The museum as information utility

Abstract

Traditionally, museums have focused their attentions on the past. Their preoccupation with the material remains of the past has made them object-orientated. This is reflected in the list of key functions of museums: to collect, preserve, study, exhibit, interpret; all are activities performed on museums’ artifacts or specimens. This introverted focus has engendered the belief that artifactual collections are the raison d’etre of museums, rather than a tool through which we learn, and teach, about heritage. This orientation towards artifacts rather than people is one reason why museums have acquired a popular image as forbidding institutions, musty storehouses of the relics of a dead past, amenable only to the intellectually or aesthetically elite. Today there is a growing appreciation in the museum world that museums do not exist primarily to service their collections of material heritage, but rather to serve society by helping provide the knowledge its members need to survive and progress. Contemporary concerns, changes and challenges plaguing society on all fronts-cultural, technological, environmental-make it more important than ever that museums be responsive and relevant to the information needs of society. If museums fail to keep pace with a changing society, they may be perceived as redundant and be abandoned in favour of other types of info~ation-providing institutions which have better adapted to the ‘Information Society’. It is too easy to relegate heritage to the past. It is really an integral part of our present. What we choose to preserve defines our communal identity, vital to social cohesion. We study yesterday to understand what we are today, and to supply information that helps us decide what to become tomorrow. In this ongoing process of shaping and reshaping culture, institutions that are memory-banks of heritage have a heavy responsibility to make accessible their information resources. Canada’s new Museums Act (1990), for example, clearly expresses this responsibility of its national museums in its opening declaration: that the heritage of Canada and all its peoples is an important part of the world heritage and must be preserved for present and future generations and that each museum established by this Act (a) plays an essential role, individually and together with other museums and like institutions, in preserving and promoting the heritage of Canada and all its peoples throughout Canada and abroad and in contributing to the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians; and (b) is a source of inspiration, research, learning and entertainment that belongs to all Canadians and provides, in both official languages, a service that is essential to Canadian culture and available to all.’ One sign of maturity in a culture is the activity of gathering and systematizing information for use in decision-making. The benefit of information is to create a useful