Museums offer a lesson in service quality
While the introduction of universal free admission to all the national museums has led to a significant increase in the number of visits (nearly 30 million additional visits have been recorded to the formerly charging museums in the five years since 2001), this cannot be the principal reason why visits to heritage attractions may have declined slightly over the same period.
Emma Bradbury's article (Museums Journal March 2007, p16) assumes that visitors regularly make choices between museums and other heritage attractions.
But there is no reason why this should necessarily be the case. Indeed, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Taking Part survey shows that people are more likely to visit historic environment sites than participate in any other area for which it is responsible.
It would be wrong to assume that free admission has simply subsidised more visits by the affluent. Our figures show that visits by audiences from lower socio-economic groups, as a proportion of overall visits, grew from 16 per cent to 18 per cent in the first three years after free admission was introduced.
Taking Part shows that the ticket price is only one factor determining people's willingness to participate in cultural and sporting activities. Of greater influence are the steps that attractions take to enhance their offer and make themselves accessible to diverse audiences.
On that front, other visitor attractions have a lot to learn from the quality of service now on offer at museums across the country.
David Lammy, minister for culture, Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Bolton will not jeopardise accreditation
I am responding to the article that suggested Bolton Council plans to sell items from the museum collections to fill a budget deficit (Museums Journal March 2007, p5).
We wish to make it clear that following a council executive meeting in February, an amended proposal was endorsed ordering the museums service not to undertake action that would break accreditation guidelines.
Subsequently, a letter has been sent to MLA North West emphasising the council's decision and clarifying that the target originally set against the museum is now not expected to be met by the service alone.
Bolton Council has been collecting material of historic, scientific and artistic interest for 150 years and is proud to have gathered a collection of considerable local, national and international importance. We believe this executive decision, taken in a climate of considerable financial pressure, represents a positive commitment to preserving and developing the long-term cultural strength of the borough.
While we may have wished that the issue had not been raised in the first place, the end result of the process has been to strengthen our position - accreditation and the ethical management of museum collections are now being discussed by the rest of the council in a way that has never happened before.
While we understand that the Museums Association must lobby on such a point of principle, we are extremely disappointed by its immediate reaction to this decision. We feel that this was a significant victory for the profession at a critical time, and that a considered response would have been more sensible.
Not only would this have limited the damage to the reputation of the Bolton Museum & Archive Service, but it would also discourage other councils considering following a similar route.
Matthew Constantine, senior manager, museum and archive collections, Bolton Museum & Archive Service
Why is HLF shouldering Olympics burden?
The article on the attack on lottery funding to finance the 2012 Olympics (Museums Journal April 2007, p5) sets out how much each of the distributors will have to contribute.
Am I the only one amazed that Sport England is contributing the least? According to your report, the Heritage Lottery Fund is having £35m more taken away from its share of lottery money than Sport England. This seems perverse, as the Olympics is a sports event.
Lesley Bossine, museum consultant, Hampton
A wee? Mais non!
I was most interested to read Catherine Pound's excellent article on disabled access to French museums (Museums Journal April 2007, p16). At the beginning of her penultimate paragraph she states, 'Despite the fact that the situation in Paris is better than in the provinces…'
I spent a week in Paris in September 2006 visiting four major museums, accompanied by my wife and my daughter. They had to push me in my wheelchair all around central Paris since, apart from a few expensive adapted vehicles, Parisian taxis are not designed to take wheelchairs.
We visited the Musée du Quai Branly, the Louvre, Les Invalides and the Musée d'Orsay. The main problem at the first three museums was the inadequate disabled toilets for men as they only had one grab rail instead of two. In Les invalides I was prevented by a steep flight of steps from seeing Napoleon's tomb.
I found the Musée d'Orsay the most wheelchair friendly. When we got there, there was a long queue, but a museum employee ushered us to the front. When we got inside, the disabled toilet had two grab rails. The Musée d'Orsay was designed by an Italian architect, which probably accounts for the adequate disabled toilets.
George Bankes, honorary research associate, Manchester Museum
MLA's structure does not duplicate effort
In the article about the Arts Council England reshaping to meet fresh challenges (Museums Journal March 2007, p13), Helen Wilkinson claims that at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), 'work on policy and strategy is split between regional and national offices, which leads to duplication of effort and perhaps a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies'. I totally disagree.
The MLA's restructure in 2006 created an efficient national organisation ideally placed to work with partner organisations in the regions in a joined-up approach to policy, innovation and implementation, to benefit the public and those who work in the sector. Joined-up working removes duplication of effort.
