THE COVENANTER
famous owner was maintained through through a procedure known as “knowledge
the traditions of the families that kept it. harvesting”. Sharon Paton, who works both
If even one generation failed to pass on with South Lanarkshire Council museums
the vital knowledge about the sword, that as a Museum Officer and with Museums
information would have been lost forever. Galleries Scotland (MGS) as a job-share
The sword would merely be a well-preserved Collections Development Manager is
example of a 17th century weapon in our working with Terry on developing a series
collections. We would have had no idea that of questions for Terry to respond to while
it had belonged to Cleland. studying the object or group of objects in
question. Sharon commits 50% of her time
Multiply that by at least 50,000 times for all to this work. Early pilot work on knowledge
the objects in our collection to see the scale harvesting is showing it to be very successful
of the importance of passing on collections at capturing data that’s in Terry’s head.
knowledge.
We believe that we are the first museum
Lt Cleland’s sword illustrates an essential part service in Britain to take such an approach
of successful and consistent preservation and to make such a commitment.
and sharing of collections knowledge:
succession planning. The joint aim of South Lanarkshire Council
and Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) is to
In the museum world many long-serving develop a succession planning toolkit that
employees retire or leave their museum any museum in Scotland could use with
for another job. When they leave much suitable training and support. In addition,
of their accumulated knowledge about the elements of this toolkit are planned to
collections goes with them. be available to the museum sector as part
of a new Museums Galleries Scotland
In recent years museums and museum (MGS) learning website for employee
bodies such as Museums Galleries Scotland development.
(MGS) and the Museums Association (MA)
have begun to deal with this challenge. Succession planning in museums has a
wider objective than the concept has in its
The MA, through the Lottery-funded more familiar role in business. Succession
Monument fellowships scheme, is able planning in museums is about developing
to fund a few fellowships each year for a procedures to share collections knowledge,
retired curator to spend a further period not just amongst museum employees, but
with his/her old museum to pass on his/her to make it available to all museum visitors
collections knowledge to colleagues. to our museums and to our website.
Here in South Lanarkshire Council we have Our project is intended to run over three
a different approach. We have re-structured years in three phases, gradually widening
our service to allow a long-serving museum the project to include more of our project
employee, Terry F Mackenzie, to work 3 days objectives. We plan to seek grant-aid from
a week exclusively on succession planning Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) to
in partnership with Museums Galleries support this important project. The Trustees
Scotland (MGS). of The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) have
agreed to match fund parts of the first
Terry is now 60 years old and has worked in two phases where it concerns Cameronian
the museum service in Hamilton since June collections. In the second year it is planned to
1974. He has also worked in partnership with digitise the complete run of The Covenanter
the Trustees of The Cameronians (Scottish from its first issue in 1922. This goldmine of
Rifles) over most of that period. Terry has information about Cameronians worldwide
an unrivalled knowledge of the collections - can then be browsed page by page and be
most of it in his head. fully searchable.
If Terry’s brain could be plugged directly into Our objective is to make succession planning
our computerised collections management an integral part of a museum’s daily work
system, then the downloading of the so that collections knowledge is a constant
data would be relatively simple. That part stream of sharing of information and
of the process is being achieved instead adding an ever-growing stock of collections
16
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