Theme 1: use and provision of knowledge artefacts
The processes and habits of creating, accessing, sourcing, and updating knowledge artefacts by users and providers are explored initially within the first theme. These are then understood in relation to the support structures, and the plurality of formats and media needed for knowledge artefacts.
Creating
‘But I mean, imagine doing a collection and disposal policy from scratch.’
(Participant U8)
To fill gaps of knowledge artefacts, organisations prefer to adapt existing resources. ‘[Why] reinvent the wheel? Like, if it exists already, why would I make it again? (Participant U4).
‘Do I want to be trying to create a procedures manual from scratch? It seems pretty pointless. You're reinventing the wheel.’ (Participant U3)
When the organisation has to create the knowledge artefact it will preferably do so in-house, if it has the expertise:
‘When I came here and we had to go through accreditation, we had a procedural manual and it was two pages long, and it said we follow Spectrum procedures and I was like, that's a lie for a start …’ (Participant U12)
The participant then described the pain of writing a procedures manual from scratch, before breathing a sigh of relief:
‘… now it only needs to be tweaked around the edges. At least it exists.’
(Participant U12)
Most small organisations do not have the breadth of expertise for each of their operations when creating knowledge artefacts in house. To them, friendly peers and professional networks are very useful in the creation process:
‘One of the things I've found the most helpful, particularly with collections procedures, is asking around for a few different examples and then moulding them together into something that's appropriate for the museum setting that I'm in. I've always found museum colleagues to be very generous in that sense, they'll send you policies or they'll send you things they've already got.’
(Participant U4)
For support organisations it is equally difficult to manage the development and sharing process, ‘whenever we survey museums, they tell us they want more case studies, but in fact they are the things people read least’ (Participant P18).
‘How do I write a fundraising strategy? There's quite a lot of resources, and actually the challenge is trying to pick out the one that's most appropriate for that particular organisation.’ (Participant P7b)
The creation and sharing of suitable knowledge artefacts by providers are affected by capacity, ‘the potential is huge and the only thing that's limiting us is our capacity’ (Participant P1).
‘Accredited experts have all the knowledge, and the understanding, and the insights, but they don't have the time, or the money, or the resources to write that stuff down.’ (Participant P4)
The complexity of the cultural heritage operations needs to be considered in creating knowledge artefacts:
‘You might think collections care is really simple. We need acid free paper. We need archive boxes, Bish bash Bosh. We'll do a resource, but then you know, if you put the green agenda, slant on it, it completely changes. If you put kind of reduction in staffing and funding, the resource needs to look slightly different. If you're having to virtually train people, that looks slightly different. So, it's a really complicated.’ (Participant P22)
The greatest barrier for the creation of knowledge resources, however, is the lack of coordination by the support organisations. Currently, knowing what gaps in knowledge artefacts the users have, is ‘not an exact science…’ (Participant P9). Creation for provision is ‘circumstantial in responding to a sort of emerging need, I guess’ (Participant P7b). Across the support organisations there is no joined-up formal process to understand gaps. ‘We don't do a huge amount of open survey of members or non members, saying what guidance would you like?’ (Participant P4).
‘I was in a meeting yesterday for work [knowledge resources] that we're thinking about commissioning. We have triple and double checked that nobody else is doing it. And then at the meeting yesterday, somebody said, oh, well, did you know this organisation is just about to do something very similar? We're like, you're joking me.’ (Participant P15)
There is recognition that better coordination would make creation and use easier and would avoid duplications, ‘there's an absolute explosion of people doing quite similar things’ (Participant P15). ‘In the arts and culture sector, all of this stuff exists and we're all just replicating it behind the scenes’ (Participant P13).
‘I know it does need to be some variation in content recognising the different [UK] countries, but would it have not been more efficient for them to get together to write one document and then to edit it at the last stage, so the core of the document is consistent throughout? Because we're not so different that the approaches are different.’ (Participant P4)
And similarly,
‘…the money spent on [duplicated] toolkits and trainings and networks and support and websites …’ could be spent on employing people at the sites‘… But because we're such a fragmented sector we never think like that.’
