Topographic Register as a Significant Component of Museum Collections Preservation

Abstract

The main tasks of a modern museum are scientific documentation of phenomena, processes, patterns of history; protection of cultural and historical values by collecting, preserving, restoring and documenting objects of material and mental culture; conducting research based on primary sources; education and popularization of history. The most time-consuming functions of the museum are fund work and exposition work. Museum object is a cultural value, which quality or special features make it necessary for society to preserve, study and popularize. Any work with a museum object is accompanied by documentation with different levels of obligation. And the better the system of documentation in the museum is, the easier it is to work with the objects, the more information this object can provide for scientific study. Therefore, structuring and bringing documentary accounting to the up to date level is not just a requirement of time, but a total necessity. Each movement of an object within and outside the museum in order to use it for exhibition, research or other activities requires the display of a number of documents. Important are the documents that contain operational information about the museum object and its immediate location. Such documents that provide effective control over the movements and condition of museum objects include such type of secondary internal museum documentation as a topographic register. The purpose of the research is to determine the methodological approaches to the processes of accounting and preservation of museum objects. To achieve this goal the author uses primary and special research methods, their combination and category apparatus. The scientific novelty of the article is the issue of unification of terminology used in the museum sphere, including in the level of documentary accounting. The paper also considers the methods and methodology of compiling and maintaining topographic registers in various departments of the museum, as well as developed by the museum staff templates of topographic registers, which meet the purpose of documenting the history of the museum object, including the history of its movements.