Nick,
Just to clarify... you've "sponsored" the process of developing this code of practice but it costs everyone £58 to read it? Is that right?
Andy
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Nick Poole
> Sent: 05 March 2009 15:41
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: PAS 197:2009
>
> Dear Richard (et al),
>
> Thanks for the prompt! The BSI release is the first part of
> an ongoing series of communications activities around this
> standard, so you're likely to be hearing quite a lot about it
> in the coming months (and in this email, which is a bit
> longer than I had originally intended - apologies).
>
> To clarify what it is - the full title is 'BSI Publicly
> Available Specification 197:2009, Code of Practice for
> Cultural Collections Management'. It is a joint Code of
> Practice with the British Standards Institute which the
> Collections Trust has sponsored (with the support of the
> Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) and which has been
> developed in broad consultation with the sector over the past
> 18 months with direct input from a Steering Committee of
> museum, archive and library practitioners.
>
> The starting proposition for the Code of Practice for
> Cultural Collections Management is quite simple. After 30
> years of Collections Management practice, and 10 years of
> concerted investment, the museums, libraries and archives
> sector has reached a stage of considerable knowledge and
> sophistication about the processes and implications of
> acquiring stuff, caring for it, interpreting it and making it
> available to the public (the eternal continuum, in the words
> of the PAS, between collections development, collections
> information, collections access and collections care).
>
> We at the Collections Trust believe that our industry is at
> the intersection of some very profound shifts - in
> technology, in consumer behaviour, in our understanding of
> economic and environmental sustainability and in our
> behaviours and values about collections and collecting. This
> tipping point represents both an opportunity and a risk. The
> opportunity is to define a next generation of professional
> practice which builds on our collective experience,
> consolidates it and enables us to move forward with
> confidence. The risk is that we abandon this knowledge and
> busily set about reinventing the wheel.
>
> The 'role' of the standard, then, in the sector is to act as
> a catalyst. It is to capture the value of decades of
> professionalisation in Collections Management, to give it a
> focus and to use it to set the agenda for the next generation
> of services.
>
> Underpinning this are some critical developments in the
> sector. For one thing, there is no longer such a thing as a
> 'pure' museum, archive or library. Instead there are
> organisations managing an increasingly complex range of
> content and material and presenting it to an increasingly
> sophisticated audience in increasingly multi-faceted ways.
>
> This is why the entire focus of the work on the Code of
> Practice has been on creating something that is as
> 'platform-independent' or inherently cross-domain as
> possible. In so doing, the Steering Group has created a
> 'lingua franca' - a common definition of the scope of
> Collections Management which we believe will work for
> curators, archivists and librarians (and in the process
> encourages them to share their knowledge and skills more
> explicitly). It is, in this sense, a ground-up approach to
> interoperability as an inherent property of management
> systems, rather than as a feat of retroactive engineering.
> The group has also looked out, beyond our sector, into the
> worlds of logistics, supply-chain, manufacture and knowledge
> management, to learn from the experiences of others.
>
> The point about a common definition is critical - it attempts
> to resolve the 'either/or' question about how you approach
> your collections. 'Do I have to use SPECTRUM to manage my
> archive? Can I use CALM for my object records?'. The answer
> is that the PAS 197 Code of Practice provides an overarching
> framework which lets you 'assemble' an approach to managing
> your collections that is appropriate to your collections and
> the uses you want to put them to. It means not having to say
> 'I am *this* kind of organisation, and this alone'.
>
> The second key development is the reduction in silos between
> functions and systems across different parts of these
> institutions. A key aim of this work is to move from a system
> in which there is a division between front and back-of-house,
> between education and documentation, towards something much
> more holistic and better-integrated. The emphasis here is on
> resolving the division between collections knowledge and
> other types of information and working towards integrated
> information systems which allow knowledge to flow freely
> between different parts of the organisation. And before you
> ask - yes, this is how we see the future of SPECTRUM.
> Ultimately, we believe that Information Management in
> museums, archives and libraries will be a utility, happening
> in the cloud, but for now we have to content ourselves with
> integration and exchange.
>
> So...to try and reduce all that down to a simple proposition
> - it is a standard for the next generation of Collections
> Management practitioners which builds on the knowledge and
> experience of the current and previous generation. It
> provides an integrated, holistic and proportionate approach
> to defining Collections Management practice in your institution.
>
> It is also, absolutely, emphatically, a starting point for
> discussion. You'll know that we make a habit of not doing
> these things unilaterally and we are totally aware that this
> thing will only fly if you lot want it. Hence the standard
> was developed with comments from more than 200 of you, and
> its publication kicks off a 2-year review period. More
> information about how to contribute to this will be
> circulated shortly.
>
> As for the other questions you'll want answers to...Is it
> part of Accreditation? No, but we hope it will inform the
> review of the Accreditation Scheme happening in the next 2
> years. Do I have to buy it? We'll be circulating some
> information about what's in it and who is likely to need a
> copy as part of our comms about it. Do I have to do it?
> Chances are you already are, in some form, but no - it's not
> an obligation. Does it replace SPECTRUM? Nope, it mainstreams
> SPECTRUM (and other archive/library infomatics standards)
> within a broader framework of organisation-wide Information
> Management which serves the interests both of the collections
> and their users.
>
> OK, so that's an unforgivably long email in reply, but this
> is arguably the most important piece of work the Collections
> Trust has been responsible for since the development of
> Collections Link, and it will inform every part of our work
> going forward from here. In order to provide a 'place' for
> responses, I have also posted this reply to the OpenCulture
> blog at http://openculture.collectionstrustblogs.org.uk.
>
> All best,
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Richard Light
> Sent: 05 March 2009 13:55
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: PAS 197:2009
>
> The PAS "Code of practice for cultural collections
> management" has been published by BSI. See press release:
>
> www.bsigroup.com/en/About-BSI/News-Room/BSI-News-Content/Disci
> plines/Sust
> ainability/PAS-197-publication
> (or:
> http://tinyurl.com/d6zndp
> if you have URL-wrapping problems in your mail reader)
>
> Would Nick care to comment on the role he expects this
> standard to play in the U.K. MLA sector?
>
> Richard
>
> --
> Richard Light
>
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