The National Museums and Galleries of Wales has launched a public consultation into the future of the national museum service. The first part of the consultation, which will mainly be conducted through a website, will run for seven weeks up until 20 April.
Mike Houlihan, the director general of NMGW, told Museums Journal that the aim of the consultation was to decide a vision for the service for the next 25 years.
The first phase will address some of the criticisms of last year's Audit Committee report into collections management at NMGW. The report, which was published in August 2004, found that 22 per cent of storage space was rated 'very poor' and recommended that NMGW tackle curation and conservation backlogs, among other things.
The first phase will include building maintenance and sorting out some of the storage and access problems, and will cost £8-9m over the next three years. The assembly has committed £6.5m in extra funding towards these projects and NMGW has raised all but £1m of the remaining money.
The next stage will concentrate on the redevelopment of the National Museum and Gallery, the Museum of Welsh Life and the Roman Legionary Museum in Caerleon. At Cathays Park the idea is to separate the art and natural history collections into a National Museum of Art on the first floor and a National Museum of Natural History on the ground floor.
The archaeology collection will be moved to St Fagans, which will be rebranded as the Museum of Welsh History, and all the collections will be redisplayed along the themes of origins, belonging, the future, and creativity.
The separation of the museum and art gallery suggests that a solution to the long-running debate in Wales about the need for a national art gallery may yet be a long way off. NMGW and the Arts Council of Wales are currently conducting a feasibility study.
Houlihan said that NMGW and the assembly government were committed to the idea, but added that it was vital to get the intellectual infrastructure right first and that money had to be spent on the existing collections before a new capital project was started.
One of the most immediate results of the consultation exercise will be a rebranding of NMGW, which could mean eventually losing the English title altogether in favour of the Welsh name: Amgueddfa Cymru. The new designs for the brand will initially include both Welsh and English titles and will be tested with the public over the next few months.
There is a precedent for Welsh-only titles for public bodies. The Council of Museums in Wales became a cross-sector government body representing museums, archives and libraries in 2004, and changed its name to CyMAL, which translates as joined or joint.
Doubts have been expressed about NMGW adopting a solely Welsh name. Although Welsh is a growing language, only 21 per cent of the population speak it. One commentator told Museums Journal that he thought NMGW should be cautious about dropping the English title and that the name needed to represent the fact that Wales is a bi-lingual society.
Chris Delaney, the president of the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales, welcomed the vision and said he was pleased with the focus on partnership. The vision includes the continuation of the Sharing Treasures partnership scheme, which has given regional and local museums access to NMGW collections and expertise.
There was concern last year that the demise of the Council of Museums in Wales would mean there would be no independent voice for museums in Wales. But Delaney said that CyMAL continued to provide information and advice, and that the Welsh federation had developed its advocacy role and hoped to work with NMGW to lobby government in the future.
The vision also includes the proposal to establish a Virtual Museum by 2007, which is the centenary year of NMGW. Houlihan said that the site would be a bit like the British Museum's Compass website, with academic research, online exhibitions and a facility where visitors could do a postcode search to find out which objects from their area are held by NMGW.
The vision comes at the end of a ten-year industrial strategy which aimed to tell the story of Wales as the first industrial nation. The industrial strategy included the redevelopment of the Welsh Slate Museum in Llanberis and the National Woollen Museum in Dre-fach Felindre.
NMGW also invested £7m into the Big Pit in Blaenafon which has been shortlisted for this year's Gulbenkian prize. This summer sees the opening of the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, which will be run in partnership with Swansea City Council, and will be the final part of the industrial strategy.
The planned development of the collections centre in Nantgarw into a National Conservation and Access Centre will not now go ahead.
Mike Houlihan, the director general of NMGW, told Museums Journal that the aim of the consultation was to decide a vision for the service for the next 25 years.
The first phase will address some of the criticisms of last year's Audit Committee report into collections management at NMGW. The report, which was published in August 2004, found that 22 per cent of storage space was rated 'very poor' and recommended that NMGW tackle curation and conservation backlogs, among other things.
The first phase will include building maintenance and sorting out some of the storage and access problems, and will cost £8-9m over the next three years. The assembly has committed £6.5m in extra funding towards these projects and NMGW has raised all but £1m of the remaining money.
The next stage will concentrate on the redevelopment of the National Museum and Gallery, the Museum of Welsh Life and the Roman Legionary Museum in Caerleon. At Cathays Park the idea is to separate the art and natural history collections into a National Museum of Art on the first floor and a National Museum of Natural History on the ground floor.
The archaeology collection will be moved to St Fagans, which will be rebranded as the Museum of Welsh History, and all the collections will be redisplayed along the themes of origins, belonging, the future, and creativity.
The separation of the museum and art gallery suggests that a solution to the long-running debate in Wales about the need for a national art gallery may yet be a long way off. NMGW and the Arts Council of Wales are currently conducting a feasibility study.
Houlihan said that NMGW and the assembly government were committed to the idea, but added that it was vital to get the intellectual infrastructure right first and that money had to be spent on the existing collections before a new capital project was started.
One of the most immediate results of the consultation exercise will be a rebranding of NMGW, which could mean eventually losing the English title altogether in favour of the Welsh name: Amgueddfa Cymru. The new designs for the brand will initially include both Welsh and English titles and will be tested with the public over the next few months.
There is a precedent for Welsh-only titles for public bodies. The Council of Museums in Wales became a cross-sector government body representing museums, archives and libraries in 2004, and changed its name to CyMAL, which translates as joined or joint.
Doubts have been expressed about NMGW adopting a solely Welsh name. Although Welsh is a growing language, only 21 per cent of the population speak it. One commentator told Museums Journal that he thought NMGW should be cautious about dropping the English title and that the name needed to represent the fact that Wales is a bi-lingual society.
Chris Delaney, the president of the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales, welcomed the vision and said he was pleased with the focus on partnership. The vision includes the continuation of the Sharing Treasures partnership scheme, which has given regional and local museums access to NMGW collections and expertise.
There was concern last year that the demise of the Council of Museums in Wales would mean there would be no independent voice for museums in Wales. But Delaney said that CyMAL continued to provide information and advice, and that the Welsh federation had developed its advocacy role and hoped to work with NMGW to lobby government in the future.
The vision also includes the proposal to establish a Virtual Museum by 2007, which is the centenary year of NMGW. Houlihan said that the site would be a bit like the British Museum's Compass website, with academic research, online exhibitions and a facility where visitors could do a postcode search to find out which objects from their area are held by NMGW.
The vision comes at the end of a ten-year industrial strategy which aimed to tell the story of Wales as the first industrial nation. The industrial strategy included the redevelopment of the Welsh Slate Museum in Llanberis and the National Woollen Museum in Dre-fach Felindre.
NMGW also invested £7m into the Big Pit in Blaenafon which has been shortlisted for this year's Gulbenkian prize. This summer sees the opening of the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, which will be run in partnership with Swansea City Council, and will be the final part of the industrial strategy.
The planned development of the collections centre in Nantgarw into a National Conservation and Access Centre will not now go ahead.