Understanding and managing patchy data in the UK museum sector

ABSTRACT

It is well accepted that the museum sector has a longstanding problem with data collection and management. This article begins by exploring problems with gaining access to data, poor archiving and coverage, and the absence of data. We then explain how the Mapping Museums research team set out to remedy the lack of longitudinal data on the UK museum sector in the period between 1960 and 2020. Initially we collated and supplemented existing information on UK museums but it was impossible to fill some gaps or resolve some inconsistencies in the data. Here we discuss how we designed a database that was sensitive to the patchiness of the material, and that could model uncertain and absent data in computational terms. To close, we briefly comment on how our data enables research on museum history and on how the problems with data collection in the sector might be remedied in the longer term.

KEYWORDS:

• Conceptual modelling
• data collection
• data loss
• archiving
• visitor numbers
• opening and closing dates

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Jamie Larkin for his helpful comments, the Digital Humanities Institute at Sheffield University for the opportunity to present an earlier version of the paper at the Digital Humanities Congress 2018, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under the Standard grant scheme.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Fiona Candlin is Professor of Museology in the History of Art Department at Birkbeck. She is a specialist on small independent museums and is currently Principal Investigator on the large-scale research project ‘Mapping Museums’. Her publications include Micromuseology: An analysis of small independent museums (Bloomsbury 2015), Art, Museums, and Touch (Manchester University Press 2010) and (with Prof Ray Guins) The Object Reader (Routledge 2009).

Alexandra Poulovassilis is Professor of Computer Science in Birkbeck's School of Business, Economics & Informatics, and Director of the Birkbeck Knowledge Lab. Her research is in the design of specialist data and knowledge bases to support learning communities, and the development of search, analysis and visualisation techniques for such resources, working in collaborative interdisciplinary projects with domain experts from education and from across the spectrum of arts, sciences and social sciences. She is Co-Investigator on the Mapping Museums project.

Notes

1 For more information on the Mapping Museums project see: http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/mapping-museums/about/.

2 The Standing Commission for Museums and Galleries was established in 1931 and was responsible for advising government on museum affairs and for promoting co-operation between national and provincial museums. It was renamed the Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC) in 1981 when it was also given additional responsibilities (Howard 1988). The Digest of Museum Statistics (DOMUS) was an annual survey conducted by the MGC. It was launched in 1994 with the aim of adding to the body of information about museums that was gathered through the Registration Scheme (later known as the Accreditation Scheme). It was closed in 1999. Information and records of DOMUS are held in the National Archive.

3 The Museums and Galleries Commission was replaced in 2000 by Re:source, which was later named the Museums Libraries Archives Council, and was dissolved in 2010.

4 The Northern Ireland Museums Council is a government department as is the Museums, Archives, Libraries Division (MALD) in Wales. MALD was previously known as CyMAL. The Scottish Museums Council advised the Scottish government on museum affairs and was the national development body for museums in Scotland. In 2008 it was renamed Museums Galleries Scotland.

5 The Association of Independent Museums (AIM) is a charity and a membership organisation that supports and champions independent museums. It was set up in 1977. The AIM report is mentioned in two contemporaneous sources: Myerscough notes that the survey took place in 1983 and that it lists 1250 museums (1986, 186) while in 1986 Patrick Boylan, wrote that a recent survey by AIM had identified over 1400 museums run by voluntary organisations and individuals (Boylan 1986).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/N007042/1].