What contemporary research collections can teach to museum collections

The example of a database on Arabidopsis thaliana is but one example of the huge amount of data regarding this model specimen of a plant. It does not show on the image here, but everything is clickable to get even more specific information. The work on this plant is currently done by tens of thousand of scientists around the world. It is obvious nothing of the sort can be achieved in the museum world. However, I believe museums can learn a whole lot from the basic methodology behind such a vast amount of data: knowledge-sharing.
Collections tend to be close settings, each museum developing its own way of cataloguing objects (often guided though by broad national conventions). Very few databases are online and “outsiders” can rarely contribute to the advancement of learning on particular objects they know a lot about (a “privilege” usually reserved to house curators), unless they plan a special visit in a collection. During our wanderings, we found one exception that offers a lot of possibilities: the Museum database at the Danish Technical University called PAST (http://www.past.dk). On this database, there is a section where anyone can make a contribution. Due to the character of this collection on the history of technology, the aim is to reach current and former employees of the technical university (technicians, professors, etc.) so that they share their knowledge online with the curators on specific events, documents, pictures, and instruments. More often than not, they are the only ones who can help explain experimental setups, identify people in a photograph, or tell unknown anecdotes about an event. This commentary section thus offers a lot of opportunities to start a discussion with interested “outsiders” that cannot always visit the collection. The aim is not to create a Wikipedia-type online museum collection, but nevertheless to offer easier access to the museum collections, and thus better (and varied) knowledge on objects.
Online collections such as ISIN and EPACT in the field of the history of science are a start, but they are passive collections. What the field of museum studies need are research collections, collections filled with descriptions and links to historical, scientific, and people resources to increase the knowledge of scientific objects. Every curator in the world will tell you that they don’t have the time to do everything by themselves, and that by making available their (skim data) on instruments, they will have to answer too many questions from the general public. Yet, without an active scholarly community, without the modern means of communication and exchange of ideas, how can we ever develop expertise and savoir-faire? Museums contain an extraordinary abundance of latent knowledge, virtually left untouched by the passive attitude of curators and museum administrations. Databases need to be put on the web; they need the expertise of more than in-house specialists to reach their full potential. It’s not only a question of money; it’s a question of will and attitude. As long as research and knowledge-making will remain museums’ secondary activity, I’m afraid nothing will ever change.