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Abstract
How do museum professionals develop information infrastructures that support their activities? This question is significant to the study of museum informatics, a field which examines the impact of information science and technology on museums and museum professionals. New technologies and new approaches to information management have revolutionized the modern museum and dramatically changed the task of the museum professional. There is no good understanding of how museum professionals develop information infrastructures that manage their information resources and allow them to meet their information needs. This project aims to explain how, when, and why information infrastructures develop within museums by studying the creation of an information infrastructure to support packing at the University of Illinois' Spurlock Museum.
From 1997 to 2002, Spurlock Museum staff members inventoried, packed, and moved their collections from old to new facilities, despite having little experience with any of these tasks. Unable to plan ahead with any confidence, they had to build an information infrastructure to support these activities as they went along, knowing they would inevitably make mistakes in the process. With few resources, little time, and almost no money, they learned as they worked, simultaneously developing an infrastructure capable of supporting their evolving needs. Despite a high rate of errors during the packing process, Spurlock Museum employees were successfully able to track the packing and shipping of their collections with very few critical errors. This study uses ethnographic and qualitative data analysis methods to determine how museum employees developed a useable information infrastructure robust enough to cope with their high rate of errors and flexible enough to evolve along with their constantly changing requirements. The results of this research contribute to our understanding of the development of information infrastructures to support workflow in a variety of organizations, not just museums. It has broader implications for organizations that must develop information infrastructures dynamically in order to support ever-changing and unanticipated needs.
