At the risk of sounding like one of the over-eager salesmen who feature in personal finance ads, there's never been a better time to take out a loan.
Figures for the past four years given to Museums Journal by national museums indicate that more objects from their collections are on display in the UK regions than ever before, whether from formal partnerships such as those run by the British Museum (BM), the National Portrait Gallery and National Museum Wales, or one-off loan requests.
The BM lent 1,868 objects last year. Loans ranged from iconic single pieces, such as The Emperor's Terrapin currently touring venues across the UK, to touring exhibitions such as Buried Treasure, and objects for temporary exhibitions such as the Constantine exhibition in York. Many, though not all, were part of the Partnership UK programme with 19 other strategically selected institutions around the UK.
Elsewhere, nationals such as the National Museums of Scotland and National Museums Liverpool have injected new vigour into loans with revised lending strategies and a greater emphasis on promotion.
The nationals would happily trumpet their activities, of course, but the reaction is positive in the regions, too, which now have access to collections denied them in the past. Take the example of the Historic Dockyard Chatham and its protracted pursuit of the Chatham Chest, which it secured in 2002.
'We had been trying to borrow it from the National Maritime Museum since 1985 and it was always difficult,' says Richard Holdsworth, the museum and heritage director at Chatham. 'I think it's an indication that things have moved on and that in the sort of national museums we deal with there isn't anything like the "them and us" attitude that previously existed.'
The change was triggered partly by the inclusion of loans as a performance indicator in the English national museums' funding agreements alongside a requirement for them to work more with the regions. There is a similar obligation in Wales, although not in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Alec Coles, the director at Tyne and Wear Museums, also praises the nationals for their new openness and says the situation is much improved, partly because of government pressure but also thanks to a new generation of national directors who regard it as their duty to widen access to national collections.
'The situation is far, far better than it has been before,' Coles says. 'National museums are far more willing to lend items and items of substance. It's not the case any more that we get crumbs from the table.'
Beneath the surface, however, the picture is more complex and some of the old frustrations over costs, time-consuming processes and old-fashioned conservatism remain.
From a regional perspective, the nationals, for all their new-found
generosity, can be overbearing when it comes to conditions attached to loans. A senior figure at one independent museum that has partnerships with several nationals says the relationship is 'generally good', but that there are difficulties. Often, he says, there's a feeling that, while a national museum's strategy may be to facilitate loans, it hasn't been communicated well to the curators in the critical departments.
'Often, they still have a very traditional critical approach to these matters and are loath to let objects go. Sometimes the strings that come attached are prohibitive in terms of what we want to do. Besides the fear of damage, there's the fear that we may dumb down, just because we don't accompany every object with a long essay. They want the final say over how you are going to interpret and display things.'
Coles, who is researching the operation of loans for the National Museum Directors' Conference, says couriering is an especially thorny issue. 'If you have secure environment-controlled vehicles and if you have excellent staff in the regions, does it really need someone to come with a minder for every bit of stuff?'
Staff at the nationals are also over-protective, he adds. 'People insist on loaning their objects in their own cases, which to me is overkill. If Renaissance in the Regions is worth anything, we should be moving towards a situation where trained, accredited staff in the regions are trusted to do their jobs.'
The nationals would be even more willing to lend objects and to minimise the obstacles, Coles believes, if their performance indicators reflected any cooperation with the regions more closely.
'The nationals have a resource - the collection - to deliver to the public and are measured on the number of people who come through the doors, therefore it's understandable that they concentrate on using the resource to meet their performance targets. The fact is that if they were able to count the people who came and saw exhibitions featuring their objects in the regions as part of their performance targets, that would provide an incentive.'
The BM has taken a step in this direction and now includes figures for people who saw parts of its collection at other venues in its visitor figures. For 2005/06, it added 400,000 to the total.
These and other issues relating to the devil-in-the-detail of loan agreements were raised at a recent Museums Association (MA) seminar on loans. But, as contributors from the BM, the National Portrait Gallery and other nationals pointed out, the increased appetite for loans to the regions has brought new problems for them, not the least of which is the strain on their resources.