(Participant P15)
Processes are needed to ensure prompt communication of knowledge resources’ creation, hosting, and use. Not just user organisations, but support organisations themselves need to know when and which new resources are out, so they can then ensure those are utilised (Participant P22). Timely creation-and-dissemination of knowledge resources has been a prominent challenge in support organisations:
‘there's always a tension between being reactive and proactive … our aim is always to be proactive really, we don't want to be producing guidance for something it's already a problem.’ (Participant P17)
‘I think Ari, your e-mail was quite timely for us because, as P5a has mentioned, we are embarking on a new suite of resources for the sector.’
(Participant P5b)
Whilst creating knowledge artefacts has its challenges, accessing existing knowledge resources has challenges too.
Accessing
Participant contributions about access to knowledge artefacts, internally within the site and from external sources, raised many questions for the organisational knowledge design discussion (see selected and acquired terms in section 2.2). Although not findings, the author includes ten questions about access in this section to help the reader better understand the context. The questions are then addressed in Chapter 7. An initial pattern is that access to resources within the user organisations varies according to the user roles. Volunteers are shown to have nominal access, ‘staff and volunteers are slightly different because although we have a lot of volunteers, they wouldn't have access to staff systems’ (Participant U15). Participant contributions show that it is common for volunteers to have less access to knowledge resources, for security and confidentiality reasons perhaps, but this raises the following question for the research diary:
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What impact does the limited volunteer access has on their abilities, and in understanding the bigger picture?
The limited internal access is not applicable to volunteers only:
‘However, if you're a gardener or a front of house person or a guide, the only way you can access information is if it's physically printed out and presented to you. So that's certainly a communication issue or a knowledge issue.’
(Participant U10)
This example also raises further questions for the research diary:
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How does the site know if and how much the printed versions are used?
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Does the site need to keep track of all the printed documents to update them every time the digital version is updated?
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Are there ways that those roles can be provided with the time and facilities to access the resources digitally?
How access is provided, relates to how openly sharing, or top-down only the organisation is. Transferring the manual to a digital form can help organisations to ‘… move away from anybody being the sole keeper of that information and it being somewhere that was accessible to others’ (Participant U4). But even when access is provided, it is often unknown to users what information is available. Users need to be provided with a register of what is available, sufficient time to utilise a knowledge resource, and ‘you got to add some incentives to use it’ (Participant 5). ‘I can make it available for them. I can't make them read it’ (Participant U12):
‘Everything we have in terms of guidelines, whether that's policy or general operational procedures or cheat sheets or kind of walkthroughs, everything's available through shared drives ...’ (Participant U9)
‘… Everybody can access those materials, whether they do, is another thing’ (Participant U9). This simple statement raises six further important questions:
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How can people be encouraged and motivated to access the materials?
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How can materials become more attractive and user-friendly?
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How can one find out whether the materials are accessed?
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How can one find out if the accessed materials were used?
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If used, were they useful?
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Does ‘everybody’ include staff at all levels and all the volunteers?
Whilst accessing internal resources has been explored so far, accessing external resources relates mainly to the barrier from the numerous chargeable memberships. This is explored within the plurality of support section, later in this theme.
Sourcing
As part of filling gaps or creating knowledge artefacts, a search process initiates. ‘I've never written a policy without Googling and seeing what other people's policies look like, before I commit to it’ (Participant U12). Such search looks at ‘the various sources that have been accumulating [in the organisation]’ and outside the immediate circle of its operations (Participant U10). The search within the organisation can be hampered by historical issues, such as people creating a 'read me' document as a handover saved 'somewhere on the computer' (Participant U2). ‘People organise things on a shared drive in ways that only make sense to them … Everyone refuses to reorganise anything because of the time commitment, but then no one can find anything’ (Participant U12).
‘Using the local drives, I think we should move away from that, just because there's so much mess on there. You know, there's folders just named like John's folder and it's some chap called John who worked for the organisation 20 years ago and nobody's done anything about it.’ (Participant U10)
External search is also difficult due to the large number of possible sources, ‘subject specialist information is not coming from A central point, it’s on you to seek it’ (Participant U10).
