Library Guides: Museum Studies: Collection management

Policies and guides

Many organisations make their collection management policies publicly available. Find policies on the website of your chosen cultural institution. Some examples include:

Some cultural organisations have created guides on maintaining and assessing collections:

National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries (2023) - Part C Collections (PDF, 2.80 MB)
Australian Museums and Galleries Association (AMaGA) - Small museums cataloguing manual
This resource introduces users to the cataloguing process, from planning and procedures to digitisation and the management of digital collections.
Australian Government, Office for the Arts - Significance 2.0
A guide to assessing the significance of collections.

Conservation: Specialist resources

Conservation is a specialist area of collection management.

Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material
This is the industry's key professional body. Search their website for guidelines and policy documents on conservation best-practice.

There are also online databases you can search:

BCIN: Bibliographic Database of the Conservation Information Network
Database of citations covering the areas of conservation, preservation and restoration of cultural property. Cited literature includes: books, published and unpublished monographs and serials; conference proceedings; technical reports, journal articles, theses; audio-visual materials; software and machine-readable files; and articles from the first 34 volumes of the Art and archaeology technical abstracts (AATA).

CAMEO - Conservation & Art Materials Encyclopedia Online