Significance Assessments

Circa Museum Services has conducted significance assessments for a range of collecting organisations including the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, the City of Glen Eira, the Eureka Centre Ballarat, the Australian National Surfing Museum, Sovereign Hill and Gold Museum Ballarat, the Shrine of Remembrance Melbourne, the Koorie Heritage Trust, City of Yarra, City of Bayside, Campaspe Shire Council, Macedon Ranges Shire Council, Tennis Australia, the Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst (Bendigo) and the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart. 

 

Commissioning a significance assessment is the best way to reach an understanding of the scope, strengths and weaknesses of your collection. A significance assessment is a way of identifying the importance of a collection through its historical, artistic, social, spiritual and research values. It is different to a valuation which assesses financial or insurance value.

 

Significance assessments can also: 

 

  • Guide the best way to keep a collection sustainable 
  • Enhance access to, and use of, a collection 
  • Provide a reference point for making conservation  and collection management decisions 
  • Allow better understanding and communication of  the meaning within individual items or throughout a collection
  • Document the history of items in a collection more  comprehensively 
  • Support and strengthen arguments for grant applications, funding submissions and donations
  • Inform future collection development 

 

Our significance assessments follow the industry standards defined in Significance 2.0.  Circa Museum Services also understands and adheres to the requirements of the National Library of Australia's Community Heritage Grants for Significance Assessments, ensuring that grant requirements can be fully acquitted.  We can provide a quote to support your application to this grants program, or for a privately funded assessment.

 

Contact Circa Museum Services to discuss whether a significance assessment is the appropriate next step for your collection, and to learn what is involved in the assessment process.