Cataloguing and valuing a museum (director's) archive

Pancarte Permeke - © Provincie West-Vlaanderen – Provinciaal Archief West-Vlaanderen

The archive of the Provincial Museum of Modern Art-Provincial Museum Constant Permeke, and the archive of curator and museum director Willy Van den Bussche, are both preserved in the Provincial Archives of West Flanders. The Provincial Archives wanted to realise the research and accessibility potential of these archives by cataloguing and then valuing them.

Cataloguing

The archive of the Provincial Museum of Modern Art-Provincial Museum Constant Permeke (PMMK-PMCP) was transferred to the Provincial Archives in several phases by the museum (now Mu.ZEE). This archive – nearly 200 metres – was processed by in-house staff. It was described down to item level, cleaned and packaged in acid-free packaging. A placement list was initially created, which was later converted into a structured archive inventory based on an archive plan.

The archive of museum director Willy Van den Bussche – about 40 metres – was transferred by the Van den Bussche family. A project employee was hired to catalogue this archive (and for the later valuation of both archives). The Province of West Flanders received a grant from the Flemish government for this (project grant for cultural heritage work at a national or international level). A placement list was first also created for this, on the basis of which a structured archive inventory was made. Simultaneously with the processing of the archive, a network map was created. This mapped out Van den Bussche’s network, productivity and activities, and also helped to situate undated archival pieces. This data was entered into an Excel file and later imported into the ODIS database. The archive as a whole was registered in Archiefbank.

The cataloguing of both archives ran from May 2020 to July 2022. All descriptions are included in the archive database, Probat.

Valuing

The cataloguing gave the Provincial Archives insights into the content and composition of both archives, which in turn laid the foundation for valuing the archives. The aim of the valuation was mainly to realise the research and accessibility potential: Which documents/series are best digitised? Which files are interesting for which research? Which series can be the subject of internships, workshops and methodological exercises?

For the valuation process, the Provincial Archives followed the FARO guidelines (cf. FARO toolbox ‘Valuing Heritage’). A moderator and a sounding board group were involved. Anne-Cathérine Olbrechts (FARO) took on the role of moderator. The sounding board group included individuals from the museum, archive, research and education sectors. They were asked to determine the core series, substantiate the valuation, describe the research possibilities and help ensure broad support.

The project employee was responsible for the practical organisation of the meetings and for drawing up the valuation lists based on the valuation sessions.

Composition of the sounding board group:

Jeroen Cornilly (Letterenhuis collection staff member)
Joëlle Depovere (Provincial Archives West Flanders project employee)
Laurens Dhaenens (KU Leuven and LUCA School of Arts researcher, and curator)
Anne-Cathérine Olbrechts (FARO preservation and management advisor)
An Rydant (Archiefbank Vlaanderen consultant)
Frank Scheelings (Centre for Secular and Academic Archives – CAVA former coordinator, and chairman of the Master after Master Archivistics: Heritage Management and Contemporary Document Management) / Elise Dewilde (CAVA)
Jan Stuyck (Centre for Art Archives Flanders - CKV archives consultant)
Reinoud Van Acker (Province of West Flanders heritage service deputy advisor)
Benedict Vandaele (teacher and curator)
Sofie Van den Bussche (art management & communication consultant, daughter of Willy Van den Bussche and co-initiator of this project)
Wendy Van Hoorde (Mu.ZEE collection researcher)
Isabelle Verheire (Province of West Flanders archive consultant and project applicant)
Collyn Verlinde (Provincial Archives West Flanders former staff member, catalogued the PMMK-PMCP archive)
Stefaan Vervoort (UGent and KB45 researcher).

For the valuation, a choice was made between different valuation tools. ‘Significance 2.0’ and ‘Significance 3.0’ are currently the most well-known. The disadvantage of ‘Significance 2.0’ is that it does not take into account scores for valuations or the different levels at which valuation occurs. ‘Significance 3.0’ includes extensive guiding questions and does consider scores and levels. A disadvantage is that this tool has not yet been applied to archives. Also, the best-developed examples relate to Australia, making it more difficult to ask questions about the process.

Project partner Flemish Centre for Art Archives (CKV) provided the CKV valuation scheme. This scheme is partly based on ‘Significance 3.0’ and the Dutch ‘Op de museale weegschaal’ (= ‘On the museum scale’), but is specifically intended for archives, and their guiding questions and criteria are tailored to this. It is a tool from Flanders, which makes the authors easily accessible.

After careful consideration, the CKV valuation scheme was chosen. CKV has already applied its valuation framework to artists’ archives, but not yet to a museum (director’s) archive. Applying this tool to the archive of the PMMK-PMCP and Willy Van den Bussche was therefore a good test. In the first valuation session, the three mentioned tools were discussed and the CKV valuation scheme was slightly adjusted in mutual consultation to make it properly applicable to the archives to be valued.

Valuation sessions were held in 2022 on 4 October, 28 October, 16 November and 29 November, and in 2023 on 25 January, 2 March, 17 March and 28 March. If schedules could not be aligned, the sounding board group was split and parallel sessions were held on different dates. Some archive series were valued in each session. The archive schemes drawn up during the cataloguing phase served as a guide.

The entire exercise resulted in completed valuation frameworks per series, with information about the value of the core series and the possible use of these series.

The valuation process ran from August 2022 to April 2023.

Partners

Various cultural heritage organisations and individuals were involved in the preparation and execution of this project:

Archiefpunt
CAVA - Centrum voor academische en vrijzinnige archieven (‘Centre for academic and liberal archives’)
CKV - Flemish Centre for Art Archives
Province of West Flanders heritage service
FARO - Flemish Institution for Cultural Heritage
KULeuven (University of Leuven)
Letterenhuis (‘House of Literature’)
Mu.ZEE vzw
Ugent (Ghent University)
Benedict Vandaele
Sofie Van den Bussche