'Imagine that you are in charge of the collection policy of a museum. What would you choose to collect and how would you justify these decisions? » IntroductionCollections play a crucial role in fulfilling the mission and purpose of a museum. A museum's collection is defined by its past and present collecting policy, which in turn helps shape the museum's goals and direction. As collections managers, museums are expected to maintain the highest professional standards legally and ethically. The development of written policies is necessary to govern collections management and to establish the museum's collections activities to support its mission and guide priorities and decisions. of its governmental authority and its personnel. A museum's collections policy also validates the museum's commitment to properly maintain and manage its collections to the highest standards in order to fulfill its public trust responsibilities as steward of the collections. Collections Policy The Collections Management Policy defines the scope and boundaries of the museum's collection and establishes standards and guidelines for its acquisition, accession, access, transfer, documentation, conservation, loans, security and its management. “A policy is useless if it is outdated, ignored, too complex to follow, too simplistic to be useful, or does not meet the museum's mission. […] Good policies help the museum achieve its mission and demonstrate its commitment to professional standards and best practices. » The collection policy must be relevant and support the mission and purpose of the museum. All works proposed for acquisition in the collection must be based on and consistent with the stated mission of the museum. At the National Museum of Singapore, the mission is to...... middle of paper ...... recognize the importance of intangible heritage, museums still record very few intangibles in any meaningful way (this applies to new media and scientific developments as much as to oral history and traditional culture). It is important to establish the criteria for evaluating and determining whether an object should be added to the collection (e.g., consistency with the museum's mission and collecting goals; quality, rarity, intellectual value; provenance; capacity to maintain and store properly; research and exhibition use; restrictions on use, etc.). Although resources do not allow the collection to be exhaustive, the richer the collection, the more the museum is able to tell. Museum collections used in exhibitions and other interpretive programs help visitors better understand events, activities, and people associated with them..