Archives and Museums: Collections, Care and Public Access

The course provides insight into the tasks and work processes in archival institutions and museums. Their role as custodians of cultural and natural heritage is explored.

The term digitalization applies to a wide array of phenomena that affect our lives. Politically, digitalization has been hailed as the solution to many issues concerning cost and efficiency. Like in public management, digitalization has re-shaped the way museums and archival institutions work and prioritize, and museum and archive professionals are faced with new tasks, opportunities, and challenges.

Despite the digital turn, archival institutions and museums are still responsible for large quantities of physical documents and objects. The course deals with how to work with analog archives and collections, and explores how digitization affects this work. Another aspect is how the analog archives and collections are made accessible to the public.

The teaching and curriculum in this course cover tasks typically found in archival repositories and museum collection management. For archives, this includes activities such as appraisal for preservation, deposit, transfer, physical preservation, preventive conservation, accessibility, and archival description. For museums, it includes collection development, preservation, documentation, and accessibility. Topics relevant to both archives and museums include private archives, digitization of both cultural heritage and work processes, and issues related to sustainability.

Knowledge

The student has knowledge about

• the central responsibilities of archival institutions and museums
• digital tools used in archival institutions and museum.
• the websites that museums and archival institutions have made available for users
• various dissemination and outreach practices
• different strategies for archive appraisal
• the principles of archive description
• classification and registration of objects in museums
• legislation, collection strategies and collection plans
• archives in museums
• digital cultural heritage
• sustainability in archives and museums

Skills

The student can

• assess the value of archives according to laws and regulations.
• identify the various roles, responsibilities and division of labour in archival institutions.
• identify the various roles, responsibilities and division of labour in museums.
• find and use cultural and natural heritage websites.
• plan and write a user report.

General competence

The student

• has an overview of, and can critically assess and discuss, the standing of museums and archives in society.
• can contribute to the preservation of archives and collections.
• can contribute to the shaping of strategies and plans for acquisition, appraisal, and dissemination of archives and collections.
• can express himself/herself professionally, both orally and in writing

A combination of lectures, excursions, written assignments, and placement. If practice institutions wish to use BA students for e.g. preliminary projects, workshops or trials of various kinds, we will facilitate cooperation.