1.

Statement of principles of museum documenta-

tion
1.1. Preamble
This statement of principles has been produced by the Documentation Committee of the In-
ternational Council of Museums (ICOM-CIDOC), as a guide for museums when develop-
ing their documentation and collections management policies. It is compatible with the
standards in the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, 2006.
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. This information should be recorded in written or digital form in a muse-
um documentation system and should be accessible to staff, researchers and the public.
With effective documentation, a museum should be able to facilitate:
• collection policies;
• collection care and accountability;
• collection access, interpretation and use;
• collection research.

1.2. The principles

1.2.1. Policy
1. As part of its overall collections policy, the museum should adopt a documentation poli-
cy which demonstrates its organisational commitment to documentation. The documenta-
tion policy should define its documentation procedures and standards, the provision of doc-
umentation staff and systems, and the documentation services which it provides to users.
The documentation policy should conform to the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums and
take account of any national or subject-specific codes adopted by the museum and the mu-
seum's collections policy (ICOM Code of Ethics, 2.1 and 2.20). If the collection is poorly
documented, the policy should incorporate a plan to rectify the problems.
1.2.2. Staffing and systems
2. The museum must employ or have access to staff with appropriate expertise in documen-
tation procedures, standards and systems (Code 1.14 and 8.11). In a small museum, this
principle may be fulfilled by a curator with appropriate training, while in a large museum
there may be one or more documentation specialists working in partnership with curators,
conservators and information systems specialists (Code 1.15).
3. The museum must implement a documentation system which maintains the information
about the objects and supports practical collections management procedures, such as acces-
sioning, loans management and object location and movement control (Code 2.20). Some
parts of the system may be paper-based, such as registers and object files, and others should
be computer-based, such as the primary catalogue records and search facilities.
1.2.3. Standards
4. The documentation system and the information it holds should conform to the documen-
tation appropriate standards developed by national and international organisations, includ-
ing recording concepts and the terms to use within these concepts, while taking account of
local needs (Code 2.20). The standards should be concerned with the information needed to
support collections management, cataloguing, research and public access. The documenta-
tion chapter in the ICOM guide to Running a Museum: a Practical Handbook has a com-

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parison of a number of these standards, including the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model
(CRM), the CIDOC Guidelines, the AFRICOM Handbook and SPECTRUM. The LIDO
standard should be taken into account when planning the contribution of data to, and inter-
change with, other systems.
1.2.4. Information access and user needs
5. The museum should evaluate the needs of its users and where appropriate provide serv-
ices tailored to different categories of user, such as researchers, teachers and students,
learners and the general public. These services should include a research area where visi-
tors can consult paper records and files, together with manual or online search facilities giv-
ing access to catalogue records, images, contextual information and other resources. The
museum should consider widening access by providing information about its collections to
central metadata registries such as Europeana (Code 2.20, 3.2 and 8.4).
6. The search facilities should enable staff and users to find relevant information about the
collection and individual objects, by searching for criteria such as object name, title, object
type or classification, material, collection place, producer, production date or period and
object number (Code 2.20 and 3.2).
7. The system must enable the museum to restrict access to confidential information and
details affected by copyright constraints, while respecting Freedom of Information legisla-
tion. The restricted information may include details such as identifying marks or defects,
valuations, storage locations and the exact find spots of natural history or archaeology ob-
jects (Code 2.20, 2.22, 3.2 and 8.6).
1.2.5. Information and procedures
8. The documentation must include evidence of the basis on which each object came into
the museum. In the case of an object that has been permanently acquired, the documenta-
tion must define the acquisition method, date, source and any conditions. The museum
must be satisfied that the source has valid title to the object and confirm the provenance of
the object (Code 2.2-2.4). In the case of an object that has been temporarily brought into the
museum, the documentation must establish why it was accepted, the date, source, the an-
ticipated return date and whether it has been returned.
9. The museum must record information about the provenance of an acquired object from
its discovery or creation to the present, including - where appropriate - its production, col-
lection, ownership and contextual details about its use (Code 2.3). The documentation
should cite the source of this information. Source material held by the museum (including
documentary photographs) should be considered to be an integral part of the documentation
system. Such materials should be managed to archival standards. Details obtained from an
external source, such as the previous owner or a researcher, should be verified by the muse-
um. It is particularly important to obtain information about an object's use and history from
the donor or vendor as a routine part of the acquisition process.
10. Each object must be assigned a unique number or identifier, which should be recorded
within the documentation system. The object should be marked or labelled with the num-
ber. The location of the object should be recorded within the documentation system, irre-
spective of whether the object is in its normal location or has been moved to another loca-
tion, such as a conservation laboratory.
11. In the event of the loss or theft of an object, the museum should be able to provide law
enforcement agencies with information and images that can be used to help with its recov-
ery, such as its unique number, production date or period, maker, materials, measurements,
physical condition and distinguishing features. The Object ID standard provides guidelines
on the concepts that are appropriate for this purpose.

