Museum International Pub Date : 2021-07-23 , DOI: 10.1080/13500775.2021.1956728 Ana Tomás-Hernandez
Abstract
Numerous recent studies have identified critical issues with a high percentage of museum storage facilities around the world. The problems detected in such studies are usually solved with ambitious renovation projects, or through the reorganisation of existing resources. This article, drawing from the example of five Spain-based museums, explores the new concept of ‘Storage Debt’. Storage debt refers to the cumulative processes and factors that generate the critical conditions mentioned above, which are quite costly to reverse and which adversely affect museums’ activities at multiple levels.
The storage debt concept arose from the theoretical framework of ‘technical debt’ (coined in the software development industry) and applied to the museum field. The former concept refers to actions and decisions that solve a need in the short term, but that in the future generate contexts that make core activities challenging and whose resolution involves extra efforts and resources. This article brings the theory of debt to the museum discipline by defining the concept, characterising the debt that accumulates in the context of museum storage and identifying strategies that museums can apply to solve the problem within the context of their collections.
Making the accumulation of storage debt visible raises awareness around the additional cost that it implies for museum operations, but also around its potential effects on the value of collections. In this sense, the concept can facilitate communication with museum partners unfamiliar with the more technical aspects of museum management, such as patrons or sponsors. Likewise, when paired with risk analysis, the concept of storage debt makes it possible to shift away from a crisis model toward a predictive model: one that is more institutionally viable and sustainable.
中文翻译:
存储债:“技术债”理论模型在博物馆存储管理中的应用
摘要
最近的许多研究已经确定了世界各地博物馆存储设施比例很高的关键问题。此类研究中发现的问题通常可以通过雄心勃勃的改造项目或通过现有资源的重组来解决。本文以五家西班牙博物馆为例,探讨了“存储债务”的新概念。存储债务是指产生上述关键条件的累积过程和因素,这些过程和因素的逆转成本非常高,并且会在多个层面对博物馆的活动产生不利影响。
存储债概念起源于“技术债”(软件开发行业创造)的理论框架,并应用于博物馆领域。前一个概念指的是在短期内解决需求的行动和决策,但在未来会产生使核心活动具有挑战性的环境,其解决方案需要额外的努力和资源。本文通过定义概念、表征在博物馆存储环境中积累的债务以及确定博物馆可用于解决其藏品环境中的问题的策略,将债务理论引入博物馆学科。
使存储债务的积累可见,提高了人们对它对博物馆运营意味着的额外成本的认识,以及它对藏品价值的潜在影响。从这个意义上说,这个概念可以促进与不熟悉博物馆管理的更多技术方面的博物馆合作伙伴的交流,例如赞助人或赞助商。同样,当与风险分析结合使用时,存储债务的概念使得从危机模型转向预测模型成为可能:一种在制度上更具可行性和可持续性的模型。