Ethics

In years gone by the yearly festival that takes place in our community culminated in the crowning of a festival king and queen.

The crowns, made in the early part of the last century, are now part of our museum's collection. The leisure services department, under whose jurisdiction we fall, want to revive the ceremony to attract tourists.

Opinion here at the museum is, however, split. Whilst some think it's a good idea, others are concerned that the objects will be jeopardised if they are used in this way. Do you have any advice?


It is important that you do not simply acquiesce in any demands made of you by the leisure services department if those demands are incompatible with your responsibility as museum professionals to safeguard the objects in your care.

You are right to alert the festival organisers to the threats of theft or damage. If those threats are so great as to significantly compromise access to these objects in future, you should engage the support of higher authorities to alter, or even prevent, their use as planned.

On the other hand, this is a marvellous opportunity for making accessible items that have great resonance for your community. Best practice is, of course, not to neglect one or the other but to reconcile safeguarding with access.

The point of safeguarding them is to make objects accessible. There are a number of successful precedents for the occasional use of museum objects on ceremonial occasions.

Crowns can, for example, be kept in a specially prepared case, lifted out, momentarily held aloft by someone fully trained in object handling and then put back before placing replicas on the heads of the king and queen.