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In the past few decades, the ways in which we look at heritage, and what the idea of heritage entails, has evolved and changed dramatically. We are constantly working on coming to grips with its complex nature and its multi-facetted ramifications. The aim of this thesis is to explore future strategies for museums in their continued work with collecting, preserving, and managing our cultural heritage in order to become more sustainable institutions. Furthermore, the thesis investigates historically what has led to the current crisis of accumulation and a profusion of heritage, with the intention of substantiating and providing background to the alternatives presented for the future of museum collections. In addition to a literature review of past research on the subject, an analysis of collection management plans and conducted interviews from four museum institutions in Sweden was carried out. The participating institutions were the National Historical Museums, Stockholm City Museum and Medieval Museum, the National Museums of World Culture and Museum Gustavianum. The results find that a rapid expansion of the concept of heritage to incorporate a large range of new forms of material and immaterial memory, alongside an exponential growth in the number of objects and places that are identified, collected and exhibited as cultural heritage, has contributed to a crisis of accumulation. Globalization as well as a large production growth of material things have also been assisting factors. The five strategies put forward to help museums become more sustainable institutions are: identify what your museum needs to focus on, now and in the future; if your museum does not have a collections management plan it is vital to write one; implement deaccessioning as an active collections management tool; with culture in the forefront, strive for sustainable development regarding both collections management and other museum activities; and collaborate and cooperate more with various interested parties to benefit collections development. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

The main scope behind this thesis is to examine the Bernadotte library at the Royal Castle in Stockholm, in its function as an institution of the cultural heritage, research library and museum. This unique combination constitutes an interesting object of research. It is a field that needs to be examined. The Bernadotte library is a unique example of a library museum. The thesis has been accomplished through a narrative study of literature. The thesis shows that the Bernadotte library today is a living example of a good combination of respect for the cultural heritage, an effective research library and a unique museum.

The museum life of archaeological artefacts - A biography of the Valsgärde-collection is a two years master ́s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. It is an object biography of an archaeological collection housed in the university museum Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala. The collection is the result of excavations conducted by Uppsala University in the early 20th century in Valsgärde in Gamla Uppsala parish, Uppland. The aim of the study is to highlight the museum life of archaeological artefacts and relate this to the curation crisis within archaeology, as described in Anglo-American research. Archival material from the museum was examined, using a method inspired by ethnographic content analysis (ECA), in order to write a biography of the curatorial management and use of the collection. The resulting object biography revealed clear signs that the collection had been suffering from problems associated with the curation crisis during its museum life. The perspective offered by the biographical narrative also revealed some long-term issues that resulted in these problems. Both general problems described in research on the curation crisis and issues specific to the Valsgärde-collection is illustrated by this object biography. The study shows that a continuation of the biographies of archaeological artefacts beyond the mere excavation phase offers insights into issues within, as well as possible solutions to, the archaeological curation crisis. / Artefakternas museala liv - En biografi över Valsgärdesamlingen är en objektbiografisk studie över den arkeologiska samlingen från utgrävningarna i Valsgärde, Gamla Uppsala socken, Uppland. Studiens underlag har utgjorts av arkivhandlingar från föremålsarkivet Museum Gustavianum Samlingar (MGS) i Uppsala, där även samlingen förvaltas. Studiens syfte var att förlänga artefakters biografier för att inkludera deras museala liv kan se ut och förhålla det till forskning om samlingsförvaltningskrisen. Dess centrala problematik är att insamlingstakten av arkeologiskt material är för intensiv för att samlings- förvaltning ska hinna med. Resultatet blir att samlingar inte kan förvaltas på ett ansvarsfullt sätt i fråga om bevarande och användande. Studiens metod är inspirerad av etnografisk innehållsanalys (ECA), där datainsamlingen börjat med två huvudkategorier; förvaltning och användande. Inom dessa kategorier har arkivens sammansättning fått styra vilka teman som fått framträda under datainsamlingen. Objektbiografin faller inom forskningstraditionen Material culture studies, vars bärande princip är att materialitet är nödvändig för förståelse av sociala och kulturella skeenden. Objektbiografin erbjuder ett perspektiv som tillåter att kunskap om hur samlingen skapats, behandlats och använts, samt hur dess museala kontext sett ut och hur aktörer förhållit sig till den, kan användas för att förstå ett större fenomen, samlingsförvaltningskrisen. Studiens specifika frågeställningar gällde vad för bild arkiven på MGS kunde erbjuda av användande och förvaltning av samlingen samt hur detta förhåller sig till samlingsförvaltningskrisen. Samlingen har varit föremål för kontinuerligt intresse och användande, trots att den inte blivit fullständigt publicerad eller inventerad. Användandet har bestått av utställning såväl som forskning. Dock har brist på en tidig holistisk finansieringsplan gjort att den utsatts för undermåliga bevarandeförhållanden under sitt museala liv. Ansvariga har i regel varit måna om att ta hand om samlingen och upprepade försök gjordes att färdigställa samlingens bearbetning, men även här förelåg ekonomiska hinder. Arkivens bild av förvaltningen och användandet har tydligt visat att Valsgärde-artefakternas liv inte tog slut då de införlivades i en museisamling. Den övergripande slutsatsen som dragits från studien är att det fyller en funktion att förlänga arkeologiska artefakters biografier för att inkludera deras museala liv, speciellt om man vill komma till rätta med samlingsförvaltningskrisen.

