Documentation procedures manuals and documentation histories
Are your in-house instructions in a clear and useable format? Have you recorded key information about historic cataloguing systems, old numbering systems and policies? This online session delivered in partnership with the Collections Trust will firstly explore how to develop or review your procedures manual. We will also look at how to gather and record information about the history of your documentation systems, and the potential benefits of this information.
We will explore this topic using elements from the Collections Biography toolkit developed by Museum Development Yorkshire, alongside Collections Trust’s guidance about developing procedures manuals.
There will be opportunities to discuss with colleagues and ask questions throughout, as well as signposting to further guidance.
By the end of the session, attendees will:
- Understand the importance of a procedures manual and how to produce one.
- Understand the benefits of capturing the history of the museum’s documentation systems.
- Understand the types of information that can be included in a documentation history and how to identify sources of information
- Be able to think about how their organisation might approach capturing and recording this history.
This workshop is for staff and volunteers from museums in the North of England which are Accredited or formally working towards Accreditation and who directly work with collections and documentation in their day-to-day role or who manage the staff and volunteers that do.
Priority will be given to those museums which are not regularly funded by Arts Council England or central government. If there are more than two delegates from a single museum booked on a workshop we reserve the right to amend delegate lists to allow museums from the waiting list to participate.