Capturing Museum Knowledge

Art and culture institutions are moving towards digitally registering their collections or company information. The possibilities and applications seem endless. And while office automation has been introduced in almost all museums in the Netherlands, some Dutch museums have not yet formulated an information policy or reserved a separate budget for ICT. ICT is still insufficiently integrated in Dutch museums as a policy. This publication describes how, in the course of twenty years, the Tropenmuseum has developed from a completely analogue institution to a museum where digitization is central and forms part of all work processes. All the ups and downs of twenty years of automation and digitization of the Tropenmuseum collections is reviewed. This publication can be used by heritage institutions as a case study in the field of digitization of collections and possibly offer useful ideas for their own digitization process.