Art Museum Archives are archives that are created by individuals and organizations that have a sufficient worth that necessitate permanent preservation. Art Museum Archives include the writing notes of artists and critics etc., memos, drawings, exhibi...
Art Museum Archives are archives that are created by individuals and organizations that have a sufficient worth that necessitate permanent preservation. Art Museum Archives include the writing notes of artists and critics etc., memos, drawings, exhibition materials and documents containing the policies and the concurrent situations of art related organizations and institutions, and audio video materials, while excluding artworks that have aesthetic or emotional value. Art Museum Archives, which include various medium and types as above, are archives that have information and evidence based value, and are established and supported for the research of the Art Museum and Art History.
For the systematic implementation and application of an Art Museum Archive, there is a need to establish related description elements, and through this not only must information on the individual archives be provided, but through a high utility finding aid, the creation context of the archived document should be provided so that users of the archive can easily access documents. In the case of Korean Art Museum Archives, there is a tendency to focus on the fragmented informational value of an individual archive document, which in reality causes the structural and contextual element characteristic of the document to be destroyed.
Therefore this research supports the Hierarchical Description of Art Museum Archives and has the objective of proposing Art Archive Description Elements that promote the preservation of creation context and effective utilization. In addition, because personal records take up a large portion of Art Archives and are very diverse in terms of medium and type, a Description Element that can reflect this is attempted to be proposed.
In order to achieve the objectives of the research, first, through literature research, the definition and characteristics of Art Archives were examined, and based on the descriptive guidelines of the 2nd Edition of the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)) established by the International Council on Archives (ICA), the 3rd Edition of the Manual of Archival Description (MAD), which is the description manual for archives of the United Kingdom, the 2nd Edition of the Describing Archives: A Component Standard (DACS), which is the description manual for archives of the United States, the Revised Edition of the Rules for Archival Description (RAD), which is the description manual for archives of Canada, and the 2nd Edition of the Archival Description Rules, NAK/S 14:2011, which is the description manual for archives of Korea established by the Korean National Archives, were all examined.
Second, a case study on the description elements of 4 UK and USA based organizations outside of Korea that had implemented and utilized an Art Archive, and 2 organizations in Korea related to art, was conducted. Third, at the same time as the case studies, an intimate face to face or document interview was conducted with the managers of Art Archives in 6 Art Museums both within Korea and within UK and USA based organizations. Through this it was possible to confirm the common and specialized description elements that each Art Museum implemented. Later, based on the 7 description areas and description elements of ISAD(G), 4 archives description standards and the description elements of 6 Art Museums were comparatively analyzed and the common description elements that could be applied to Art Archives were deduced.
Based on the analysis above, this research proposes description elements of Art Museum Archives. The proposed description elements, based on the 7 common description areas proposed by the ISAD(G), which are the Identity Area, Context Area, Content and Structure Area, Conditions of Access and Use Area, Allied Materials Areas, Note Area and Description Control Area, were assigned as description elements appropriate for each of the collections, series, files and item hierarchies. There were 27 collection hierarchies, 29 series hierarchies, and 22 item hierarchies proposed for the description elements.
Essential elements were also designated, which include reference codes, titles, creation year, level of description, extent and medium of the unit of description(quantity, bulk, or size), quantity, name of creator, scope and content.
First, for the Identity Area, which describes elements that make possible the distinction of Art Museum Archives, the inclusion of reference code, title, creation year, level of description, extent and medium of the unit of description(quantity, bulk, or size), name and location of repository, abstract, image, type, and quantity were proposed. The Identity Area was devised to make possible the subdivision of the name and location of the repository and the various types of Art Archives.
Second, the Context Area, which describes the information and biographical history of the creator of the Art Museum Archive, includes the name of the creator, the immediate source of acquisition or transfer, archival history, and the administrative/biographical history.
Third, the Content and Structure Area, which describes information regarding the range, structure and content of the Art Museum Archive, includes the scope and content, system of arrangement, and keywords. With the additional description of keywords, which allows more effective search, the smooth utilization of the querying and other additional services of Art Archives is made possible.
Fourth, the Conditions of Access and Use Area, which describes information regarding the legal state or information regarding access and use of the Art Museum Archive, includes conditions governing access, conditions governing reproduction, language/scripts of material, physical characteristics and technical requirements), the characteristics of the medium, digital and finding aids. Through the characteristics of the medium, the description of various types and forms of Art Archives is made possible and through digital description elements, the application perspective of the services, publishing and exhibition etc. of Art Archives are emphasized.
Fifth, the Allied Materials Area, which describes information regarding the allied materials of the Art Museum Archive, includes related units of description, existence and location of originals, and digital collections.
Sixth, the Note Area, which describes information that is not possible to be described by other description elements or describes additional explanation descriptions, includes publication notes, accruals notes, notes, exhibition notes, loan notes, and preservation notes. By outlining the Note Area to be more specific than the archives description standard, management of the implementation and application and the history of the treatment process of the Art Archive management is made possible.
Seventh, the Description Control Area, which describes information regarding the Archivist's Notes of the Art Museum Archive, includes Archivist's Notes, rules or conventions, description date, and reasons and circumstances for description revision. For the reasons and circumstances for description revision, the management of the history of revision of the Art Archive description is made possible.
The Art Museum Archive Description Elements proposed in this research are based on not only the standards of countries that have continuously implemented description management, but because they are based on both he guidelines of Art Museums within Korea also overseas Art Museum that are currently implementing these standards and guidelines, the elements proposed in this research can be used as base and foundation reference when choosing and establishing Art Museum Archive Description Standards. In order to systematically implement and apply Art Museum Archives in the future, there must be continuous interdisciplinary research and accordingly appropriate description standard establishment efforts made between the studies of archives & records management and the studies of art history.