1. MDA/KE EMu/110406 MDA Initiatives and SPECTRUM Nick Poole MDA Director

2. MDA/KE EMu/110406 MDA UK’s lead organisation for collections management Responsible for: –Maintaining professional standards –Supporting best practice –Providing training –Giving advice

3. MDA/KE EMu/110406 SPECTRUM Industry standard for documentation and information management in museums Revised edition published April 2005 21 procedures for different elements of collections management 400+ Units of Information Published as an open standard and available free of charge from www.mda.org.uk

4. MDA/KE EMu/110406 SPECTRUM XML Published online as an XML service Self-publishing XML schema Mapping to the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model A distributed platform for ongoing editing and updating of the standard Updating the CIMI Data Interchange Format

5. MDA/KE EMu/110406 SPECTRUM International Working to assigning translation and localisation rights to partners throughout the EU SPECTRUM proposed as the basis of a Europe-wide system for supporting collections mobility Working towards a European standard

6. MDA/KE EMu/110406 SPECTRUM Terminology New online service launched Jan 2006 3 core services: –Terminology Essentials key principles of terminology –Terminology Workshop hints and tips on creating consistent terminologies –Terminology Bank, download structured terminologies to use in projects Working on an AHRC-funded investigation into the Semantic Web for museums

7. MDA/KE EMu/110406 New directions Documentation for Diversity –Using documentation records and Collections Management Systems to record information from diverse communities Learning Collections –Investigating how documentation systems can support the delivery of Generic Learning Outcomes as part of the Inspiring Learning for All framework Research to demonstrate the social and economic impact of information management

8. MDA/KE EMu/110406 MDA & KE EMu KE has become one of the first MDA Partners Ensuring that systems are compliant with the SPECTRUM standard Meeting the requirements of the Museum Accreditation Scheme Delivering best practice through your software KE helping to shape the future development of the SPECTRUM standard

9. MDA/KE EMu/110406 SPECTRUM Compliance Unit of Information Compliance –How are the Units of Information represented in the system Access Compliance –Is SPECTRUM accessible from within the system Data Migration Compliance –Does the system support lossless migration to a SPECTRUM-structured dataset

10. MDA/KE EMu/110406 Collections Link National collections management advisory service Office-hours telephone advice in 16 areas of professional practice including documentation, digitisation, online publishing and copyright Online library of over 200 best practice publications from partners throughout the UK including the National Archives, Institute of Conservation, Museum Copyright Group and others Launches end of April 2006

11. MDA/KE EMu/110406 Contact Nick Poole Director MDA Tel. 01223 415 760 www.mda.org.uk