‘There's a vast amount of information out there and no one's really pulled it together.’ (Participant P13)
The seriousness of finding what one needs amongst the vastness of noise is perfectly demonstrated in the irony of not being able to find a resource about finding resources:
‘I know Arts Council at some point published a one-off document which was about data sharing, the amount of times I've Googled Arts Council data sharing document and never found that one template that I know exists.’ (Participant P13)
Two provider-related patterns appear to hinder the external search the most. Firstly, not explicitly stating open access rights (in websites and within the knowledge artefacts) for users to freely download and adapt or adopt the knowledge artefacts. Participants commented on the positive impact of the relatively recent requirement by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), that all its funded knowledge resources need to have a creative commons licence. And certain support organisations funded by the NLHF do request that content being added to their websites has ‘the Creative Commons licence as a minimum’ (Participant P1). Often it is not explicit that the resources are under an open licence, ‘we've not technically said it's open source, but it's openly accessible. So we have no problem with people using it’ (Participant P13). But lack of explicitly stating the open licence has stopped many of the participants from readily using resources:
‘I often will make like a little information pack for my volunteers, and I'll print things out or I'll photocopy things …, but I'm conscious not to do like more than 10%. You know, the rules about how much you can photocopy, but if it was made clear, yes, you can share this, that would make life a bit easier.’ (Participant U10)
Participants mentioned organisations positively, that clearly state the open use of the knowledge resources being provided. The Reading Agency were mentioned as one of the few support organisations that usefully provide explicit open access information:
‘they [The Reading Agency] share a resource, but they make it clear that it's a template and that you can fill the gaps in for your library service.’ (Participant U13)
A supporting example from The Reading Agency resources page is shown here: ‘The download contains a newsletter template and an info sheet. Both are easily editable so you can add your local start dates and contact details’ ((The Reading Agency, 2024), [by the time of writing the direct weblink was broken as the original resource is no longer available]).
Sourcing trusted content for the knowledge artefacts is a challenge, ‘[there is] too much information [for some operations] … and absolutely no information [for other], … and lack of trust in any of the sources that you can find’ (Participant P15). Whilst authoritative resources from trusted sources, such as the National Trust's Manual of Housekeeping, provide confidence for the users (Participant P7b), … ‘some resources are so general that actually they don't answer the question’ (Participant P6a). There is awareness that cultural heritage has not utilised the value of knowledge management to improve its systems and services (Participant P23). This, however, has potentially become an exploited driver for churning out knowledge resources:
‘There's going to be thousands of resources on a [topic], a ridiculous amount because everyone knows that people are looking for them. So, it's great content marketing for agencies in the sector ... Yeah, every support agency is going to want to produce it.’ (Participant P1)
This results in high volumes of duplicated resources, making it harder to find what is needed, ‘the worst thing is having lots of not quite relevant documents swimming around … it just crowds out all the things that would be useful’ (Participant P6a). The content within individual provider websites is overwhelming:
‘some knowledge banks that are out there, it's just too much noise, … just a bit messy, or not very applicable, or it's quite a lot of style and not substance.’
(Participant P22)
There is an overwhelmingly large number of websites hosting vast volumes of existing knowledge artefacts and ‘a lot of competing resources’ (Participant P12). Having a more co-ordinated depository process for knowledge resources, would not only enable more focused creation by support organisations but also ease the search process:
‘Working on templates would be a similar model to what we all do now, where we take someone else's policy or procedure and then edit it … but having it held somewhere centrally, … somewhere like the Museum Development Network or somewhere would be really helpful.’ (Participant U4)
Knowledge resources’ webhosts that were mentioned by participants, include UK and international support organisations and departments, dedicated websites such as Culture Hive, the Collections Trust, specialist networks, commercial suppliers, the internet, and social media. Culture Hive is ‘the knowledge site that we contribute to’ (Participant P16). Culture Hive was the most regularly and most positively quoted, cross-subjects depository platform in the UK, by the interviews’ participants (highly cited in the questionnaires too). It provides free access, but despite its useful range of knowledge resources it is not seen as being representative of all the specialisms, because of its marketing-specialism background (see also the CultureHive feature in Chapter 7).
As noted by user participants, the lack of longitudinal planning and co-ordination by the providers, contributes to a considerable absence of accessible and up-to-date knowledge artefacts in the sites. Their awareness of such absence usually arises when an operation needs to be delivered, and the knowledge is not available. The main triggers for creating or sourcing information resources, are legislation and requirements from schemes such as the Arts Council England (ACE) Accreditation.
‘… the collections development policy, because you pretty much just go, you download the template, you fill in the bits for you, but lots of it is already written for you. That doesn't exist for any of the other policies, so you're going absolutely blind and lots of small museums out there are going to be in the same position … it's the little volunteer-led museums that I really, really feel for.’ (Participant U12).
