Introduction to the Focus Issue Collections Cataloging in the Twenty-First Century: Case Studies of Evolving Practice,Multiple Voices,New Meanings

Historical collections are at the heart of current cultural debates framing a number of concerns such as: who speaks for heritage, who records narratives and information, and who has the power and ability to authorize and use that information, which represents simultaneously information, data, knowledge, and context. Along with other historical assets, buildings, landscapes, and oral histories, portable collections are tangible reminders of the past. They are a means through which individuals and societies construct their identities, present themselves in the present and define their cultural, national, and social allegiance or sympathies. Thus, the way that these items are defined, described, and cataloged is emblematic of our thoughts about the past and of our current world view. Cataloging (which in this situation includes the way an object is named, classified, ordered, described, attributed, as well as presented in context, exhibited, and interpreted) discloses how we think about the world around us.

As those who manage and care for collections are aware, such work—whether by professional practitioners, volunteer staff, or “amateur” experts—is a reflection of geographical location, social, personal, or professional situation and their cultural context. Calls to adopt de-colonialist, anti-racist, and anti-harm practices around cataloging have emerged in this century, and are building momentum. Practices have shifted from an approach of classifying works within the context of explorers and monarchies, patrons of the noble classes, and circles of collectors to the makers of the objects, to ancestral and source communities and to different voices and multiple historical narratives. However, while exhibitions, public programs and study may reflect the questions that we seek to ask of our collections now, and as new researchers, not just academics, make active use of historic material for an ever greater diversity of activity, our collections recording and management systems are not able to absorb such change, respond to new questions or refine and enhance the data that they contain. Often inflexible, complicated, and expensive to update, designed for the assured single voices and historic narratives of past eras, they are ill designed for use by the multiple networks of global, local, culturally aware, diverse, informed or curious audiences and users of the twenty-first century. While collections management systems have sustained their development as effective tools for care, location control, security, and so on, that efficiency and flexibility has not equally progressed in relation to the information that they hold.

However, there are institutions, scholars, practitioners, and a wide variety of groups engaged in community-centered work concerned with re-naming, re-classifying, re-cataloging, and re-contextualing collections. Such activity is time-consuming and expensive. It requires commitment from individuals and from organizations and there is, as yet, no fixed way to address such challenges or to construct such projects. Sometimes, the first step is in correcting the name of an item in a catalog record. That one, simple act, however enables a shift of agency from the institution and the seat of authority to the community connected to the material. By extension, the manner of naming can impact the ways in which individuals collect, conserve, research, exhibit, and interpret. Other action seeks to accommodate and record the multiplicity of meanings and purposes within each single object as part of accession processes. Cataloging as an evolving practice—often shared, sometimes publicly—can thus demonstrate the capacity and power of re-documenting and re-thinking collections and, by extension, open up spaces for multiple voices and new meanings.

All of the examples in this focus issue of the journal demonstrate how thoughtful, appropriate, and accurate collections cataloging in the twenty-first century is collaborative work that unpacks ways of seeing, understanding, and knowing that ultimately enable professionals and the public to construct new knowledge about the past. They do not advocate for the removal, censorship, or restriction of any materials, but rather seek to find paths forward that enable us to contextualize and situate collections for greater access and discoverability. Each contribution shares an experience of the detailed work that is necessary when seeking to effect such a fundamental change in professional activity. The authors demonstrate that cataloging practice can adapt, be flexible, incorporate different forms of knowledge, multiple meanings, and a diversity of voices. All of the papers evidence the professional aspiration that cataloging is a means to enable use and value of collections, not to restrict engagement or limit knowledge, indeed some are explicit in stating the critical role of collections management as a means to extend and diversify use. In recent years collections management has received very limited funding unless it is an element of supporting other heritage projects or activity, and yet, these are the processes that unlock collections for everyone. The authors also share something of the personal commitment and impact of developing new practice and delivering the projects described. It is important to acknowledge the difficulties that are faced when changing long term and embedded systems, the barriers of limited time and funds, the complexities of digital systems and the personal pressures that can be felt when developing new approaches that may not be universally welcomed.

