Editorial

The decade is nearly over, so we have taken the opportunity in this issue of Museums Journal to assess what it has meant for museums and galleries.

It all started with the millennium building boom, fuelled by lottery funding and stimulated by Renaissance cash for regional museums in England. As a result, museums and galleries across the UK have transformed how they look, what they display and how they interpret their collections.

The social inclusion mantra that started the decade might have receded, but most museums not only got the message that they should serve all the communities around them, but many started doing something to make that happen.

Free admission for the nationals helped further that inclusive agenda, and although some directors were sceptical, most are converts - for now.

Progress has also been made on cultural property. The Spoliation Advisory Panel was set up at the start of the decade, and just last month, legislation was passed to enable national museums to return Nazi loot from their collections. Moreover, museums from Cardiff to Aberdeen have returned human remains to source communities.

Museums have got better at: reaching audiences they don't normally reach; telling stories, including difficult ones; physical and intellectual access; and thinking about collections, including tricky decisions about getting rid of stuff.

Asking museum directors for their highlights of the decade got me thinking about my own. They include: Emory Douglas at Urbis; Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum; Shetland Museum and Archives; Banksy vs Bristol Museum; the Ashmolean; Hello Sailor at the Merseyside Maritime Museum; Under the Sea at the National Maritime Museum, Falmouth; and the Weather Project at Tate Modern.

This diverse bunch all pushed the boundaries a little, either with the subject matter or type of display.

The next few years are going to be difficult. Concentrating on audiences and putting on shows that tell us something new or make us think about things in a different way could be one way to alleviate the misery.

Sharon Heal, editor