Participants mentioned that lack of such knowledge artefacts can lead to avoidable costs, delays, indecisiveness, confusion, and has negative impact on the people involved.
We’ve seen so far that because the development and hosting of provided knowledge resources are not co-ordinated, there are duplications and many gaps of knowledge artefacts. Additionally, understanding the usefulness of the knowledge artefacts to users, is mainly from anecdotal information, although some provider organisations seek feedback or conduct research. The following two quotes exemplify the contrast in approaches:
‘… it's really, really hard to measure engagement and to get feedback, unless it's negative and they'll always tell you if it's negative … But … did our guidance note help this particular person in this particular role at this particular time? It's really hard to measure that.’ (Participant P3)
‘… we identified the gap and the way we measured the impact of some of these resources was to run that same survey again, asking them about the same areas of development and to see whether we move the dial or shifted the needle up … The other way we measure it is obviously through analytics. So, we see the number of downloads or views and that's across both the manual itself, but also the online training that we ran alongside it, and then, obviously, there's the more softer measures, the anecdotal stuff that comes through … we often get messages back saying you know it was a useful tool ... Don't think we've actually had any negative, but sometimes people don't tell you if they don't think it's useful, but more the positive stuff.’ (Participant P5a)
Participant P5a has demonstrated a comprehensive process for measuring impact and improving existing processes. As a result, the organisation receives positive feedback about the impact its work has. This is the exception, as overall, the information provided by participants shows minimal strategic approach or longitudinal process in identifying gaps, needs, or usefulness of the knowledge artefacts provided. Consequently, the knowledge resources are not being used effectively to solve problems, and the same issues are being dealt with over decades, ‘… 20 years in, I was hearing the exact same conversations, and I was like I can literally give you a dozen case studies and a three-day conference. I went to this topic 20 years ago’ (Participant P15).
As a result of creation, access, and sourcing shortfalls then, user organisations with limited capacity, search amongst vast volumes of existing material, not knowing whether what they are looking for actually exists, and which of those is the most relevant and up-to-date knowledge resource:
‘There are lots of them [knowledge resources] out there, but a challenge that artists and arts practitioners face is knowing where to look and to be able to pick and choose what's relevant and what's not to them ...’ (Participant P5b)
The participant then points out that search can push people to look outside their specialism:
‘…Because actually maybe something in the visual arts field could be relevant to them, but they've never come across it because they wouldn't even look in that space.’ Participant P5b
‘I hoover, I go around and see what people do and I look outside of the sector as well. I … look at how other businesses work … You think, … they're very profit driven … think as a business or a company, but actually some of the things they do are very similar to us. And we could learn from that. So, I look for toolkits from outside the immediate sector that I'm in.’ (Participant U7)
There is an opportunity then for a comprehensive review of the creation, access, sourcing, needs, and usefulness of knowledge resources across the habitats to better inform the development of knowledge resources (Participant P4). Next, the process of updating the content of, and the access to, knowledge artefacts is explored.
Updating
Cultural heritage organisations have processes and habits to curate artistic, historic environment, and collections-related knowledge for the public. ‘[Our volunteer] sits down almost every Friday …’ to update public resources (Participant U5). There are always good intentions about keeping operational knowledge resources updated too, but capacity pressures are a key barrier.
