The Dynamic Collections programme’s online project, Documentation Detectives, was launched in March 2024. As we celebrate this programme strand turning one, we’re taking a look back at some of the successes and highlights of the project over the past year.

We want more people to get involved with our museum collections, for enjoyment and learning, to inspire and create. Dynamic Collections, a 10-year programme, was launched in 2022 to increase collections access and uncover new ways to work with the collections in participation with the people of Birmingham, UK and beyond. The programme aims to embed meaningful engagement with a creative and scalable approach to public participation in our collections care and use. The Dynamic Collections programme is continually developing as we learn more. By 2032, we aim to deliver a complete, publicly accessible collection inventory for our communities to explore and use.

Documentation Detectives: Transcribing Accession Registers is an online digitisation project offering web-based volunteering opportunities on the people-powered research platform Zooniverse. For the past year, people around the world have been transcribing object records taken from our accession registers, helping us to increase access by unlocking collections information stored away in paper records.

Accession registers keep a record of all the objects that form a museum’s collection, holding important information such as an object’s origin, materials, dimensions, and use. Our accession registers date back to 1885, when Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery was founded. Over the last 140 years our collections have grown to around a million objects ranging from Peruvian pots to Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Over the last 12 months the online project has seen over 2,400 instances of participation with Zooniverse Volunteers transcribing over 60,000 records, a fantastic achievement which would not have been made possible without the help of our dedicated Documentation Detectives. In the first week alone, we received over 1,000 instances of participation with over 7,000 records transcribed.

The Zooniverse ‘talk’ function has been a great way to engage with Volunteers and spark interest in the collection. To quote the Zooniverse website: ‘Talk is a place for Zooniverse volunteers and researchers to discuss their projects, collect and share data, and work together to make new discoveries.’

Volunteers have been sharing their fascinating finds and discussing the records they find most interesting. Documentation Detectives have also been sharing their experiences taking part in the project and what they have enjoyed most.

To mark this magnificent milestone, our 1-year Zooniversary, we’re sharing images of some of the objects featured in the records and discussed on the project’s Talk Boards, to show our appreciation and thanks to the dedicated Zooniverse Volunteers from around the globe.

It has been a real highlight to see so many Documentation Detectives engaging with the project Talk Boards, chatting about the collections and object records of interest, as well as advising and supporting each other with any project FAQs. The incredible support and valued contributions of the Zooniverse Volunteers are unlocking our collections and will have a lasting impact on our collections access, care, and use.

We wish to thank all the Documentation Detectives who have joined us on this journey so far, we greatly appreciate their time and efforts to get involved and to help others to do so too. We hope to welcome many more to the project as we continue to learn and develop, so more people can enjoy delving into the archives and getting curious about the collections.

If you would like to become a Documentation Detective, learn about our collections, and see how our museum has recorded objects for more than a century, come and join us on Zooniverse.