Session 7 Junyan

Develop ideas of where you could incorporate the use of scenario planning in your organization. 

Background Information

Nowadays, library places much emphasis on translating to the digital library. A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media) and accessible by computers. The digital library may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks. A digital library is a type of information system.

Although the new type library has become more and more popular, it’s still quite seldom in the mainland China. Fortunately, the Chinese museums have realized the problem and undertaken to do some works regarding storing the digital information of their collections. Like the Guangdong museum, the organization of my target group, it began to construct a new collection database to save the relevant information. However, if the Guangdong museum desires to construct an advanced digital resources center which can be extended, exchanged or retrieved more easily in the future, there are many problems it needs to overcome. A well planed scenario is helpful to avoid and solve these problems, basic on pondering from overall situations and forecasting the multiple possibilities.

Information Construction Scenario of Guangdong Museum

Using a suitable catalogue to describe the collections in the museum

With the corporation between different museums has become more and more popular, museums think highly of how to share the information of their exhibits sufficiently. They desire to reach agreement on what information should be included in catalogue of artifacts, and what information will be shared or exchanged with other museums.

Like I have mentioned in the session 4, Museums in the other countries have used the CDWA (Categories for the Description of Works of Art) to describe the information of artworks by articulating a conceptual framework. The CDWA provides a framework to which existing art information systems can be mapped and upon which new systems can be developed. Moreover, because of the identify vocabulary resources and descriptive practices in CDWA, the information storing in different database can be both more compatible and more accessible. The CDWA catalogue also places much emphasis on making the data in the system more integrated and giving end-users consistent, reliable access to the information.

Any problems: because the Guangdong museum is a comprehensive museum whose collections including different kinds of things, all of collections in the museum cannot be described in a uniform catalogue. For example, the collection of nature resource is totally different with the work of arts so that it’s hardly formulated by the CDWA. Maybe, in the future, a series of uniform catalogues will be established including all kinds of collections in the museum. All the museums will use these catalogues to store their collections in the database, resulting that the relevant information will be shared and exchanged more easily.