The Great North Museum: Hancock was built in 1884 in Newcastle to house the growing collections of the Natural History Society of Northumbria.
Following a £26m Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment 125 years later in 2009, it merged with the Museum of Antiquities and the Shefton Museum.
As well as making substantial changes to the fabric of the Victorian building, the redevelopment provided an opportunity to transform the museum’s stores. After much consultation, it was decided to create accessible storage – known as the GNM Resource Centre – in the basement of the nearby Discovery Museum.
Housing about half a million objects, the storage has the express remit of enabling members of the public to access the stored collection. Its design features a dozen rooms for holding objects, accessible toilets, study rooms and a classroom for school groups.
A number of options for where to house the accessible storage were discussed, but the location of the Discovery Museum in Newcastle city centre, and the fact that its galleries and cafe were already well-used by visitors, meant it offered an ideal opportunity to increase access.
“An offsite storage option would probably have been less accessible to the public, because it might be a way from the city centre and would require people to drive to it,” says Dan Gordon, the keeper of biology at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (Twam).
“A lot of people combine the tour with a trip to town, and I think they’d be less likely to visit if we weren’t so accessible.”
The museum starting offering free tours of the stores on the first Saturday of the month, but these proved so popular that these have been increased to every other Saturday.
The museum’s curators initially led the tours, but two curatorial assistants who were recruited as part of Twam’s creative apprentices scheme now lead the bulk of tours.
The museum has created a basic script that staff can tailor when delivering tours. Being an effective communicator is essential – a skill that doesn’t always feature on curators’ job descriptions.
“We all have to be better advocators, especially for natural sciences,” Gordon says. “People love natural history, and through engaging tours we can help them access our collections in meaningful ways.”
The tours run for about an hour and everyone is welcome, although the museum has found that children under the age of eight can struggle to engage and often get distracted.
The museum’s store is split into a number of different rooms, each with their own unique atmosphere. For example, in one room participants can smell wale bones, while others, such as the ethnographic store, are smaller and more intimate. Gordon says this variety helps people stay engaged.
Tours are limited to a maximum of 10 people. “Some of our store rooms are quite small so we want to make sure everyone can get in at the same time,” Gordon says. “The experience isn’t quite the same if you’re stuck at the back and can’t see anything.”
The museum has also found that the size of a tour group has a bearing on participants’ behaviour. “With smaller groups, people are more likely to ask questions and engage with their guide, whereas larger groups are more passive and formal,” Gordon says.
“The tours work better when they are interactive, because the questions people ask can start new and interesting conversations, and allow us to share more stories.”
The tours are free but the museum finds that visitors to the store have a high donation rate. It also charges £4 per person for tailored tours or those requested by special interest groups.
Twam promotes the tours on its website but finds that word-of-mouth is one of the most effective marketing tools. It has had a lot of media coverage over the years, which has helped raise awareness of the museum and public access to its store.
Gordon says the majority of people taking the tours are British, with many living in Newcastle or the North East. They also get a number of domestic and international tourists. “Sometimes we have people who have visitors staying, and they want something different to do on a Saturday trip to town.”
Despite running fortnightly, the tours are still oversubscribed. Gordon says visitors enjoy the drama of descending into the basement, passing through lots of corridors and then discovering the collection on racking and shelves behind closed doors.
For the museum and its staff, the tours are an opportunity to talk to visitors and often to learn new stories and perspectives on the collections.
One of the great debates surrounding public access to storage is how to manage the risks – to visitors as well as objects.
The GNM: Resource Centre tours do not include any material deemed hazardous for the public, including some spirit material used to preserve specimens.
Although larger museums such as the Natural History Museum in London have invested in safety procedures to allow these items to be accessible in its stores, Gordon says Twam doesn’t have the resources to do this.
“It’s a shame as this store is really interesting, but we always tell people that we have this material and show them pictures,” he adds.
Elsewhere, signage is used to warn people to be careful around sharp materials, such as spears.
And in terms of conservation, the museum relies on its monitoring systems and doors to control the exchange of air. Visitors are also asked to leave coats and bags in the museum’s cloakroom, and turn the flash off their cameras when taking photographs.
“It comes down to access versus conservation,” Gordon says.
“At the end of the day, we have an amazing collection of objects but there has to be a reason to keep it all. For us, the store tours are an opportunity for visitors to see and learn about our collections, and this is a great way of being able to prove its value.
“For example, we have two whale skulls that are so large they require their own dedicated storage bay – people are always flabbergasted when they see them, which is the reason we have them.”
