Investing in people

'Write the labels so an intelligent sixth-former will understand them,' I was told when I started my museum career, 20 years ago. To have labels at all was something of a novelty in those days.

Now museums think about a wide range of visitors, taking into account differing levels of knowledge and interest and varying learning styles. The best permanent displays can cater simultaneously for casual adult visitors, children, specialists and the traditional museum audience - the well-educated class ABC1s, encapsulated by the intelligent sixth-former of old.

Some, such as national newspaper art critics and exceptionally bookish curators, argue that the traditional audience should be the primary focus, and they believe (or maybe hope) that chasing new audiences is a transitory, New Labour fad.

At the other extreme, central and local government policy makers can sound as if they want traditional visitors to go away. 'Do more social inclusion. Bring us more C2DEs,' cry the policy wonks - then mutter grumpily when surveys reveal that the middle classes still doggedly insist on visiting.

Fortunately, the museums I went to for this series of articles are far more sophisticated. I sought out museums that I consider successful, and in particular talked to younger, up-and-coming members of staff rather than senior directors.

They understand that it is possible to appeal to existing visitors, while attracting new ones. (Although I encountered great uncertainty about the balance between the two.)

One approach is to aim temporary exhibitions at a specific audience but also to use them as a starting point to engage other visitors. Liz Smith, the head of education and interpretation at the National Maritime Museum, says: 'For an exhibition there is the main audience and then it's used as a springboard for programming and projects for other audiences.'

A few miles along the Thames, staff at the Orleans House Gallery take a similar approach: 'We think about what our programmes will be as we put the show together,' says the head of arts for Richmond-upon-Thames, Rachel Tranter.

The Orleans House Gallery set out very deliberately to develop new audiences. 'We have different audience segments,' Tranter says. 'The core visiting audience is white, middle-aged, educated. We've sustained that audience while developing new ones.

In 1997 we started to develop a proper programme for children and families, from that we initiated formal family learning as well as drop-in family learning. Then in 1999 we started to work with "hard-to-reach" young people, initially through a pupil-referral unit for children excluded from school.'

Tranter says there is 'a model where if you do something, such as an exhibition relevant to a particular group, it will attract them.' But that's relatively easy. The challenge is 'to continue attracting them and find other ways in which they can be involved'.

Kate Brindley, the director of museums, galleries and archives at Bristol Museums, was at Wolverhampton recently, where 'we never made an exhibition without a target audience in mind'. She says listening to different audiences has many benefits: 'Consulting with communities has completely transformed the way we use some of our objects. Once you've worked like that, you find it difficult to work any other way.'

Sarah Blackstock is the curator of transatlantic slavery at National Museums Liverpool. She describes three stages in engaging a new audience.

First come events, perhaps a workshop designed to make an exhibition relevant to a particular audience group, or something like Black History Month. 'But these are add-ons and some find that offensive,' she says.

Next come projects or exhibitions that involve a particular audience group more closely in the museum's work. But full involvement only comes at the rarely reached third level: 'This is collections-based work in which you are really interrogating your collections and collecting to represent that group.

You are including them in the museum's mainstream narratives to give interconnectedness in the way history is presented.'

Izzy Mohammed was a presenter at Thinktank in Birmingham when I spoke to him; now he is the community access officer for the Connecting History Project at the Birmingham City Archives.

He thinks museums have a long way to go before they engage properly with communities. One impediment is that 'museum leaders are a bit frightened. They don't know where to start. People have a pretty open mind but don't have the right people in their organisations.' Mohammed thinks staff need to be appropriately equipped, to know where to go and who to approach.

Mohammed says museums have a duty to promote cross-cultural understanding: 'There is a lot of tension between communities, so we need to be aware of each other more. Museums are a really appropriate place to do that. People need to know where they are coming from to gain a sense of belonging.

But there hasn't been documentation of some communities' histories, so the younger generation struggles with an identity crisis. I can see museums having a role in helping communities know themselves better.'

Intriguingly, this sounds like a community-level version of Neil MacGregor's post-imperial universal vision for the British Museum; improving people's awareness of themselves and of their relationships to others.

Just as MacGregor wants the British Museum to help east African nations know their history better, Mohammed want museums to help Bangladeshis living in Birmingham to learn more about their history.
In both cases there is an aspiration that people should understand their place in the world and so be better citizens.

In this view of museums, there is no conflict between the roles of caring for and developing the collection, encouraging engagement by varied audiences, and having a wider social role. In fact all the people I interviewed for these articles have a very clear view of how collections and learning; scholarship and access; and specialism and populism can work together in the 21st-century museum.

After hundreds of miles of driving, and thousands of words of writing, what else did I conclude about the state of UK museums? I found that the successful museums I visited had much in common. They all believe in their collections, care about their audiences and have clarity about their aims (see the box above).

These museums are thriving because individual staff members have taken responsibility for improving the service their museum offers. Some museums are desperately short of money, or have an obstructive governing body, but in most cases the power to improve things rests with staff.

There is more money around than ever before and there's enough good practice and advice for everyone to learn how to improve their museum. And in many cases they have improved: most museums are far better than they were five or ten years ago. They have greater clarity of purpose. They are more confident, more successful and more popular.

But there are still problems and challenges. In spite of all the improvements, I found weaknesses in displays and exhibitions. They are often too complex intellectually and too pedestrian creatively.

I have emphasised this throughout because I believe displays and exhibitions are the absolute core of a museum's business. Nothing - not even decent documentation, exciting events, superb scholarship, successful programmes for schools or whizzy websites - is quite as important as getting the basics right.

I also found that museums were nervous and hesitant about engaging with communities. These shortcomings are not generally to do with funding or government policy, but are a matter of staff attitudes and skills.

I think there are three aspects to this. Firstly, staff need to continually improve and broaden their skills. Every individual needs to examine their abilities and decide what they need to do better.

Secondly, museums need to open themselves up to new ways of working, and bring in other skills. Professional educators and marketers have transformed museums. Now museums need to welcome in people from the mass media and draw on the talents of artists, authors and theatre directors. Closer to home there is much to learn from the approaches of libraries and archives.

Thirdly, museums need to recruit from a far wider range of backgrounds. There is nothing wrong with coming from a comfortable, white, middle-class home - but other people have things to contribute to museums too. The Diversify scheme shows it is possible to broaden the range of people training for museum work, but there is more to do.

And my overall conclusion: it's down to us, the people who work in museums. It's in our power to keep improving. We're not reviled by government any more - and most of us aren't cash-strapped victims. We have to continually improve our knowledge and skills, we have to be open to outside expertise - and we have to encourage people from a wide range of backgrounds to join us. mj

Maurice Davies is the deputy director of the Museums Association


Could do better

I found that even the best UK museums still need to:
n improve the quality of interpretation, display and communication
n make sure 'learning' doesn't smother inspiration and enjoyment
n change permanent displays more often
n be braver in reaching and representing communities.
To make this happen, museums must:
n keep improving the skills and knowledge of existing staff
n bring in more expertise from other professions
n recruit people from a wider range of backgrounds.