We have created an organisational structure with a policy team combining these cross-domain development responsibilities with senior posts that lead policy and advocacy for each of the sector's three domains - museums, libraries and archives.
The council develops national policies and strategy, with the advice and experience provided by the regional agencies. The council and agencies then work together to advocate and deliver on behalf of the sectors.
The MLA partnership involves organisations acting collectively for the benefit of the sector and the public, transforming museums, libraries and archives.
Chris Batt, chief executive, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
Arctic World is testament to child creators
I am writing to express my outrage at Peter Lewis's article about Weston Park Museum (Museums Journal February 2007, p44), particularly his comments about the Arctic World area.
My class of year-six children was heavily involved in the development of Arctic World over a four-year period, and I believe that had Lewis researched the project in any depth, he would have had a very different opinion about its value.
The children were first asked to act as consultants when they were seven. After a public vote in which Snowy the Polar Bear was chosen by visitors as their favourite museum object, 60 pupils from Westways school, along with 40 from another local school, were asked to draw what a room in the museum for the bear would look like.
The pupils were involved in the design and content of each step in creating Arctic World. This is an area designed for children by children, a point that Lewis missed.
The children were also asked what they wanted to find out about the Arctic. For a year, children from Westways swapped questions and photographs with children from Nuiyak School in Nunavut, Canada, about living in such different communities. This culminated with the exchange of a collection of items from each community, which are on display in Arctic World.
My class were passionate about developing an area that children would enjoy and learn from. They even returned during their summer holiday to witness the opening of the suitcase from Nunavut.
Lewis described Arctic World as 'infantile'. Well, my children, aged eight and ten, thoroughly enjoyed it. Nor is it a 'monument to tweedom'. It is a pity that such a long-term project was dismissed with such apparent contempt.
Wendy Scott, governor and acting deputy head, Westways Primary School, Sheffield
The distinction of age at the Ashmolean
In your interesting interview with David Wright (Museums Journal April 2007, p62), you describe the Wisbech & Fenland Museum as 'the oldest museum in the country outside London'. The museum opened in 1847.
In fact, the oldest museum in this country is the Ashmolean Museum, which opened to the public in 1683 in Broad Street, Oxford. The London museums were relative late-comers; the oldest one, the British Museum, opened in 1759.
Christopher Brown, director, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
While the introduction of universal free admission to all the national museums has led to a significant increase in the number of visits (nearly 30 million additional visits have been recorded to the formerly charging museums in the five years since 2001), this cannot be the principal reason why visits to heritage attractions may have declined slightly over the same period.
Emma Bradbury's article (Museums Journal March 2007, p16) assumes that visitors regularly make choices between museums and other heritage attractions.
But there is no reason why this should necessarily be the case. Indeed, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Taking Part survey shows that people are more likely to visit historic environment sites than participate in any other area for which it is responsible.
It would be wrong to assume that free admission has simply subsidised more visits by the affluent. Our figures show that visits by audiences from lower socio-economic groups, as a proportion of overall visits, grew from 16 per cent to 18 per cent in the first three years after free admission was introduced.
Taking Part shows that the ticket price is only one factor determining people's willingness to participate in cultural and sporting activities. Of greater influence are the steps that attractions take to enhance their offer and make themselves accessible to diverse audiences.
On that front, other visitor attractions have a lot to learn from the quality of service now on offer at museums across the country.
David Lammy, minister for culture, Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Bolton will not jeopardise accreditation
I am responding to the article that suggested Bolton Council plans to sell items from the museum collections to fill a budget deficit (Museums Journal March 2007, p5).
We wish to make it clear that following a council executive meeting in February, an amended proposal was endorsed ordering the museums service not to undertake action that would break accreditation guidelines.
Subsequently, a letter has been sent to MLA North West emphasising the council's decision and clarifying that the target originally set against the museum is now not expected to be met by the service alone.
Bolton Council has been collecting material of historic, scientific and artistic interest for 150 years and is proud to have gathered a collection of considerable local, national and international importance. We believe this executive decision, taken in a climate of considerable financial pressure, represents a positive commitment to preserving and developing the long-term cultural strength of the borough.
While we may have wished that the issue had not been raised in the first place, the end result of the process has been to strengthen our position - accreditation and the ethical management of museum collections are now being discussed by the rest of the council in a way that has never happened before.
While we understand that the Museums Association must lobby on such a point of principle, we are extremely disappointed by its immediate reaction to this decision. We feel that this was a significant victory for the profession at a critical time, and that a considered response would have been more sensible.
