The policy column - Museums Association

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Conference 2024: The Joy of Museums booking open now – Book before 31 March 2024 for a 10% discount

The policy column

A sustainable future for collections
This month, we’re delighted to launch our Collections 2030 report. Over the past year, project has engaged more than 1,000 people across the sector with questions about how collections should be used and managed, and what museums need to focus on over the next decade to ensure a sustainable future.

On the basis of your input, we found five key issues that need to be tackled. First, there is a need for a culture change in museums, to break down the barriers between collections work and public-facing work. Second, we need to ensure that collections are relevant to a growing and diverse museum audience. Third is the need to tackle the growing size of collections by improving storage and facilitating rationalisation.

Fourth, we need to improve the active curation of museum collections online to meet the interests of a growing audience. And finally, there is a need to provide the necessary resources and skills to manage and use collections over the next decade.

We found a huge ambition to tackle these issues – to make collections empowering, relevant and dynamic. The report sets out our key recommendations to funders, museums and sector bodies, and we’ll be working with members and stakeholders to ensure that action is taken on each issue in the coming year.

Alistair Brown is the policy officer at the Museums Association

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