‘… in an ideal world and if I'd had more time, I would have done periodic reviews of the manual myself. But there were so many other things going on that it always unfortunately fell down the list of priorities.’ (Participant U4)
Seen as low priority, there is usually no formalised process or a habit built-in for updating existing knowledge artefacts. This makes them disposable or incorrect very quickly, particularly for certain operations with a remarkable rate of change in their content. Quite often then, updating knowledge artefacts becomes a final attempt to record knowledge before people leave:
‘When I was preparing my handover … I didn't know what people didn't know, if that makes sense … I was populating a document that I hoped would be helpful in terms of handover, things that may have fallen through the gaps of other manuals and other processes … I'd been at the museum for six years … and there were certain things that I did without thinking. And some of them were quite basic, like when I popped in this morning, the team said the phones changed since the manual was updated. How do we check the voicemail? And it's one of those things that I thought, oh, yeah, I never did update the manual.’ (Participant U4)
Leaving a job, however, is not a successful trigger to update the knowledge artefacts, because there is usually not enough time. Having to do a long handover document relates to limited capacity or systems for regularly updating the existing knowledge artefacts:
‘We had a member of staff leave who'd been working in the [redacted] for about 35 years. But she announced her intention of retiring about a year ahead of time, so her last year here basically … we gave her time just to put down on paper a lot of the knowledge that she held and that she knew because she'd been here so long … so she wrote, and we've got it in our office. It's a huge, well, quite a thick information binder that she wrote of all of the things that she knew that she'd acquired over the time that she'd been here, but luckily, she had the time to do that where some people may decide they only need to give one or two months’ notice.’ (Participant U15)
As an alternative to the exit document, an update-as-we-go approach is described below:
‘We've got a volunteer currently who is really good. He's been trained up and I've been asking him, like, hey, when you do all these [tasks], could you just write them down, just take a little photo? We do have a new software called Assemble, which is volunteer management software, he's a bit younger so he's got the app on his phone. He just takes a whole bunch of photos, he writes some notes and then we can digitise that information, print it off, get the written record. But there's almost an element of you've got to let them have fun … so it isn't ‘‘writing stuff’’ down.’ (Participant U16)
The lack of capacity, or of habitually recording processes, then results in existing knowledge not being effectively recorded, causing loss of knowledge. Support organisations too, face problems in updating knowledge artefacts that they provide, and of maintaining the access to them. ‘One of the issues we have in terms of how we function day-to-day, is trying to keep up with all the changes around us’ (Participant P5a). Generally, participating support organisations do not have a formal process for updating the content or the access to knowledge artefacts:
‘We haven't got a disciplined system of review. I think if I were to be honest, we update stuff when the level of embarrassment about it becomes so great that it overcomes the difficulties to finding resources.’ (Participant P4)
This is mainly due to lack of capacity, particularly once funded projects end, ‘if you want a resource to last, it can't be [from] a project’ (Participant P19). People ‘tend to think …, job done and they'll move on to something else. Updates tend to be as a result of something else happening outside …, the context changing and pushing people to change it’ (Participant P23). A frequently praised support organisation for their updating habits is the ‘Collections Trust … they're so good at keeping on top of links and making sure everything's up to date’ (Participant P7).
Updating access is a different, common problem, ‘I haven't checked if all those links still work … I don't have the time … Link death is an issue’ (Participant P19). Although, occasionally, technology-created problems do have technology-based solutions:
‘You can automatically check for broken links on a website, so we will do that check once a year and then we will replace any broken links across the whole site. Broken links are probably one of the biggest issues because when people move stuff on their website, things disappear.’ (Participant P18)
Overall, in the knowledge artefacts’ provision there was no plan of when resources would need a review, or clear information provided if, and when, these are going to be reviewed. Resources created as a reaction to a problem, such as for digital, are already outdated by the time they are provided, or get outdated very quickly, ‘like buying a new car, it becomes dated immediately’ (Participant P5). As participants pointed out, there are operations or types of knowledge artefacts that need their content updating less frequently, so a differentiation of, for example annual, three-, or five-years updating for the different knowledge artefacts, would lessen the workload. And participants discussed a range of ways to involve the user-community and partners in the process of updating. Such engagement, however, is usually limited if the process is reactive, rather than proactively planned.
The main triggers mentioned for updating the knowledge artefacts are legislation changes, accreditation and funding requirements, or political motivations.
‘having accreditation … we drew up a whole lot of specific policies that we had in existence, but maybe hadn't been written down formally … specific policies and guidelines and … make sure you're reviewing those and they're up to date … [The reaccreditation cycle] does make sure that you are keeping up to date with current standards.’ (Participant U15)
Participants however point out that thousands of other cultural heritage sites such as privately owned historic houses and unaccredited museums do not have access to supporting structures like the museum’s accreditation scheme. Such support structures are explored in the following section.
