NETWORKED MUSINGPLACES: RESEARCH & COLLECTION BUILDING

Research relevant to networked musingplace collections and their Communities of Ownership & Interest (COI) research is a key component of a musingplace’s cultural and social relevance. Indeed, unless musingplaces collections are being proactively studied and researched their status and relevance as a community cultural asset is debatable. 

Importantly, musingplaces not actively engaged in research aught not be a part of a musingplace network. Nor should such a collection be able to: 

•  Hold public property in their collection; 
•  Be in receipt of public funding for any aspect of the musingplaces operation; or 
•  Be able to receive donations of cultural material of any kind or tax benefit of any kind relevant to cultural or scientific material that attracts any kind of tax benefit when donated. 

Research networks are at their best when they are rhizome like – rhizomatic – an imagining based on the botanical rhizome and an idea that assumes multiplicities rather than singularity. Also, serendipity is assumed to be more likely. Community networks, and dynamic collections, tend to be organic/rhizomatic.

Furthermore, given a collection’s research potential and program, and the significance of that, any research should be conducted in accord with best practice ethical standards that comply with appropriate international standards. 

Conditional upon gaining access to a collection all research outcomes should be made publicly available and within an agreed timeframe. Ideally the publication of research outcomes should be via the collection’s governing institution/body and most importantly, openly accessible. The researcher(s) should retain intellectual property (IP) in any publication unless they are staff members and IP is a component of their employment agreement. 

Collection Building 

Consistent with: 

•  The concept that Tasmania’s public collections belong in ‘lore’ to Tasmanians, and by extension to the nation; 
•  The institutions/organisation that holds them are properly accountable: and 
•  The collection is being proactively researched;

the building of a collection is an important cultural and social pursuit. However, if a network of collections is envisaged as a whole the network’s significance expands exponentially.

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Against this background the necessity for disciplined collecting becomes more of an imperative. Yet, collections will/should contain incongruous material, otherwise serendipitous research opportunities are less likely to present themselves.

Consequentially, public collections need to be built thoughtfully and in response to policy sets determined by the collection’s governing body – a body peopled by a membership with appropriate domain knowledge. Ideally these people will be appointed rather than elected and again appointed by a body with appropriate domain knowledge. For public collections aligning the appropriate personnel is a non-trivial issue if the integrity of the collection is to be maintained. 

 Another important issue is the qualifications and experience of collection managers, curators and researchers. Currently there are tertiary institutions graduating people with various skill sets with various levels of appropriateness relevant to the collections they manage and care for. Nonetheless, matching people to collections and programs is ever likely to be problematic and a subjective exercise. 

For this reason as much as any other, it is an imperative that institutions/operations become formally accredited in some way. This is especially important if they are to be in receipt of public funds – Local, State or Federal – and/or be afforded taxation concessions. Unavoidably subjective and objective assessments will need to be made on the assessments of a musingplace's accountability. 

Scientific Research and Critical Enquiry 

Public musingplaces hold a largely unfulfilled promise of being centres for productive critical discourses and enquiries. None of this lessens the need for appropriately constituted, fully accountable and rigorously administered public institutions/operations. 

The fact that these collections hold material that has the potential to offer serendipitous opportunities to allow new knowledge and/or understandings to be acquired, by itself, this makes these collections important. 

The ‘civilising’ potential of a musingplace as an institution in recent times has been downplayed – particularly so in regard to their COIs. The rate of social and cultural change facilitated by digital technologies has been are large factor in this. These institutions have a role yet to play in navigating a way through this ongoing phenomenon of change – and where appropriate facilitating change. 

Again, all this simply adds weight to the importance of public musingplaces’ accountability and it being independently oversighted from outside the institution or organisation. 

On top of this, as research institutions, there needs to be verifiable assurances that musingplace research meets appropriate ethical standards and that researchers and administrators involved are appropriately qualified to assure that this be the case.