section move/section removal?

Hi Taryn,

Your wiki is looks great. The layout of the sections is easier to follow now. Just a couple more small things. Firstly, there is definitely enough information under the ‘Curators and Archivist’ heading, and you have included a note saying that you will be writing more about the respective roles of the curator and the archivist. However, curators and archivists might also fit quite well into the ‘challenges’ group, considering the challenges that arise from negotiating their professional differences. The second small thing is regarding the “Characteristics of a Museum Archives” section, in which you are planning on including: “basic information on what an archives is/and a brief couple of sentences about museums in general”. Considering that you haven’t included information in this section yet, and you intend to keep it brief, it might be just as effective to include this info in the introduction and/or in the ‘Museum Context’ section. I’m just worried about redundancies, and that you will end up creating more work for yourself than you need to. Just some stuff to think about... Jessie

Hey Jessie,

Thanks for the feedback! I was originally going to have the curators and archivists section under 'challenges' and then changed my mind and decided I was going to write about their respective roles, and then only briefly mention potential challenges. So maybe what I will do is write up the section, and see how it ends up looking, and then if the tone of the section ends up focusing more on the challenges, I will definitely consider moving it! As per your second suggestion, I completely agree. I've moved around these headings so much, so I'm still trying to figure out what fits where. I will probably end up merging the museum context/characteristics sections after completing some of the information I'm planning on having in the sections. Really appreciate the feedback! Thanks so much! -T

Hi, Taryn!

I am so sorry for commenting so late, but I was 100% sure that I had already commented on your wiki post. I had read it with great interest because I am kind of obsessed with museum archives, but clearly my brain shorted out when I went to comment.

You have done a terrific job with your wiki. I wonder if you might consider moving your three case studies to the end so that we get all of the contextual and background information necessary to understand them. That would take a little bit of rewording in some places, but the flow might work slightly better. Also, I agree with Jessie that an argument could be made for moving the section "curators and archivists" under the challenges section, since the relationship between these two groups certainly seems to be a challenge at times.

Also, I thought that you could expand on this idea a little bit:

"Accession files or object files are those which detail initial contact between the museum staff and the donor or vendor, correspondence regarding negotiations about the object, provenance and background information, and various financial documents."

I was wondering if you had found anything about records of acquisitions or donations being used later in situations involving culturally sensitive objects or objects that may have been acquired in less than legal ways before the introduction of laws that regulated the acquisition of cultural heritage objects? If so, this would be an interesting and relevant thing to mention, especially seeing as you give MOA as an example. Obviously, if you haven't found anything in the literature about this, don't worry about it, but it was something that jumped out at me!

Thanks for linking to my page!

Hi Chelsea,

Thanks so much for your feedback regarding the sections. I didn't really think to move the case studies to the end of the wiki, but now that you've mentioned it, it makes a lot of sense! I've also moved (after much prompting) the archivists/curators section into challenges! I don't want to get too carried away adding unnecessary content, so sticking with their roles in relation to each other seems like the right road to take. I have found a LOT of literature regarding the repatriation of museum objects, especially objects that were stolen during world war two, however nothing I've found so far mentions the acquisition records or donation records that went along with those objects. It does sound like a very interesting thing to look in to, so perhaps I'll dig a little deeper and see what I can find!

Thanks so much for your feedback, much appreciated!

Taryn