Collection management at Museum Stavanger

When you visit a museum and see all the exhibited objects, do you ever wonder how they got there? Who is responsible for all these objects, and of what does that responsibility consist?

Museums call this work collection management. Large museums hire special staff-members who are responsible for preserving and safeguarding the collections. This applies for collections kept in depots but also everything presented in exhibitions. Such responsibility can extend to many types of objects, archives, buildings, boats and much more besides.

The age of museum collections varies a lot. Europe’s oldest museums date back to the 1600s and 1700s. In Norway, many important museums were established in the 1800s. Among these was Stavanger Museum, established in 1877. The objects collected at that time formed the basis for today’s collections at Museum Stavanger (MUST), which now has grown much larger. We therefore have a great responsibility to ensure that all the objects have good conditions for being preserved, and to facilitate research and make the objects available for everyone to enjoy.

Read more about how we work with collection management (PDF)

Read our collection management plan (PDF)

Other relevant guidelines and literature about collection management are available at samlingsnett.no.