Museum Collection Storage in India: A Decade in Review

Abstract

The birth of museums in India has its origins in colonial rule. While the country today counts over 800 museums, proper collections management and its treatment as a pivotal museum function have not taken hold widely. Several challenges remain, including a lack of space, the scarcity and misallocation of funds, and, critically, an absence of national standards and guidelines for collections storage and management. While the Indian government created a digital repository in 2014 through an initiative called JATAN, the sector still trails behind in the fundamentals of collection storage and documentation, and in digitising collections. This article, drawing on responses from anonymous respondents to a specially designed questionnaire, examines inadequate storage practices in India, while also assessing the attitudes of Indian museum professionals towards collection storage over the last decade. Further, it sheds important light on the sharp divide between those who manage collections and those who curate in the subcontinent.

The article additionally offers a template for the development of a national policy for collection storage and usage: one that covers multiple concerns, from weather conditions and disasters to objects of sacred relevance (especially in palaces that exemplify living heritage). Taken together, these suggestions can serve to standardise practices across museums in India. This article also highlights a requirement for documentation guidelines and accessibility of collections for myriad uses—research, teaching and curation—across India and the world. Lastly, it explores the need for greater capacity building, given insufficient educational frameworks and a lack of formally taught museology courses. For this purpose, it discusses crucial national and international reports published over a decade and qualitative data gathered through primary interactions with professionals.

Keywords:

• collections management
• storage
• policy
• standardisation
• Indian museums

Notes

1 The survey respondents and other participants in the study chose to remain anonymous and thus are not directly cited by name.

2 Nevertheless, neither the number of workshops it has initiated, nor the number of people trained under their umbrella, are available in the public domain, and the institution’s director was unavailable for comment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kanupriya Sharma

Kanupriya Sharma holds a double master’s in History and Museum Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India, and the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She has worked in museums and galleries across Scotland and India, providing her the experience necessary to compare disparate conditions within museums in the developed and developing worlds. Armed with professional training, she works as a museum consultant to eliminate these gaps within museums in India. She offers solutions to publicand private-sector institutions and clients in the realm of collections management, archiving, exhibitions, art advisory, curation and outreach.