Not only would this have limited the damage to the reputation of the Bolton Museum & Archive Service, but it would also discourage other councils considering following a similar route.
Matthew Constantine, senior manager, museum and archive collections, Bolton Museum & Archive Service
Why is HLF shouldering Olympics burden?
The article on the attack on lottery funding to finance the 2012 Olympics (Museums Journal April 2007, p5) sets out how much each of the distributors will have to contribute.
Am I the only one amazed that Sport England is contributing the least? According to your report, the Heritage Lottery Fund is having £35m more taken away from its share of lottery money than Sport England. This seems perverse, as the Olympics is a sports event.
Lesley Bossine, museum consultant, Hampton
A wee? Mais non!
I was most interested to read Catherine Pound's excellent article on disabled access to French museums (Museums Journal April 2007, p16). At the beginning of her penultimate paragraph she states, 'Despite the fact that the situation in Paris is better than in the provinces…'
I spent a week in Paris in September 2006 visiting four major museums, accompanied by my wife and my daughter. They had to push me in my wheelchair all around central Paris since, apart from a few expensive adapted vehicles, Parisian taxis are not designed to take wheelchairs.
We visited the Musée du Quai Branly, the Louvre, Les Invalides and the Musée d'Orsay. The main problem at the first three museums was the inadequate disabled toilets for men as they only had one grab rail instead of two. In Les invalides I was prevented by a steep flight of steps from seeing Napoleon's tomb.
I found the Musée d'Orsay the most wheelchair friendly. When we got there, there was a long queue, but a museum employee ushered us to the front. When we got inside, the disabled toilet had two grab rails. The Musée d'Orsay was designed by an Italian architect, which probably accounts for the adequate disabled toilets.
George Bankes, honorary research associate, Manchester Museum
MLA's structure does not duplicate effort
In the article about the Arts Council England reshaping to meet fresh challenges (Museums Journal March 2007, p13), Helen Wilkinson claims that at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), 'work on policy and strategy is split between regional and national offices, which leads to duplication of effort and perhaps a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies'. I totally disagree.
The MLA's restructure in 2006 created an efficient national organisation ideally placed to work with partner organisations in the regions in a joined-up approach to policy, innovation and implementation, to benefit the public and those who work in the sector. Joined-up working removes duplication of effort.
We have created an organisational structure with a policy team combining these cross-domain development responsibilities with senior posts that lead policy and advocacy for each of the sector's three domains - museums, libraries and archives.
The council develops national policies and strategy, with the advice and experience provided by the regional agencies. The council and agencies then work together to advocate and deliver on behalf of the sectors.
The MLA partnership involves organisations acting collectively for the benefit of the sector and the public, transforming museums, libraries and archives.
Chris Batt, chief executive, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
Arctic World is testament to child creators
I am writing to express my outrage at Peter Lewis's article about Weston Park Museum (Museums Journal February 2007, p44), particularly his comments about the Arctic World area.
My class of year-six children was heavily involved in the development of Arctic World over a four-year period, and I believe that had Lewis researched the project in any depth, he would have had a very different opinion about its value.
The children were first asked to act as consultants when they were seven. After a public vote in which Snowy the Polar Bear was chosen by visitors as their favourite museum object, 60 pupils from Westways school, along with 40 from another local school, were asked to draw what a room in the museum for the bear would look like.
The pupils were involved in the design and content of each step in creating Arctic World. This is an area designed for children by children, a point that Lewis missed.
The children were also asked what they wanted to find out about the Arctic. For a year, children from Westways swapped questions and photographs with children from Nuiyak School in Nunavut, Canada, about living in such different communities. This culminated with the exchange of a collection of items from each community, which are on display in Arctic World.
My class were passionate about developing an area that children would enjoy and learn from. They even returned during their summer holiday to witness the opening of the suitcase from Nunavut.
Lewis described Arctic World as 'infantile'. Well, my children, aged eight and ten, thoroughly enjoyed it. Nor is it a 'monument to tweedom'. It is a pity that such a long-term project was dismissed with such apparent contempt.
Wendy Scott, governor and acting deputy head, Westways Primary School, Sheffield
The distinction of age at the Ashmolean
In your interesting interview with David Wright (Museums Journal April 2007, p62), you describe the Wisbech & Fenland Museum as 'the oldest museum in the country outside London'. The museum opened in 1847.
In fact, the oldest museum in this country is the Ashmolean Museum, which opened to the public in 1683 in Broad Street, Oxford. The London museums were relative late-comers; the oldest one, the British Museum, opened in 1759.
Christopher Brown, director, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
