Welcome to our little blog for The Great Documentation Project at the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum. With funding, we now have the resources and people power to go ahead. This blog will be a space to share stories about the progress of the project, the amazing art and artefacts we come across and other project-related bits which may be of interest!
What is the project?
The three-year project is to ensure every item in our collection are accessioned and entered onto our brand new computer database. The project is theoretically simple but a huge task, with tens of thousands of items in the collection!
What exactly is documentation?
In all museums, as part of the guidelines for correct museum management, all items in the collection must be accounted for. Each item should be given a unique number (called an accession number) and officially entered into the museum collection (done by recording the item details and location into the accessions register) this item should then be entered into the museums catalogue. Our computer database will be our new catalogue!
The catalogue entry is a far more detailed version of the accessions register, including information to say exactly what it is, its measurements, and its current location - whether the item is on display, in the museum stores, or loaned out to another institution. This is just the briefest amount of information needed - some catalogue entries will be far more detailed, depending on how much information we have on that item.
What does this have to do with you?
This project will give us a complete picture of everything we have in our collection as we will have them on a computer system where we can search keywords in a collection made of tens of thousands of artworks and artefacts.
Eventually we want to make this computerised catalogue able to be viewed by for the public. Given the enormity of the collection, there will be items which have never been on display and indeed may never be. This means you’ll be able to find parts of the collection that you’ll never have seen before.
Stay tuned for more updates here or on our Instagram. If you're interested in joining the volunteer team for this project, get in touch!