Liverpool urges nationals to put together a strategy
David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool (NML), is calling for national museums to come together to produce a strategy.
“The government asked the Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) for a national strategy,” he said. “But the MLA failed to write that. It is up to the other national museums to call for a strategy for how they should serve the nation.”
NML has granted the North West Federation £35,000 in funding to administer a regional strategy for the north-west, and Fleming hopes it will become a blueprint for other regions.
His call follows a report by the National Museum Directors’ Conference (NMDC) in January that found an absence of a UK-wide delivery strategy and a lack of comprehensive data collection.
John Orna-Ornstein, head of London and national programmes at the British Museum, said the museum had moved away from purely long lending, and was working with the MLA and Museums Association on strategic partnerships around the country, sharing expertise via training and secondments.
He cited the British Museum’s work with the Yorkshire Museum, which led to an exhibition in London last month featuring artefacts from Yorkshire. Objects from the British Museum collection will be displayed in York in August.
Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, said he did not expect radical change following the report, but endorsed its messages.
The gallery is working on its own national strategy, building on partnerships with the north-east and south-west hubs, as well as the National Trust.
The Victoria and Albert Museum renewed its partnership with Museums Sheffield last month. The new five-year agreement has a different financial basis, with a greater contribution to costs by Museums Sheffield.
