Current project: Measuring the Cost of Collections
Collaborative research project with Dr. Erin Richardson, principal,
Frank and Glory
Abstract:
What metrics do we use to calculate the financial impact that the accession, maintenance, storage, documentation, digitization, and preservation of collection will have on our institutions and our communities in the very long term? The OCLC’s 2021 report ‘Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections,’ explores the financial impact, sustainability, and ethical considerations of collecting in archival and special collections; it outlines archival collecting strategies through the framework of collections management priorities, stewardship capacity, and institutional curatorial process. This question as not been explored for museum collections since the Lord, Lord, and Nicks 1989 study “Cost of Collecting” conducted in the UK, and has never been seriously explored for museums in the United States. New research proposed to be undertaken by Richardson (Frank & Glory) and Saluti (Syracuse University) aims to gather and analyze data from across the museum field landscape in order to examine and model equations for such calculations. Addressing issues of financial sustainability, budget allocation, and ethical collecting strategies for any collecting museum; this interactive conversation session is intended to solicit research questions, potential uses for such research, and overall appetite in the sector for participating in the research process.
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Current Project: Printer’s Chops and Marks database
Collaborative research project with Theresa Engelbrecht, Registrar & Exhibition Manager, Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University.
While twentieth-century prints and works on paper inhabit significant portions of museum and archival collections, there is no central resource that catalogs and identifies the chops, marks, and signatures used by the printers and publishers who collaborate with artists to edition these works.
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