Documentary Accounting of the Museum Collection in NMFALU

The museum accounting of the museum objects’ collection includes a set of written, graphic, acoustic and electronic data on such objects located in museum collections. They are incoming and accompanying documentation, etiquette, excavation protocols, expedition reports, field records, correspondence and descriptions of the collection’s objects on behalf of those who worked on them, publications on objects, classification references, inventory records, catalogs, and reports on conservation and restoration works. The aim of the study is to justify the need for thorough scientific accounting of museum items, and to highlight ways to unify accounting procedures. The research methodology is based on the analysis of existing regulatory legal acts and works on the theory and practice of museum accounting; information and reference publications to form the theoretical foundations of the work. A method of targof the practice of receiving items in museums, and its analysis to establish features and trends; methods of synthesis, systematization, generalization, evaluation are used.

The historical significance of objects stored in museums does not follow from their storage, but from their scientific documentary accounting. This means that the continuous, volumetric and systematic researching and preservation of documents and data relating to the objects and its former and current connections. A museum object is a real object, which, due to its evidentiary ability, has been removed from the functional circumstances of a particular existing environment and can provide sensory-specific and authentic evidence. This object is accompanied by mandatory data on its origin. Only because of this, it becomes a full-fledged scientific document.

This paper analyzes the need for a thorough documentary accounting of a museum collection for a museum and authority. It considered mistakes and ways of unification of modern museum accounting on the analysis of a documentary record of a museum collection of NMFALU for 50 years. Scientific novelty lies in the fact that the study is the first attempt to detail the stages of museum accounting, substantiate their need, and unify procedures. It is shown that the essence of museum accounting is to create an artificial historical environment of the museum subject, provides the opportunity to build and justify new scientific hypotheses and theories.

Conclusions. The documentary accounting of museum monuments, their scientific processing are extremely important for identification and classification, compilation of museum collections, storage and ordering, cataloging with the ability to search and monitor the state of preservation.