Collecting Policy

NMSI Collecting Strategy

The National Media Museum (NMeM) is part of the National Museum of Science & Industry (NMSI), which exists to develop, manage and make useful for the public the UK's national collections relating to science and technology, including industry, medicine, transport and the media.

The National Heritage Act 1983 requires us to preserve, care for and add to the objects in the collections, to exhibit them to the public and to make them available for study and research, and to promote the public's enjoyment and understanding of science and technology and of the development of those subjects.

We are commited to delivering a life enhancing experience through a high impact creative offer, based on the management, development and use of world-class collections that are relevant to audiences both today and in the future. We interpret both the Act requirements and Corporate Plan aspirations within our museums' master plans and strategies.

NMSI's three museums have separate collecting policy statements which are congruent with each other and form a suite of statements which take into account those specific differences in the subjects that NMSI represents.

Read the full NMSI Collecting Strategy (PDF, 41Kb).

NMeM Collecting Policy Statement

March 2010
NMeM exists to develop, manage and make useful for the public the UK's national collections relating to the media. All new collecting is conducted with reference to these often definitive holdings.

These collections reflect its remit as the primary national resource in its subject areas. They are unique in their breadth and depth, covering all aspects of the media – technical, commercial, popular and creative. While other major institutions may have exemplary holdings in more focused aspects of the media, the NMeM's potential to attract scholars, donors, vendors or patrons must suggest that their status is that of the primary National Collection of each of the media it represents.

This brief statement, to be considered in conjunction with the NMSI Collecting Strategy, sets out why and how the National Media Museum (NMeM) adds new items to its Collection; its MLA-Accreditation Acquisition and Disposal Policy gives full details (including collection history, governing legislation, limitations and procedures). The NMeM's Collection Board will normally review this statement along with the longer document on a five year cycle, in collaboration with the NMSI Collections Group and in consultation with the Museum's Trustee Advisory Committee. The NMSI Board of Trustees and MLA Council will be notified of any significant changes to policy or procedure.

Collecting is a core responsibility of subject curators and is supervised by the NMeM Collections Team, which involves and consults staff from the NMSI Corporate & Collections Information for their expert input, as appropriate, to ensure a collaborative approach to implementation.

Mission
The NMeM's mission is to be a world-class museum which inspires people to learn about, engage with and create media. Its permanent collections will consistently provide the UK with the world's best material and visual record of the media.

Policy
Using this collection, NMeM will enable its audiences to explore the artistic, technological, social and cultural impact of the media, to understand how different media reflect and shape lives and the world in which we live. This will help people to understand and participate in their heritage, find knowledge for themselves and have a say in the issues that shape their future.

The NMeM already has strong holdings which evidence the art, science and culture of the media. It will build on these to develop a collection of such uniqueness, strength and diversity that it will be automatically considered as the key point of reference for peer institutions, artists, practitioners, academics and visitors.

Continued collecting ensures that we can fulfil this mission into the future. In line with this, curators propose new items – both 'icons' and supporting material or more everyday items – for the Collection because they:

enable the Museum to provide life enhancing experiences through its current cultural programme;
evidence key new work in media disciplines and/or significant new products;
illustrate key human stories in media history;
represent inventions that are specific to the media and do not have an application in other fields.

The Museum collects in five main subject areas: Photography (incorporating Photographs and Photographic Technology), Cinematography, Television, Radio Broadcast and New Media (including the Web). Collecting is governed by acquisition to sustain narratives and, where appropriate, gap-filling. Broad direction is given by key themes that are periodically reviewed (See Appendix 1).

It collects both actively and reactively, although it is moving towards 'active' collecting, which is achieved through specific acquisition projects; collecting in partnership, acquisition by nurture or as a result of exhibitions or commissioning. Reactive collecting, by contrast, takes selective advantage of the hundreds of unsolicited donations that the Museum receives each year and responds to opportunities offered by specialist auctions and private vendor sales. The NMeM has an annual Purchase Fund, which allows it to pursue important material offered for sale.

NMeM will collect both for use within the planned projects of its Cultural Plan and for posterity. In the period covered by this edition of the policy, NMeM will be especially concerned on acquiring material which reflects traditional and contemporary (i.e. post-1950) lens-based media, broadcast, and the web and radio media, covering material which is not only primarily British in origin but also which has or been influenced by international practitioners or organisations.

Where appropriate and practicable, NMeM will seek proactively to target and acquire specific archives or groups of seminal work by key influential practitioners and artists in their entirety in order to preserve legacy, and maximise their cultural and commercial potential. It will also work actively alongside and collaboratively with other National Museums to ensure that its holdings complement theirs and that key bodies of work are preserved for the Nation, whilst ensuring that the NMeM's core collection remains of the highest quality and relevance. It will seek the active involvement of the Trustees to help it achieve this ambition.

Where NMeM collects without specifying use, the Collections Board weighs potential future application; collecting for posterity guarantees the Collection's continuing national and international significance and value and this material can be made available on request through the Museum's study and research facilities.

In this context, the NMeM's collecting strategy will be best served through a flexible protocol that allows for the designation of intended acquisitions as destined either to be:

accessioned into the permanent collection, or
designated as being held under review for eventual determination that the acquisition (or part thereof in the case of groups of works, collections or archives) may, at the discretion of the Curators and with the approval of the Director, be disposed of in line with the terms of the National Heritage Act, or
identified as appropriate for handling and study purposes and as such not requiring the archival commitments due to full permanent collection acquisitions.

All new acquisitions are measured against four basic criteria: significance, use, condition and provenance, and the way in which the NMeM Collection has developed, means that there is a secondary collection of duplicate material which will be retained for display treatment, or to facilitate study and learning activity, or for disposal to or exchange with other museums in order to ensure sustainable management in line with the NMSI Collections Management Policies and Procedures.

Download the NMeM Collecting Policy (PDF, 76Kb), including current Key Themes and governing principles.

To view ojects from our Collections or to make an enquiry (including the procedure for object donations), please visit Collections.