Universities, heritage, and non-museum institutions: a methodological proposal for sustainable documentation

Abstract

To provide a sustainable methodology for documenting the small (and underfunded) but often important university heritage collections. The sequence proposed by the DBLC (Database Life Cycle) (Coronel and Morris, Database Systems: Design, Implementation, & Management. Cengage Learning, Boston, 2018; Oppel Databases a beginner’s guide. McGraw-Hill, New York, 2009) is followed, focusing on the database design phase. The resulting proposals aim at harmonising the different documentation tools developed by GLAM institutions (acronym that aims to highlight the common aspects of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), all of which are present in the university environment. The work phases are based mainly on the work of Valle, Fernández Cacho, and Arenillas (Muñoz Cruz et al. Introducción a la documentación del patrimonio cultural. Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Andalucía, Seville, 2017), combined with the experience acquired from the creation of the virtual museum at our institution. The creation of a working team that includes university staff members is recommended because we believe that universities have sufficient power to manage their own heritage. For documentation, we recommend the use of application profiles that consider the new trends in semantic web and LOD (Linked Open Data) and that are created using structural interchange standards such as Dublin Core, LIDO, or Darwin Core, which should be combined with content and value standards adapted from the GLAM area. The application of the methodology described above will make it possible to obtain quality metadata in a sustainable way given the limited resources of university collections. A proposed metadata schema is provided as an annex.