerns. The findings were then used to formulate a novel and flexible multi-disciplinary knowledge template to give new documentation concepts a sustainable physical form. Our research also pointed to ways these templates might be integrated into existing collections databases as well as key areas for change in museum policy, staff roles and the tasks of acquisition and documentation.