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Denna kvalitativa studie av digitala samlingar pp Instagram genomfördes med metodkombinationen enkät, intervju och kompositionell tolkning. Studien ämnade undersöka digitalt samlande och vad som styr Instagramanvändares samlande av digitala artefakter. Med insamlat material, läsning av gestaltpsykologi, Bourdieus kapitalbegrepp, sociala medier och digitala samlingar har studien siktat på att skapa ett kunskapsbidrag som ska bredda förståelsen för varför och hur vi samlar digitalt samt hur det påverkar grafisk design-, reklam- och kommunikationsbransch. Studien nådde slutsatsen att publika och privata samlingar på Instagram till största del inte har estetiskt orienterade samband, men att Instagramanvändare har dessa tankegångar nära till hands vid byggandet av sin digitala publika samling. Dessa estetiskt orienterade tankegångarna är mer närvarande i det publika flödet än i det dolda. / This qualitative study was carried out using method combination of survey, interview and compositional interpretation of digital collections on Instagram. The study investigates digital collections and what governs Instagram-users’ collecting of digital artifacts. With the collected material, readings of gestalt psychology, Bourdieu’s theory of capital, social media and digital collections the study aimed to contribute to our understanding of why and how we collect digitally as well as how it affects the graphic design-, advertising- and communication industry. The study came to the conclusion that public and private collections often do not have aesthetically oriented connections, but that Instagram-users have these reasonings close to heart while building their public digital collection. These aesthetically oriented thoughts are more present in the public feed than in the hidden feed.

Our whole society is affected by the digitisation process. The policies of the Swedish government encourage the cultural heritage organizations to strategically develop the digitisation of their collections. These strategies often aim to make the collections more accessible but there is not much research about how researchers who have use of the digital information meet with the digital collections. The intention of this thesis is to study four researchers in the field of humanities who have textile objects as source material, and their professional experience of the digitisation of the cultural heritage. The researchers were interviewed in a semi-structured qualitative way, and the interviews were recorded and transcribed for analyzation of the data collected.  The main result of the study is that the digital access of research material represents an improvement of their work when it comes to getting a quick and easy overview of their research subject which also represent a chance to improve the research quality by being able to compare and search for similar objects all over the world without having to travel to the collections. It has also become cheaper because of less travelling. Being able to take digital photos is also a big improvement compared to analogue photographs that are expensive and takes time to develop. One negative aspect that the study shows, is that the information in digital collections often lacks the quality that the researchers need, for example close-up pictures or relevant and reliable metadata. The researchers also experience an uncertainty in how to use the digital tools and computer programs in an effectively way and expresses a need for more knowledge about the different IT-systems. This thesis shows that the research topics seem to change due to the digitisation, partly because of the technological possibilities that new methods offers. Digital humanities points to this as a possibility to develop the research in the field of humanities and explore new areas that cannot be done without the digital methods.

Denna uppsats tar avstamp i en gestaltning där samlingen samt övergångssituationer ter sig som problematiska. En lärare i förskoleklass vill fostra barnen och gör det utan att kanske se till barnets bästa. I gestaltningen sker det först att barnen behöver bryta upp sin lek för att sedan gå in till en samling som inte är didaktiskt genomtänkt. Sedan kommer övergångssituationer som överlappar varandra och dessa ger upphov till konflikter då de är stressande för både barnen och pedagoger eftersom de måste vänta, vänta fastän de är färdiga att gå. Syftet med uppsatsen är att diskutera vilken fostrande och didaktisk funktion samlingar och olika övergångssituationer fyller i fritidshemmet. Jag lyfter även in barnperspektivet som ett perspektiv. Uppsatsen tar upp normer och dolda läroplanen som påverkar vår undervisning. Uppsatsen är skriven i formen av en vetenskaplig essä där min reflektion ger mig möjlighet att belysa och fördjupa mina frågeställningar samt söka svar på dessa kopplat till litteratur inom pedagogiken. Slutsatsen av denna uppsats är att vi inom fritidshemmet ofta styrs av gamla mönster genom de normer som vi upprätthåller i verksamheten. Det visar sig att fostran är en större del av fritidshemmet än tidigare trott. / This study takes off in a dilemma where the circle time as well as transitional situations appear to be problematic. A teacher in preschool class wants to educate the children and might not always be mindful of what is best for them. In this scenario, the children need to break up their play and then go to a circle time that is not didactically through. Then there are transition situations that overlap, and these give rise to conflicts as they are stressful for both the children and the educators as they must wait, and wait until they are ready to go. The purpose of the study is to discuss what fostering and didactic function circle time and different transition situations fulfil in the after-school activity. I also look at it from a child perspective. The discussion sets out norms and hidden curriculum that affect our teaching. Essay as a method means to reflect on a dilemma where my reflection gives me the opportunity to clarify and deepen my questions and seek answers to these in connection with literature in teaching. The conclusion of this study is that we in the after-school activity are often governed by old patterns by the standards we maintain in the activity. It turns out that fostering is a larger part of the after-school activity than previously thought.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how six different art museums are working on digitizing their collections, and how they are made available to the public. To answer the purpose, three research questions were formulated; how the museums work with digitization, what is digitized and which programs and guidelines are used, and how the digitized material is made available to the public on the websites. The museums examined in this thesis are Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the National Palace Museum Taiwan in Taipei and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Prior to the study, previous research on digital humanities, digitization in museums, and the role of museums and their approach to digital collections, were studied. The theoretical framework used in the analysis consists of theories regarding “New media” and digital humanities, theories about “The museum process” and Actor-network theory, ANT. The method used is qualitative content analysis and semiotic image analysis of the museum websites. The results and analysis show that the museum websites differ in terms of design, functions, user-friendliness and collection content. In addition, the museums use different guidelines and software programs in the digitization process of their collections, although there is some overlap. The analysis shows that the Rijksmuseum, the Smithsonian and the National Palace Museum Taiwan are the museums in the study that have made the most progress with digitizing their collections and using interactive elements on their websites. The museum with the least developed digitization work is Moderna Museet, whose search page is the simplest and most standardized in comparison with the other museum websites.

