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Roslyn Russell
Director
Roslyn Russell Museum Services

Kylie Winkworth
Museum and Heritage Consultant

1. Refining Significance in the 2nd Edition

Work on the second edition is informed by:

• The brief from the Commonwealth / Collections Council of Australia (CCA)
• Comments offered through the Collections Council’s Significance (2001) Survey
• Experience of using significance in a variety of contexts and applications
• Feedback from the Workshop

Areas identified for additions or refinement include:

• Extension of the significance methodology to the library and archive domains
• Incorporation of shared issues across the museum, gallery, library and archive domains
• Exploration of sustainable heritage through use of the significance methodology
• More diversity in the illustrated case studies so that the four domains and a wider range of collection items are represented, including maritime collections contemporary art, archaeological collections, and natural history collections
• Refinements to the assessment criteria to improve understanding and applicability across a range of collection types, both primary and comparative criteria
• Refinements to step-by-step method for single items and whole collections, based on work undertaken since Significance (2001) was published, as well as feedback from users and the Collections Council Significance (2001) Survey
• A clearer delineation of the two key methods for single items or whole collections, and their distinct applications
• A wider range of case studies across the four domains, as well as in situ collections in heritage places, maritime items, and items and collections in community ownership
• Guidelines or threshold questions for the assessment of items of national significance, to better support the Community Heritage Grant Program and the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act
• Advice on implementing significance across a range of collection contexts
• A revised introduction that updates the rationale for significance, touching on issues such as collections convergence, sustainability and the internet
• Draw on successful significance projects undertaken since the publication of Significance (2001)
• Consideration of a set of principles or concepts that underpin significance

2. Recapping the Main Ingredients of Significance

Significance is a concept that has been widely used in heritage practice for the last 30 years. Since about 2001 it has been adapted for heritage collections in Australia as a way of investigating, defining and communicating the meaning and importance of objects and collections.

Significance is the value or meaning that items and collections have for present and future generations. It refers to all of the elements that contribute to an item or collection’s meaning, including tangible and intangible features, from the fabric of the item, its history, provenance and context, to associations and connections with people and places.

Significance assessment is the process of studying and understanding the meanings and values of items and collections. The process entails:

Analysing an object / collection

Investigating its history, provenance and context

Comparison with similar objects / collections

Assessment against a set of criteria

Summarising its values and meaning in a ‘statement of significance’

There are two related methods for significance assessment:

1. Single object assessment

2. Whole of collection assessment, which may also be used for particular collection themes, or for a number of collections across a region or state

These processes have different applications, depending on why the assessment is being undertaken.

Step by Step Assessment Method

The key steps in the single item assessment as presented in Significance (2001) include:

1 Develop an object or item file to collate collections records

2 Research the item’s history and provenance

3 Talk with donors, owners and investigate community associations

4 Explore the wider context of the item, historical, environmental or other

5 Analyse the item’s fabric, design, manufacture and condition

6 Consider comparative examples

7 Assess significance against the criteria

8 Write a ‘statement of significance’

The Criteria

There are four primary criteria and five comparative criteria for assessing significance. They are a framework to assist in describing how and why the item is important.

There are four primary criteria:

Historic significance

Aesthetic significance

Scientific or Research significance – for items / collections of current or future scientific or research value

Social or Spiritual significance – for items / collections of demonstrated contemporary value to a group or community

Five comparative criteria are used to help evaluate the degree of significance. They are modifiers of the main criteria and may indicate or clarify that the item is of lesser or greater significance.

Provenance

Representativeness

Rarity

Condition, intactness or integrity

Interpretive potential

Applications

Since the Significance (2001) guide was published it has been widely adopted by heritage collecting and funding organisations for a variety of purposes. Applications include:

• Collection and item documentation
• Acquisition decisions and deaccessioning
• Guiding conservation policy and treatment
• Collection policies and strategies
• Strategic planning
• Disaster preparedness
• Collaborative projects across collections, such as thematic studies
• In registers and listings
• Interpretation and exhibitions
• Marketing and collection promotion
• On-line communication
• Substantiate the case for grant funding or guide decisions on grant applications

3. Significance: Some Key Concepts

The use of a standard methodology and common set of criteria underpins the whole concept of significance and its capacity to facilitate sound, well-argued assessments across all types of collections.

Significance assessment sits beside current collection documentation practice and methodologies for analysing or describing items, including archival, taxonomic, artistic/ connoisseurship. Significance assessment does not replace the existing collection management systems for each domain, or collection types within domains, although it may be incorporated in areas such as collection policies, acquisitions and conservation assessments.

Significance assessment can add value to existing cataloguing processes by improving documentation in areas such as context, community associations and intangible heritage.

The step-by-step assessment method underpins a sound assessment of significance. Each step builds understanding and feeds into the assessment. However not all steps in the method will be relevant to every item.

Good records and research are essential. Part of the value of significance assessment is that it encourages collecting organisations to improve the research and documentation of their most significant items.

The assessment criteria cannot be properly considered before working through the step-by-step process: developing notes under each step in the process, researching and analysing the item / collection, understanding its history and context and considering comparative items / collections.

The assessment criteria are only a framework for drawing out the important qualities of an item or collection, referring back to information gathered in each step in the assessment process.

Significance assessment does entail value judgements, but these should be justifiable by reference to the notes under each step and the criteria. Part of the utility of significance assessment is to encourage debate about the meaning and values of items and collections.

The first edition of Significance argues for the ‘statement of significance’ as a reasoned, readable summary of the item’s meaning and values. Other heritage organisations write their statements of significance in terms of the applicability of each criterion, rather than a synthesised summary of the item’s meaning.

Significance assessment can encompass differing points of view about an item or collection.

Significance assessment may change over time, such as through new research, changes to the fabric of the item such as deterioration, or as communities change.

The first edition of Significance deliberately did not include tools to explore national, state or regional levels of significance. It was not part of the brief for the first edition. Feedback from workshops prior to the publication of Significance was that it was too soon, when establishing the concept and methodology, to add the complex issue of levels of significance.

Comparative knowledge of similar or related items is an important part of significance assessment, and it is essential in determining levels of significance, such as national or state significance.