Libraries, Museums and Archives

I had never even considered the similarities between libraries, museums and archives. It had never occurred to me that people go to all three searching for information and there must be an organised system for extracting the information from each. My only experience really has been with libraries. Whenever I have been to museums it has just been a visit to enjoy exhibits, I haven't gone there specifically to research information on a specific topic. In Rayward’s article (1998, 4.4) he notes that regarding ‘the media of the past…there is little problem -- books for libraries, objects for museums and government and organizational records for archives.’ (Mind you no one would say libraries just contain books these days when so many other resources are now available in libraries eg. newspapers, magazines, DVDs, audio books, journals to name a few.) Libraries, museums and archives used to have fairly clear delineations over who held what though today the demarcation lines are more blurred. Some art museums could well house ancient manuscripts that are displayed not for the information on the manuscript but for appreciation of the artwork they exhibit. So too can research libraries, according to Rayward (1998, 4.2) be considered ‘museums of printed or written artifacts’. I am not absolutely sure as I have had no experience with government (or any other) archives, but I assume that these days records of parliamentary activities would include possibly DVDs which recorded important events in parliament for So, probably similar information is recorded, but just stored in different ways. I assume too that old paper files still exist where the retention of the physical paper is of historical interest (constituting a possible overlap with museum collections) but most files would probably be stored electronically now. In terms of how the nature of the resource changes what information we might want to organise and retrieve: As stated I know little about archives but I assume the essentials that need to be organised to identify the document for retrieval would be the date the event, the participants and location. The diversity of the resources stored in museums would make information retrieval more complex than retrieval of information from a library I would have thought. Whereas in a library or archive the information required for cataloguing is generally explicit from the written, visual or audio resources, in a museum an artifact requires evaluation from an expert in that field before any cataloguing can commence. What looks like a piece of stone to the novice could in fact be a rudimentary tool over 2 million years old originating in Africa from the Early Stone Age. Just as specialized knowledge of the artifact would be essential so too would specialized knowledge in how to catalogue artifacts be necessary. You would need to know what information people would need to know about the artifact in order to know how to catalogue it. In this case who created the tool, the date and its point of origin, its design features as well as its composition would all be essential information needed to catalogue the artifact. The aesthetic design of a curio could be the focal point of its importance. How this is then conveyed in text for cataloguing could be a challenge. To me this seems a much more complex task than cataloguing a book or DVD. The interesting point about Rayward’s article is that in 1998 he predicted advances in technology could close the gap on the differences in managing resources in libraries, museums and archives and lead to ‘functional integration between the agencies’ (Rayward, 1998, 4.7). Was he right? I can't answer that without a lot more research!