Jill Maggs, the BM's loans manager, said the pressure to lend is increasing, though the museum is already lending more than it ever used to: compared with the 1970s, the museum is making around 16 times more loans today and spends the equivalent of £1m a year administering the loans programme with the help of 34 members of staff. And, according to research with other museums, the BM is one of the more efficient, she adds.
The museum is scrutinising its processes further, but has decided against using quotas. 'We tried to introduce a limit to what we can loan, but it hasn't been a huge success,' Maggs says. 'The problem is you don't get six loan requests at once, you get them over nine months and you cannot just say yes to the first one.'
Standardisation of the paperwork detailing loan conditions might be one way forward - a proposal that the Network of European Museum
Organisations is considering. But Maggs says this presents its own difficulties because all objects have different risks associated with them.
One idea well received by the seminar audience was the proposal from Andrew Moore, a senior curator at Norfolk Museums, for an independent courier network made up of curators and conservators in the regions, to oversee transport and installation, ensure national indemnity standards are followed and so reduce costs.
'There is a role here for the MA and the nationals to encourage a more collegiate approach and acknowledge the ties that bind the profession together,' he says.
There was also a strong feeling that better dialogue and communication would resolve some of the clashes that make loaning a difficult and drawn-out process and this is one of the things the MA is aiming to foster in its new programme of work called Effective Collections.
Backed by a £1m grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, it builds on recommendations in last year's MA Collections for the Future report for museums to place a higher priority on actively using their collections. Pivotal to that is much more emphasis on sharing between museums and the new programme will focus in particular on brokering relationships and helping museums to identify new ways of working together.
'One thing we want is to create a culture where the expectation is that a national museum when approached for a loan would say yes rather than no,' says Helen Wilkinson, the MA's policy officer.
In terms of widening public access to the nation's collections, there's much to be celebrated in the enthusiasm for loans and the willingness on the part of many to continue to find ways to make the system work.
But increased loans activity means more carriers burning up more fossil fuel to zoom around the country. As the nationals now have reducing carbon emissions as one of their performance targets, squaring that circle is a challenge that will have to be faced at some point.
Julie Nightingale is a freelance journalist
Figures for the past four years given to Museums Journal by national museums indicate that more objects from their collections are on display in the UK regions than ever before, whether from formal partnerships such as those run by the British Museum (BM), the National Portrait Gallery and National Museum Wales, or one-off loan requests.
The BM lent 1,868 objects last year. Loans ranged from iconic single pieces, such as The Emperor's Terrapin currently touring venues across the UK, to touring exhibitions such as Buried Treasure, and objects for temporary exhibitions such as the Constantine exhibition in York. Many, though not all, were part of the Partnership UK programme with 19 other strategically selected institutions around the UK.
Elsewhere, nationals such as the National Museums of Scotland and National Museums Liverpool have injected new vigour into loans with revised lending strategies and a greater emphasis on promotion.
The nationals would happily trumpet their activities, of course, but the reaction is positive in the regions, too, which now have access to collections denied them in the past. Take the example of the Historic Dockyard Chatham and its protracted pursuit of the Chatham Chest, which it secured in 2002.
'We had been trying to borrow it from the National Maritime Museum since 1985 and it was always difficult,' says Richard Holdsworth, the museum and heritage director at Chatham. 'I think it's an indication that things have moved on and that in the sort of national museums we deal with there isn't anything like the "them and us" attitude that previously existed.'
The change was triggered partly by the inclusion of loans as a performance indicator in the English national museums' funding agreements alongside a requirement for them to work more with the regions. There is a similar obligation in Wales, although not in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Alec Coles, the director at Tyne and Wear Museums, also praises the nationals for their new openness and says the situation is much improved, partly because of government pressure but also thanks to a new generation of national directors who regard it as their duty to widen access to national collections.
'The situation is far, far better than it has been before,' Coles says. 'National museums are far more willing to lend items and items of substance. It's not the case any more that we get crumbs from the table.'
Beneath the surface, however, the picture is more complex and some of the old frustrations over costs, time-consuming processes and old-fashioned conservatism remain.
