The first was about the return of human remains from the Natural History Museum to Tasmania (see news p5). The trustees' decision has met with criticism from the scientific community and the claimants who want the material returned.
For some scientists the three-month research period before return is not long enough; and for the source community, the idea of yet more intrusive investigation of their ancestors' remains is abhorrent.
The museum has come up with a compromise between its duty as a scientific research institute to garner as much data as possible from the remains, and the claim from the source community, which has presented a clear ethical and moral case for return. Between the two conflicting points of view, the trustees and the advisory panel have had to weigh up the arguments very carefully.
Other museums have given back human remains with no strings attached in recognition of the fact that they were not ethically theirs to keep in the first place. In the end the compromise the Natural History Museum has reached is probably as good as it gets.
What is more significant is that it has set in motion a process that will mean the eventual return of human remains to source communities, which could have wider significance for the rest of the museum's human remains holdings, and for other collections of human remains in the UK. The message is - if the Natural History Museum can sanction return, so can others.
The other headline-grabbing event last month was the sale by Bury council of A Riverbank by LS Lowry. In this issue of Museums Journal, John Carter, the libraries and adult learning officer at the council, puts the case for the defence (p16).
His argument is that the sale was the least worst alternative from a range of unpleasant options including closing the museum and losing jobs. Surely, it is better to sell one painting, he argues, and keep the service open and the collection accessible to the public.
But that sort of logic gives the green light to every local authority to look at their collections as a cashable asset. Tough measures are needed now to make sure that any council watching events in Bury with an eye to doing the same thing is deterred from doing so.
Bury resigned its membership of the Museums Association before any disciplinary action could be taken, which leaves the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in pole position to take firm and authoritative action. Deregistering the museum service will send a clear message to funders, stakeholders and governing bodies that flogging off the collection to the highest bidder is just not on.
Sharon Heal, editor
sharon@museumsassociation.org
For some scientists the three-month research period before return is not long enough; and for the source community, the idea of yet more intrusive investigation of their ancestors' remains is abhorrent.
The museum has come up with a compromise between its duty as a scientific research institute to garner as much data as possible from the remains, and the claim from the source community, which has presented a clear ethical and moral case for return. Between the two conflicting points of view, the trustees and the advisory panel have had to weigh up the arguments very carefully.
Other museums have given back human remains with no strings attached in recognition of the fact that they were not ethically theirs to keep in the first place. In the end the compromise the Natural History Museum has reached is probably as good as it gets.
What is more significant is that it has set in motion a process that will mean the eventual return of human remains to source communities, which could have wider significance for the rest of the museum's human remains holdings, and for other collections of human remains in the UK. The message is - if the Natural History Museum can sanction return, so can others.
The other headline-grabbing event last month was the sale by Bury council of A Riverbank by LS Lowry. In this issue of Museums Journal, John Carter, the libraries and adult learning officer at the council, puts the case for the defence (p16).
His argument is that the sale was the least worst alternative from a range of unpleasant options including closing the museum and losing jobs. Surely, it is better to sell one painting, he argues, and keep the service open and the collection accessible to the public.
But that sort of logic gives the green light to every local authority to look at their collections as a cashable asset. Tough measures are needed now to make sure that any council watching events in Bury with an eye to doing the same thing is deterred from doing so.
Bury resigned its membership of the Museums Association before any disciplinary action could be taken, which leaves the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in pole position to take firm and authoritative action. Deregistering the museum service will send a clear message to funders, stakeholders and governing bodies that flogging off the collection to the highest bidder is just not on.
Sharon Heal, editor
sharon@museumsassociation.org