Our contributors offer examples of deep reflection and of informed and thoughtful progress but they also reflect the need for appropriate experience, skills, and confidence alongside professional humility and respect for those beyond such a boundary. Each of the articles, listed below, offers very real experiences with collections: they attempt to illuminate issues and present approaches that, even if at the expense of addressing only unique situations, offer a path forward toward dismantling old ways of thinking. They scrutinize, critique, and re-assess existing materials, such as finding aids, inventories, and catalog records and offer new ways of working that include diverse approaches and viewpoints aspiring toward inclusion and belonging. The articles include: Lucie Carreau and Imogen Gunn’s “Moving On: Rethinking Practice and Transforming Data at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge”; Kara Lewis of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution’s “Towards Centering Indigenous Knowledge in Museum Collections Management Systems”; Alasdair Campbell and Rachael Smith’s “Collaborative Approach to Updating Object Records at the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum”; Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Leena Svinhufvud, Susanna Thiel, and Gautam Vishwanath’s “Enriching Museum Collection with Virtual Design Objects and Community Narratives: Pop-up-VR Museum”; Alice Christophe, N. Haʻalilio Solomon, Hina Kneubuhl, Victoria Donnellan, and Leah Caldeira’s “Hosting and Integrating a Hawaiian Language Taxonomy in the British Museum’s Collection Database”; Jessica Walthew Andrea Lipps, and Wendy Rogers’s “Defining Digital Design in the National Collection”; Anjalie Dalal-Clayton and Ananda Rutherford’s “Provisional Semantics: Addressing the Challenges of Representing Multiple Perspectives within Public Collections”; Zoe Screti’s “Finding the Marginal in Marginalia: The Importance of Including Marginalia Descriptions in Catalog Entries”; emerging professional and scholar Emma Cieslik’s “Documenting the Divine: The Future of Sacred Objects in Museum Databases”; Tehmina Goskar’s “Museums Will Forget: Critical Approaches to Catalog-Centered Historical Research”; and Tom Drysdale’s “Cataloging Architectural Drawings: Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Age.” These case studies and thorough examinations are compelling to read as both process and product: they offer, in some ways, a toolkit for practitioners seeking to begin their own journeys toward evolving practice, polyphony, and new meanings.

Invited contributions from two colleagues reflect focused attention to de-colonizing work, its applications to other institutions, and their ongoing aims of fuller access and discoverability. Researcher Carissa Chew describes her role in collaboration with the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) Library in ongoing de-colonization work concerning advisory notices and subject indexing and classifications of collections. The goal of this work is not to censor, erase, or restrict access to collections, but rather for appropriate and accurate naming. Significantly, Chew notes how published collections, such as library catalogs, require enhanced attention due to their public-facing nature and broader access than might be encountered in archival collections and/or collections with limited access. To aid readers, Chew provides flowcharts that demonstrate new ways of developing anti-racist and de-colonial practice in one environment (a library) that could be translated to other environments and contexts, across GLAMR (galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and records) institutions and/or the heritage sector. Chew also calls upon professionals to contact Ex-Libris and petition for the introduction of new features that will enable libraries to add appropriate content advice to their resources. In addition, Māori museum professional Tharron Bloomfield explains his frustration of witnessing the creation, perpetuation, and persistence of inaccurate cataloging and record keeping. Pointing out that understanding material culture means framing an Indigenous context, seeking accuracy in terms of spelling and descriptions of collections items, Bloomfield draws attention to issues with inaccurate records and pleas for greater accuracy of the information in collection records: not only do errors make the materials inaccessible, the incorrect information may perpetuate inaccurate understandings of indigenous cultures and foster inaccurate stereotypes. Each of these areas of slippage, thus prevent full access and discoverability of the objects as well as the people who created and greatly value them.

Throughout this journal issue, and in the entire publication, we acknowledge that Collections is an international publication with a global network of contributors and readers. The guest editor, on behalf of the editorial board, and Editor, recognize that language is an active process which can change rapidly over time, particularly as museums and galleries work to redress the limits and inaccuracies of historical cataloging and to include multiple voices in collection documentation. Within this focus issue, we have sought to use the most appropriate language and terminology; however, the articles may still disclose differences in cataloging and descriptive terms at use in the profession.

Finally, with this issue of the journal, we open a conversation with you, our readership, as well as offer an invitation. Here we share thirteen perspectives on collections cataloging in museums, archives, and libraries. We hope you see these as commentary on particular contexts and environments that are not aiming to speak for the entire field, but disclose evolving practice in collections cataloging as intentional efforts in de-colonialist, anti-racist, and anti-harm practices. We hope that the articles and commentary provide insight and, also, encourage you to respond and to share your practice, your efforts at opening up collections cataloging to multiple voices and new meanings.

Please read, share, and continue the dialogue here in the journal and otherwise.