From a regional perspective, the nationals, for all their new-found
generosity, can be overbearing when it comes to conditions attached to loans. A senior figure at one independent museum that has partnerships with several nationals says the relationship is 'generally good', but that there are difficulties. Often, he says, there's a feeling that, while a national museum's strategy may be to facilitate loans, it hasn't been communicated well to the curators in the critical departments.
'Often, they still have a very traditional critical approach to these matters and are loath to let objects go. Sometimes the strings that come attached are prohibitive in terms of what we want to do. Besides the fear of damage, there's the fear that we may dumb down, just because we don't accompany every object with a long essay. They want the final say over how you are going to interpret and display things.'
Coles, who is researching the operation of loans for the National Museum Directors' Conference, says couriering is an especially thorny issue. 'If you have secure environment-controlled vehicles and if you have excellent staff in the regions, does it really need someone to come with a minder for every bit of stuff?'
Staff at the nationals are also over-protective, he adds. 'People insist on loaning their objects in their own cases, which to me is overkill. If Renaissance in the Regions is worth anything, we should be moving towards a situation where trained, accredited staff in the regions are trusted to do their jobs.'
The nationals would be even more willing to lend objects and to minimise the obstacles, Coles believes, if their performance indicators reflected any cooperation with the regions more closely.
'The nationals have a resource - the collection - to deliver to the public and are measured on the number of people who come through the doors, therefore it's understandable that they concentrate on using the resource to meet their performance targets. The fact is that if they were able to count the people who came and saw exhibitions featuring their objects in the regions as part of their performance targets, that would provide an incentive.'
The BM has taken a step in this direction and now includes figures for people who saw parts of its collection at other venues in its visitor figures. For 2005/06, it added 400,000 to the total.
These and other issues relating to the devil-in-the-detail of loan agreements were raised at a recent Museums Association (MA) seminar on loans. But, as contributors from the BM, the National Portrait Gallery and other nationals pointed out, the increased appetite for loans to the regions has brought new problems for them, not the least of which is the strain on their resources.
Jill Maggs, the BM's loans manager, said the pressure to lend is increasing, though the museum is already lending more than it ever used to: compared with the 1970s, the museum is making around 16 times more loans today and spends the equivalent of £1m a year administering the loans programme with the help of 34 members of staff. And, according to research with other museums, the BM is one of the more efficient, she adds.
The museum is scrutinising its processes further, but has decided against using quotas. 'We tried to introduce a limit to what we can loan, but it hasn't been a huge success,' Maggs says. 'The problem is you don't get six loan requests at once, you get them over nine months and you cannot just say yes to the first one.'
Standardisation of the paperwork detailing loan conditions might be one way forward - a proposal that the Network of European Museum
Organisations is considering. But Maggs says this presents its own difficulties because all objects have different risks associated with them.
One idea well received by the seminar audience was the proposal from Andrew Moore, a senior curator at Norfolk Museums, for an independent courier network made up of curators and conservators in the regions, to oversee transport and installation, ensure national indemnity standards are followed and so reduce costs.
'There is a role here for the MA and the nationals to encourage a more collegiate approach and acknowledge the ties that bind the profession together,' he says.
There was also a strong feeling that better dialogue and communication would resolve some of the clashes that make loaning a difficult and drawn-out process and this is one of the things the MA is aiming to foster in its new programme of work called Effective Collections.
Backed by a £1m grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, it builds on recommendations in last year's MA Collections for the Future report for museums to place a higher priority on actively using their collections. Pivotal to that is much more emphasis on sharing between museums and the new programme will focus in particular on brokering relationships and helping museums to identify new ways of working together.
'One thing we want is to create a culture where the expectation is that a national museum when approached for a loan would say yes rather than no,' says Helen Wilkinson, the MA's policy officer.
In terms of widening public access to the nation's collections, there's much to be celebrated in the enthusiasm for loans and the willingness on the part of many to continue to find ways to make the system work.
But increased loans activity means more carriers burning up more fossil fuel to zoom around the country. As the nationals now have reducing carbon emissions as one of their performance targets, squaring that circle is a challenge that will have to be faced at some point.
Julie Nightingale is a freelance journalist
