Chapter 29 - A documentation system for Australian art museums

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of a documentation system for Australian art museums. Australia has over 100 public art collections. Many are located in isolated country towns. It is estimated they include over 150 000 works. Some of the major museums have been able to catalogue large parts of their collections. However, in many cases the time and the skilled staff have been hard to find. Much of the cataloguing has been inconsistent in its approach. It is often incomplete or inaccurate, being prepared by staff untrained in registration practices. This is not because of lack of concern. A widespread and lively interest in the arts increased during the last decade when it became more common to circulate many travelling exhibitions and to originate some excellent ones as well. The difficulty of locating desirable works due to incomplete information or, quite often, the total lack of information, became increasingly troublesome. As expected, of course, the whereabouts of major works was known but the scope of all works available was harder to know.