Visitable collections: experience report of the teaching practice about documentation in museums and the research for management of collections at UNIRIO

Abstract

This paper presents partial results of the teaching project called “Gestão de coleções: análise sobre documentação de objetos associados aos conhecimentos tradicionais populares sob tutela da UNIRIO e aplicabilidade do sistema In Arte” (Collections Management: Analysis of the Documentation of Objects Associated with Popular Traditional Knowledge and Applicability of In Arte System), developed at the Núcleo Multidimensional de Gestão do Patrimônio e de Documentação em Museus (NUGEP/UNIRIO). The present paper focuses on the qualification of informations about university collections, aiming to describe the process of documentation and qualification of data pertaining to visitable collections under the guardianship of UNIRIO, based on the experiences with museological documentation teaching and
the research about collections management, with a focus on the collection maintained by the Central Library – specifically the objects that once
belonged to Professor Pernambuco de Oliveira and now are part of the Coleção de Artesanato e Arte Popular (Crafts and Popular Art Collection). The initial work of collection documentation started with the review of the inventory, followed by the  quantification of the collection. Since 2018, the collection has been cataloged by the students in the “Information and Museological Documentation I” course at the undergraduate program in Museums Studies, using the system of collections management called In Arte Online. Academic cataloging activities, enhanced by the use of collection management software, contribute to the theoretical/practical
training of future museology professionals and promote the recognition and identification of the university’s own collections, thus enabling the
definition of guidelines on policies for the management of its cultural assets.