This thesis explores the history of botany as a global collection-based science by tracing parallels between utopian traditions and botanical collecting, from their sixteenth-century beginnings to the present. A range of botanical collections, such as gardens, herbaria and classification systems, have played a central role in the struggle to discover a global or universal scientific order for the chaotic, diverse and locally shaped kingdom of plants. These collections and utopia intersect historically, and are characterised by the same epistemology of collecting: the creation of order through confined collecting spaces or “no-place.” They are manipulations of space and time. Between chaos and order, both seek to make a whole from – often unruly – parts.   The long history of botanical collecting is characterised by a degree of continuity of practice that is unusual in the sciences.  For instance, the basic technology of the herbarium – preserving plants by mounting and labelling dried specimens on paper – has been in use for almost five centuries, from sixteenth-century Italy to ongoing digitisation projects. The format of the compilation thesis is well-suited to handling the historiographical challenge of tracing continuity and discontinuity with such a long chronological scope.   The thesis is structured as a walled quadripartite garden, with the Kappa enclosing four research papers and an epilogue. The papers take a diachronic approach to explore different perspectives on botanical collections: botanical collecting in seventeenth-century Oxford, pressed plants in books that are not formally collections; and the digitisation of botanical collections. These accounts are all shaped by the world of books, text and publication, historically a male-dominated sphere. In order to acknowledge marginalisation of other groups and other ways of knowing plants, the epilogue is an explanation of an embroidered patchwork of plant-dyed fabric, which forms the cover of the thesis. / Denna avhandling behandlar historien om botanik som en global samlingsbaserad vetenskap genom att följa paralleller mellan utopiska traditioner och botaniskt samlande från dess början på femtonhundratalet till idag. Olika sorters botaniska samlingar, till exempel trädgårdar, herbarier och klassifikationssystem, har historiskt spelat en central roll i sökandet efter en global eller universell vetenskaplig ordning i växtrikets lokalt rotade och till synes kaotiska mångfald. Det finns historiska kopplingar mellan dessa botaniska samlingar och utopi, som båda även präglas av vad man kan kalla samlandets epistemologi: skapandet av ordning genom avgränsade samlingsutrymmen eller ”icke-platser”. De är manipulationer av tid och rum.   Det botaniska samlandets långa historia utmärks av en praktisk kontinuitet som är ovanlig inom naturvetenskapen. Herbariets grundläggande teknik att bevara växter genom att pressa, identifiera och montera dem på pappersark har varit i bruk i nästan fem sekel. Avhandlingen utnyttjar sammanläggningsformatet för att hantera den historiografiska utmaning det innebär att studera en så lång tidsperiod, genom att de ingående artiklarna behandlar skilda tidsepoker och disciplinära perspektiv samtidigt som de alla delar avhandlingens centrala tematik: ordnande genom avgränsade samlingsutrymmen.     Avhandlingens struktur är baserad på den muromgärdade fyrdelade trädgården, med kappan som inneslutande fyra artiklar och en epilog. Artiklarna är diakrona analyser av botaniska samlingar: om samlande i Oxford på sextonhundratalet, om pressade växter i böcker som inte formellt utgör del av samlingar, och om digitaliseringen av botaniska samlingar. Dessa sammanhang är alla formade i en värld av böcker, text och publicering – en värld som historiskt har dominerats av män. Epilogen belyser den marginalisering av andra grupper och deras kunskaper om växter som detta har inneburit, genom att förklara avhandlingens omslag, ett lapptäcksbroderi av växtfärgade tyger. / <p>QC 20171115</p> / Saving Nature: Conservation Technologies from the Biblical Ark to the Digital Archive