This article is case specific as we try to understand the need for documentation in museums settings and before doing that, it is necessary to implicate the meaning of museum for us to have a proper grasp of the message. A museum is not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage.
Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing (ICOM, 2022).
Documenting is a crucial aspect of a standard museum. It is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance and use.
The word documentation was first used in a sentence in 1884. It is used in almost every aspect of life beginning from the family, health sector, sports, education, entertainment industry to mention but few. In museum; documentation is an important aspect that cannot be ignored when it comes to accurate record keeping of artifacts. It provides the physical evidence of the museum collections.
What is museum documentation? Museum documentation is concerned with the development and use of information about the objects within a museum collection and the procedures which support the management of the collection. Documentation can be referred to as the library of the museum.
There is a standard documentation system in museum, this system has been adopted by museums all over the world; this system is a set of elements that describe the physical characteristics of the objects, its full history and its environment.
This includes: Entry form, Accessioning, Cataloguing, Indexing and Retrieval, Movement Control and Exit documentation. In Nigeria, there are two main types of documentation in museum: Chronological and Typological documentation.
Chronological documentation involves the arrangement of documents in order of their date, day and time. Typological documentation involves the arrangement of objects according to their types and history.
Why do we need to document? Documentation is vital because museum acquire objects and these objects, once they enter the museum they begin new life. As they arrive the museum records are created (collection sheet, object tags, identification tags etc.), this is in line with the ICOM Code of Ethics with provisions regarding the documentation of collections.
Museum collections should be documented according to accepted professional standards. Such documentation should include a full identification and description of each object, its associations, provenance, condition, treatment and present location. Such data should be kept in a secure environment and be supported by retrieval systems providing access to the information by the museum personnel and other legitimate users.
Documentation is a professional duty and museum is not complete without documentation. Proper documentation helps to authenticate cultural property, proves ownership of objects, security of artifacts, allows for easy recovery in case of theft, safe identification of object, easy access of information, ascertains the number of collections in the museum, carries out inventory and helps to link information to object.
