Documenting Your Collections
Info-Muse Network Documentation Guide

Acknowledgements for the second edition

It was several years ago that we first thought of issuing a new edition of Comment documenter vos collections ? Le guide de documentation du Réseau Info-Muse (the French version of this guide). When we were finally able to sit down and start looking at it seriously, our preliminary evaluation showed that the first edition was still a useful tool, although it needed some updating. The goal was to bring the guide up to speed with changes that had occurred since the first edition, in terms of technological developments and advances in documenting collections. The standards in this second edition are both more specific and more flexible than in the first. Some fields have been modified or added, particularly for science and technology collections, while other fields have been removed because they will be covered in the update of Comment gérer vos collections ? Le guide de gestion du Réseau Info-Muse. The introduction has been reviewed, to better advise users on how to make the most of this tool.

This new edition demanded a great deal of time and energy from those who worked on it. I would like to take a moment to thank them all here.

First of all, France Desmarais, advisor on the computerization of collections with the Info-Muse Network, co-ordinated the entire project and directed the team with exceptional attention to detail, constantly striving for perfection. We also called on the expertise of museology consultant Danielle Lord, who worked mainly on the ethnology and history, fine arts and decorative arts collections, as well as on archaeology, object data. Michel Harnois, a museologist with Technoculture enr., worked on the science and technology and natural science collections, and Madeleine Lafaille, an advisor on the computerization of collections with the Info-Muse Network, contributed her recognized skills at several steps along the way. Another member of the team, and an invaluable one at that, was Marie-Laure Deval, a museology writer living in Quebec at the time. Her always pertinent comments, wide-ranging knowledge and great generosity made her an incomparable contributor, particularly for the linguistic revision and standardization of the document—and she donated all her time!

Many museology professionals agreed to lend their time and expertise to the Info-Muse Network to help complete this guide. I will start with the members of the scientific validation committee for the new edition of the documentation guide. For the ethnology and history, fine arts and decorative arts and archaeology sections: Marc Côté, Director of Corporation Archéo-08, Paul-Aimé Lacroix, registrar with the Parks Canada Service, Lise Nadeau, registrar with the Musée du Québec, and Nicole Vallières, Director, Collection and Information Management at the McCord Museum of Canadian History. For the additions concerning the science and technology collections: Sylvie Toupin, curator with the Musée de la civilisation, and Jean-Paul Viaud, curator with the Canadian Railway Museum. For the section on natural sciences: Serge Gaudard, curator with the Musée minéralogique et minier de Thetford Mines, and Serge Gauthier, curator with the Musée du Séminaire de Sherbrooke.

More specifically, the following people threw valuable light on different facets of the guide: Christine LaSalle, registrar, and Ginette Clément, photographer, with the Musée d'art de Joliette, Anne-Marie Zeppetelli, co-ordinator of the computerized collections management system at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Éric Vanasse, head of the Archives Department at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Luc Brouillet, curator of the Herbier Marie-Victorin at the Université de Montréal, André Caron, of the Herbier Louis-Marie at Université Laval in Quebec City, Ingrid Birker, curator with the Redpath Museum, Marcel Parent, museology curator with the Montréal Biodôme, and Claudine Giroux, head of the inventory of sites and archaeological collections of Quebec (ISAQ).

Anita Beaudoin and Line LePut both deserve thanks for providing technical support and for data entry, along with Guy Lafrenière for the computer graphics and Jean-Pierre Leroux for linguistic revision of part of the guide.

Two institutions provided particularly valuable support, by allowing us to reproduce in the guide the authority lists they had developed for their needs: the Musée du Québec, for the authority list for the Subject/Image field, developed by Thérèse Labbé as part of the ARTimage project, and the Musée minéralogique et minier de Thetford Mines, for its authority list in the Specimen Nature field.

Finally, for the English version of the guide, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) and the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the translation work by Terry Knowles and Pamela Ireland. Madeleine Lafaille, advisor on computerization of collections with the Info-Muse Network, and Isa Mailloux, museology technician, also worked on validating and producing the English version. I would also like to thank Parks Canada, who through Pierre Beaudet, Head, Cultural Heritage and Real Property, agreed to renew our original agreement by allowing us to make use of the English version of the Parks Canada classification system.¹

Françoise Simard
Manager, Info-Muse Network
Société des musées québécois