How could more than 1,500 items be taken from the British Museum over 20 years without anyone noticing? Partly because the museum does not have an adequate record of what is in its collection, according to an academic.
Professor Dan Hicks of the University of Oxford tells us: “It will shock many people to learn what everyone in the museum sector knows, that the databases are not complete.” He says the recent incident, where vast numbers of items seem to have been stolen, missing or damaged, may not have been possible if bosses had properly invested in cataloguing, and that the oversight is an example of “arrogance and exceptionalism” at the BM.
