In some of the reporting around the recent losses at the British Museum there seems to have been some confusion between ‘cataloguing’ (collecting and sharing information about your collection) and ‘inventory’ (knowing exactly what you have in your collection and where it is). Deep sighs from those of us who work in the museum sector.

Documentation is the steady, never-ending work that goes on behind the scenes of a museum. It includes the processes which record when an object enters or leaves the building, and when it changes location within the building. It is ‘business as usual’ so unlikely to attract external funding in the same way as a project or exhibition. And as we’ve seen in the case of the British Museum it is rarely thought about until something goes awry.

This summer I have had the privilege of working closely with the Collections Volunteers at Bridport Museum in Dorset as part of my work on The Right Stuff – an innovative collections review project funded by The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund via the Museums Association. This small team of dedicated people work tirelessly, year in year out, to ensure that the documentation of the museum’s collections is as good as it can be. They are engaged in a largely invisible task that will never be completed, and now is the time to celebrate them.