Preserving Information relating to Instruments in Museums

Museums not only preserve objects, but also information about these objects. Information can be acquired with the object, generated by the museum, or provided by visitors and other external sources. The kinds of information museums preserve and how they do it vary widely, despite professional codes of good practice and the availability of content management systems tailored to museums. In the case of musical instruments, there are specific kinds of information that do not always fit into commercial packages. This article analyses the various kinds of information relating to musical instruments in terms of importance and vulnerability to loss and degradation, suggests priorities for data storage and long-term preservation, examines some of the systems museums have employed for information storage and retrieval, and discusses what museums can learn from digital preservation techniques adopted by research institutions.