Plurality of support
Support networks and accreditation schemes such as the Arts Council England’s museum accreditation, were extensively discussed by the participants for their significant positive impact on the use of knowledge artefacts. Their strength is evident when combining networks and schemes as a package. ‘Schemes like [the museum] accreditation … [have] a mechanism behind it. There are people you can ask. There is information … about the processes.’ (Participant U4). In support of the accreditation scheme, the Collections Trust manages Spectrum (the UK’s collection management standard), associated accreditation resources and a complimentary package of training (see accreditation feature in Chapter 7):
‘Obviously, the Collections Trust’s guidance, particularly on cataloguing and Spectrum procedures has informed all of our policy because it has to, because otherwise we won't pass accreditation.’ (Participant U12)
Amongst user and provider participants, the Collections Trust has been the most highly praised out of all the support organisations:
‘if it were collections related, I'd probably look on the Collections Trust first because they're reliable.’ (Participant U12)
‘The Collections Trust has probably been the one I've spent an insane amount of time on, but the information is useful.’ (Participant U3)
The accreditation, and wider museum operations, are supported by the Museums Development programme which is funded by the Arts Council. Its five regional teams provide knowledge resources, but more crucially a supporting network that users have been praising:
‘Museum Development people are also very helpful, … attending some of their Zooms … and their website has been helpful.’ (Participant U3)
Having regional teams who understand the local conditions and joining up their knowledge to national activity, makes the knowledge resources much more comprehensive and insightful (Participant P9). The Museum Development helps the sharing of information and practices by connecting specialist communities, for example by supporting the industrial collections network through its ‘Brew Up’ networking forum (Participant U3, see (Museum Development North, 2024)). Networks like the Museum Development Network and the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) are useful because they provide a package of freely accessible knowledge artefacts, information support, training, and networking opportunities (Participant U9). AIMs Hallmarks is an example mentioned of strategically using a framework for the development of knowledge artefacts and associated training (see AIM feature in Chapter 7). AIM also received regular high praise by the participants:
‘I find most useful, the Association of Independent Museums toolkits, they often are very useful and very practical, … sensible toolkits. And you know that there's actually someone to go to if you have a question about the toolkit who can help you.’ (Participant U7)
‘There are quite a lot of toolkits and useful guidelines published by the Association of Independent Museums that are accessible to everybody because they can be downloaded from the website.’ (Participant U9)
Whilst museums have the largest support infrastructure, the National Archives and its accreditation scheme received positive mentions, as did the libraries’ accreditation-pilot, and the main library-support organisations:
‘We are blessed in libraries in that we've got CILIP, we've got The Reading Agency, we've got Libraries Connected.’ (Participant U13)
However, the participant then presents the problem of having too many resource locations for the same content and overlapping knowledge resources:
‘…But probably the bulk of the staff … get confused about who's who, and who provides what, and what their role is at national level? They do each have their own purpose … but they all [overlap] … in various resources.’ (Participant U13)
Whilst some of the support organisations provide direct access or free membership to knowledge resources, the main issue raised by participants was the barrier to access due to numerous paid memberships for the specialisms that are needed within a site. The memberships’ paywall makes access expensive and the search difficult, ‘how many memberships do I need to have in order to have all this information?’ (Participant U10).
Against such barriers, schemes like the museums’ accreditation provide a structured timeframe and requirements which is useful when everything else is so changeable. Achieving accreditation also provides better access to funding, which comes with its own additional package of requirements, generally seen as positive triggers for building structured processes in the organisations:
‘The Heritage Fund … have quite robust guidelines that you have to meet in return for their funding. And it's very good discipline for organisations … and therefore you know there's a clear methodology around appointment of consultants, reporting, … and an activity plan which lays out what happens in the funded institution for a number of years.’ (Participant U11)
The robust guidelines drive positive change by combining process improvements with enabling funding. Whilst some partnership development is driven by funded projects (section 3.1), the competitive funding process discourages sharing and collaboration:
‘And then in some places it's more difficult to set up [local peer groups] because a lot of small organisations compete with each other for funding.’ (Participant U9)
Such local networks are very useful in making the knowledge artefacts effective and understood. ‘I've got absolutely no idea how to do this, you sent me to the manual, but the manual doesn't make any sense’ (Participant U4):
‘I started to volunteer with the museum in 2015. And I certainly noticed when I started that there was nothing in place that said where … to find X, [the way to] find … was ask’. (Participant U3)
‘It's useful not just to have the toolkit, but have someone you can go and talk to about the toolkit.’ (Participant U7)
Support organisations see their role to make such connection with knowledge resources, and across networks. ‘A pretty fundamental element of our role is knowing what's out there and how we can direct people to it. Knowing what's good and usable and reliable’ (Participant P7a). Additionally, in formal networks the knowledge breadth is in the accredited members and their forums, not in simply the small teams of the membership support organisation (Participant P4).