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12. The documentation must include information about any intellectual property rights con-
cerning the object. In order to respect these rights, the museum should document the own-
ers of any associated intellectual property rights, and monitor any transfer of these rights.
13. The system should incorporate the results of research and other published material
about the object or references to such information, such as exhibition catalogue entries. If
the object is cited in published material, the author should refer to the unique number of the
object.
14. If the existing collection is inadequately documented, the museum should implement a
programme to upgrade the documentation by an agreed deadline. The sources for this infor-
mation may include a physical stocktaking and a review of any original registers and files.
The first priority should be to establish a baseline inventory of the collection, with primary
information about each object, such as unique number, location, object name and condition.
If objects are found without a number and the old number cannot be traced in the original
documentation, they may need to be assigned a new number during this process.
15. In addition to details about individual objects, the museum should develop information
about themes and subjects of relevance to the collection. It should develop details about the
people, organisations and cultures associated with the collection, such as donors, collectors,
producers, and previous owners and users. If appropriate, it should also develop informa-
tion about archaeological and natural history sites and their surrounding environments and
archaeological processes (Code 3.3).
16. The system should provide facilities which enable the collection information to be in-
corporated in resources such as education and interpretation material and online exhibitions
and learning resources.
17. The documentation system should provide procedural support for collections manage-
ment, such as the steps to be followed and decisions to be taken when lending an object to
another institution.
18. The system should incorporate information about the outcome of each significant col-
lections management activity affecting an object, such as conservation (Code 2.24), pho-
tography, loans-out and its use in exhibitions and displays.
19. If an object is deaccessioned, its documentation should be retained by the museum. If
the object is transferred to another museum, a copy of the documentation should be passed
to that museum. Details of the basis on which an object was deaccessioned and the formal
approval of this action must be added to the documentation about the object (Code
2.12-2.17).
1.2.6. Security, sustainability and preservation
20. The system must include provisions for the security, sustainability and the long-term
preservation of information, such as storing registers in a fire-proof safe, storing paper files
in an environmentally controlled archive, backing-up and restricting access to digital infor-
mation and ensuring that digital information is transferred from superseded systems and file
formats into current systems (Code 1.6 and 2.20-2.22).

1.3. References and sources

1. Further information about collections documentation is available from the CIDOC
Web site (http://cidoc.icom.museum).
2. International Council of Museums (1996). Handbook of standards. Documenting Af-
rican collections. Paris: ICOM. ISBN 92-9012-029-0. [English-French edition.]
(http://icom.museum/afridoc/)
3. International Council of Museums (1997). Handbook of standards. Documenting Af-
rican collections. Paris: ICOM. ISBN 92-9012-639-6. [Arabic edition, ICOM-Tu-
nis.]

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4. International Council of Museums (2004). Running a museum: a practical hand-

book. Paris: ICOM. ISBN 92-9012-157-2. (Also in Arabic.)
5. International Council of Museums (2006). ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums. Par-
is: ICOM. (http://icom.museum/ethics.html)
6. International Council of Museums. International Committee for Documentation (CI-
DOC) (1995). International Guidelines for Museum Object Information: The CI-
DOC Information Categories. Edited by a joint project team of the CIDOC Data and
Terminology and the CIDOC Data Model Working Groups. Editors: Alice Grant,
Joséphine Nieuwenhuis, Toni Petersen. Paris: CIDOC. Printed version, ISBN
92-9012-124-6. (http://www.cidoc.icom.org/guide/guide.htm)
7. Collections Trust (2011). SPECTRUM: The UK Museum Documentation Standard.
Fourth edition. Edited by Alex Dawson and Susanna Hillhouse. (http://www.collec-
tionslink.org.uk/spectrum-standard)
8. International Organization for Standardization (2006). Information and Documenta-
tion - a Reference Ontology for the Interchange of Cultural Heritage Information.
ISO 21127:2006. Geneva: ISO. (http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetail-
Page.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=34424&scopelist=PROGRAMME) (The CI-
DOC Conceptual reference Model, CRM, see http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr)
9. Object ID (http://icom.museum/object-id)
10. Coburn, E. & Light, R. & McKenna, G. & Stein, R. & Vitzthum, A. (2010) LIDO -
Lightweight Information Describing Objects Version 1.0. (http://www.lido-sche-
ma.org/schema/v1.0/lido-v1.0-specification.pdf)