Dan Gordon will discuss public access to collections at the forthcoming MP seminar, Off The Shelf: Making Storage Work For You, at the British Museum on 17 March
Following a £26m Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment 125 years later in 2009, it merged with the Museum of Antiquities and the Shefton Museum.
As well as making substantial changes to the fabric of the Victorian building, the redevelopment provided an opportunity to transform the museum’s stores. After much consultation, it was decided to create accessible storage – known as the GNM Resource Centre – in the basement of the nearby Discovery Museum.
Housing about half a million objects, the storage has the express remit of enabling members of the public to access the stored collection. Its design features a dozen rooms for holding objects, accessible toilets, study rooms and a classroom for school groups.
A number of options for where to house the accessible storage were discussed, but the location of the Discovery Museum in Newcastle city centre, and the fact that its galleries and cafe were already well-used by visitors, meant it offered an ideal opportunity to increase access.
“An offsite storage option would probably have been less accessible to the public, because it might be a way from the city centre and would require people to drive to it,” says Dan Gordon, the keeper of biology at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (Twam).
“A lot of people combine the tour with a trip to town, and I think they’d be less likely to visit if we weren’t so accessible.”
The museum starting offering free tours of the stores on the first Saturday of the month, but these proved so popular that these have been increased to every other Saturday.
The museum’s curators initially led the tours, but two curatorial assistants who were recruited as part of Twam’s creative apprentices scheme now lead the bulk of tours.
The museum has created a basic script that staff can tailor when delivering tours. Being an effective communicator is essential – a skill that doesn’t always feature on curators’ job descriptions.
“We all have to be better advocators, especially for natural sciences,” Gordon says. “People love natural history, and through engaging tours we can help them access our collections in meaningful ways.”
The tours run for about an hour and everyone is welcome, although the museum has found that children under the age of eight can struggle to engage and often get distracted.
The museum’s store is split into a number of different rooms, each with their own unique atmosphere. For example, in one room participants can smell wale bones, while others, such as the ethnographic store, are smaller and more intimate. Gordon says this variety helps people stay engaged.
Tours are limited to a maximum of 10 people. “Some of our store rooms are quite small so we want to make sure everyone can get in at the same time,” Gordon says. “The experience isn’t quite the same if you’re stuck at the back and can’t see anything.”
The museum has also found that the size of a tour group has a bearing on participants’ behaviour. “With smaller groups, people are more likely to ask questions and engage with their guide, whereas larger groups are more passive and formal,” Gordon says.
“The tours work better when they are interactive, because the questions people ask can start new and interesting conversations, and allow us to share more stories.”
The tours are free but the museum finds that visitors to the store have a high donation rate. It also charges £4 per person for tailored tours or those requested by special interest groups.
Twam promotes the tours on its website but finds that word-of-mouth is one of the most effective marketing tools. It has had a lot of media coverage over the years, which has helped raise awareness of the museum and public access to its store.
Gordon says the majority of people taking the tours are British, with many living in Newcastle or the North East. They also get a number of domestic and international tourists. “Sometimes we have people who have visitors staying, and they want something different to do on a Saturday trip to town.”
Despite running fortnightly, the tours are still oversubscribed. Gordon says visitors enjoy the drama of descending into the basement, passing through lots of corridors and then discovering the collection on racking and shelves behind closed doors.
For the museum and its staff, the tours are an opportunity to talk to visitors and often to learn new stories and perspectives on the collections.
One of the great debates surrounding public access to storage is how to manage the risks – to visitors as well as objects.
The GNM: Resource Centre tours do not include any material deemed hazardous for the public, including some spirit material used to preserve specimens.
Although larger museums such as the Natural History Museum in London have invested in safety procedures to allow these items to be accessible in its stores, Gordon says Twam doesn’t have the resources to do this.
“It’s a shame as this store is really interesting, but we always tell people that we have this material and show them pictures,” he adds.
Elsewhere, signage is used to warn people to be careful around sharp materials, such as spears.
And in terms of conservation, the museum relies on its monitoring systems and doors to control the exchange of air. Visitors are also asked to leave coats and bags in the museum’s cloakroom, and turn the flash off their cameras when taking photographs.
“It comes down to access versus conservation,” Gordon says.
“At the end of the day, we have an amazing collection of objects but there has to be a reason to keep it all. For us, the store tours are an opportunity for visitors to see and learn about our collections, and this is a great way of being able to prove its value.
“For example, we have two whale skulls that are so large they require their own dedicated storage bay – people are always flabbergasted when they see them, which is the reason we have them.”
Dan Gordon will discuss public access to collections at the forthcoming MP seminar, Off The Shelf: Making Storage Work For You, at the British Museum on 17 March