‘Local peer networks … can be really useful, because although we all do different things, we all have heritage as a kind of background, whether it's museums or an archive or a heritage site, and most of the time what works for one organisation will be fairly applicable to another because we've all, you know, we've all got some things in common.’ (Participant U9)
While there is a common ground across the cultural heritage organisations, there is a need for variety of knowledge artefacts’ formats to meet different learning styles.
Plurality of formats
‘I hate bureaucracy, … but … it's good because [without it] there isn't the appropriate knowledge within the institution to know how to do things right.’
(Participant U8)
Volunteers appear to dislike bureaucracy the most, and they get the least access to knowledge artefacts and training. Overly bureaucratic or heavily technical knowledge artefacts, make operational knowledge curation difficult, particularly when conflicting with the lack of capacity in cultural heritage sites.
‘Make it really user friendly. A lot of the stuff I see, just runs to pages of text and I'm thinking this was written by a professional for professionals, it wasn't written for us, we're excluded.’ (Participant U5)
Complex knowledge artefacts are difficult to adapt to local environments and challenging to use. Freelancers and micro-, small- and medium size organisations do not have the absorptive capacity to use complex knowledge artefacts, hindering people from utilising them (Participant P16b).
‘Different people learn and go through the world in different ways. So, some people will learn more by watching a video. I would prefer to have the transcript because I can read that, you know, if it's a 20-minute video, I'll read the transcript in 2 minutes. I might not take it all in mind, but I prefer to read stuff, and be able to highlight … a physical copy can be great because you can have that highlighted section … Some people will learn just by listening.’ (Participant U3)
There are several knowledge artefact formats mentioned by participants (manual, toolkit, case studies, toolkits, templates, etc.) and different media (printed or digital documents, video, etc.). Different people have different learning styles and needs. ‘It's about people's learning styles. And so, there's a challenge if it's delivered through one route because that doesn't work for everyone’ (Participant U11).
The type of format and medium used is very important on whether the knowledge artefact is accessed, used, and useful. One format approach is to have a site manual as a 'one stop shop' (Participant U4). For others, that doesn’t work, if all guidance for a site was ‘in a single document, no one would consult it because it would just become incredibly overwhelming’ (Participant U12).
‘People need information in a multitude of ways. Some people benefit from a very wordy procedure that they can like, read and digest, and then they can figure it out. Other people prefer a flow chart or a table of some description and something more visual. And some people use a combination. When I first started I gave them all of the policies and all of the procedures and all of the information that I could and actually over time, what I've spent time doing is reducing the amount of information I give but giving it in a more targeted way depending on the task at hand, which in the short term creates more work for the person producing the instructions … but … it reduced my workload because I was being asked fewer questions.’ (Participant U4)
‘We've done [videos] especially for the technical aspects. When we train technicians and when we train other companies’ technicians to operate our light desk, we've done some video tutorials. But I'm, I suppose, pretty old-school, so I tend to look down on video tutorials in general, but it does seem to be a more digestible format. And maybe we should make a video library of stuff that's very snippety, 15 to 30 seconds for specifics, very specific tasks, and then make a video library with that.’ (Participant U6)
This example raises questions, could the manuals’ creators provide additional formats, including short videos? And provide their templates and forms in diverse and more user-friendly formats? (Participant U6). The format types being required therefore affect the skills, technology, and budget needed by providers to create the knowledge artefacts. And the creators’ preferences vary on how they wish to 'record' processes or habits, some like filming, or audio recording on their phone rather than writing it down (Participant U16).
Ultimately, the effectiveness of the learning capability of knowledge resources being provided is being questioned. ‘The people that tend to create the training or the resources tend to be subject specialists, not learning specialists’ (Participant P22). ‘They create loads of resources. Resources that you would broadly put into the category of capacity building, right? They're not. They're not formal training’ (Participant P16b). Training ought to have a professional development structure and help people develop a well-informed judgement (Participant P4). By churning out variable-quality knowledge artefacts, disconnected from professional training and from networking support, there is no long-term improvement. By duplicating existing knowledge artefacts, we are just creating the same knowledge, and we do not learn from the mistakes that happened (Participant P1). The effect of agglomeration, spreading knowledge across small groups of operationally or geographically close sites, is not currently happening (Participant P16b).