Heritage Resources Management (HERM) 322

Overview

The activities of museums, archives, and many historic places are built primarily around collections of material objects. The concern of this course is with the management of heritage in its material manifestations in collections, primarily within museum and archival collections.

Collections cannot endure without care and management. Heritage Resources Management 322: Heritage Collections deals with the acquisition, documentation, storage, and preservation of collections. Attention is also given to discarding materials from collections and issues surrounding access to collections. These activities require an understanding of how and why collections are formed, why an object is significant and worth keeping, how a collection is documented and organized, and the balance that needs to be struck between using and conserving the materials in a collection.

As noted above, conservation of collections is discussed in this course, but students should be aware that a more specialized course, Herm 339 Conservation, is available for those requiring a more in-depth study of conservation of collections.

Learning Outcomes

HERM 322: Heritage Collections introduces formative issues and practices in heritage collections management. After completing the course, you should be able to:

1. Discuss current methods and rationales of collecting and collection management in a range of heritage institutions.
2. Identify and describe some of the important theoretical and applied issues in collections management in contemporary heritage institutions.
3. Apply knowledge of methods and theory for collecting, storing, documenting, and conserving heritage collections.

Outline

Part I. Understanding Collections

• Unit 1: Heritage Collections: The Historical Legacy
• Unit 2: Collections: Types and Uses
• Unit 3: Archival Collections
• Unit 4: Special Types of Collections: Archaeological, Palaeontological and Historic Place Collections

Part II Methodologies of Collections Management

• Unit 5: The Process: Collecting and Documenting
• Unit 6: Managing Collections Data
• Unit 7: The Process: Artifact Storage and Conservation
• Unit 8: Managing Collections: Assessing, Culling, Deaccessioning
• Unit 9: Access and Collaboration

Evaluation

To receive credit for HERM 322, you must complete all of the assignments and achieve a minimum composite course grade of D (50 percent). The chart below summarizes the course activities and the credit weight associated with each assignment.

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.