A regional museum introduced a common catalogue for several small collections. Researchers who had previously sent separate enquiries could now locate related objects in a single search. This, (A) ______, encouraged projects that crossed the boundaries between collections. Yet the shared search tool did not explain why an object had been acquired or why its description had changed. For those questions, researchers still needed curators familiar with the local records. The museum therefore treated the software as a resource working (B) ______ its specialist staff, rather than as a replacement for their judgement. Its value lay partly in making connections visible and partly in directing people toward those able to interpret them.