Seminar, Friday 19 July 2013, ACMI

This seminar explained the significance assessment process, which can help collecting organisations to make sound judgements and good decisions about conserving, interpreting, and managing objects and collections, now and into the future.

The event showed how a significance assessment could benefit your collection, how to prepare for the significance assessment process, and the importance of identifying significant collection items to boost your museum’s relevance to its community and stakeholders.

All videos are close captioned for accessibility, please click the  icon at the bottom of the video if you would prefer to view captions.

Thanks to the City of Melbourne and ACMI for their generous support of this project.

Overview of Significance
Meredith Blake, formerly Project Manager, Victorian Collections

Meredith discusses the concept behind significance, introduces the publication Significance 2.0, and explains the process and possible benefits of Significance Assessments.

Case Study: Australian Racing Museum
Lorinda Cramer

Lorinda discusses how a significance assessment helped the Australian Racing Museum focus their collecting practice by identifying important objects in their collection and fill the gaps in contemporary collecting.

Significance in Art Collections, City of Melbourne
Eddie Butler-Bowdon

Eddie discusses how significance can be applied to art collections and acquisition criteria to assist the development of a significant collection.

Case Study: National Vietnam Veterans Museum
Andrew Kilsby

Andrew talks about what their significance assessment meant for the National Vietnam Veterans Museum, whether it was undertaken at the right time, and how the findings are not always what the committee might want to hear.

Preparing for a Significance Assessment
Belinda Ensor, Historian

Belinda explains how important it is for organisations to be well prepared to undertake a significance assessment, including organised collections, catalogue records and realistic expectations.

Resources & Links

Significance 2.0: a guide to assessing the significance of  collections
http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/publications/significance2-0/
Community Heritage Grants, National Library of Australia (funding for significance assessments)
http://www.nla.gov.au/awards-and-grants/chg

> View our Event page for our upcoming events
> You may also be interested in our training videos for museums