Dealing with corporate collections
I read with interest Deborah Mulhearn's piece about company collections (Museums Journal January 2006, p24-27) and thought readers might also be interested to know how Cable and Wireless, a historic telecommunications company, has dealt with its substantial and important historic collections.
In 1997, the company supported the foundation of a charitable trust to hold its museum collection and buildings at Porthcurno, the historic site near Land's End, which had been the 'hub' of Britain's undersea cable network since 1870.
In 1998, the PK Trust (named after the telegraphic code for Porthcurno), was awarded grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Agency among others, to develop the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum and make the site accessible to the public.
This was all in the context of the mainstream company activities on site having been terminated for business reasons and the whole historic environment coming under threat.
Since then, the company, through its community involvement and corporate communications functions, has provided about 50 per cent of the trust's income in the form of revenue support, with the rest being generated by admissions, project grants and commercial activities.
The relationship with the company remains close and supportive, with a service level agreement in place for the provision of heritage services to the business.
There are no financial guarantees in the long term, but the vulnerability of the collection to business and management changes in a very fast-changing commercial environment has been removed.
The Porthcurno Telegraph Museum has developed its own activities, identity and role in the community. It has made the collections far more accessible and rendered them eligible for capital and revenue grants in support of its education and access work.
As far as I am aware, ours was one of the earlier examples of this type of transfer to trust status and it has since been used as an example of good practice by others. We now have years of experience of the pros and cons of becoming a trust and I would be happy to discuss our experiences with anyone considering a similar move. I can be contacted at mary.godwin@cw.com
Mary Godwin, director, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum & Archive, Cornwall
Displays benefit from the human touch
I write to support the arguments put forward in Nikola Burdon's comment piece, Working Knowledge (Museums Journal November 2005 p16-17).
MDA (the former Museum Documentation Association) is the UK's lead organisation for knowledge and information management for museums. We believe that long-term knowledge management is the key to delivering effective services to users, both online and offline. This is one of the key strands of the Collections for All advocacy campaign (www.collectionsforall.org.uk).
The first step in managing knowledge in museums is the documentation of basic information about our objects: what it is; who did the museum acquire it from; and where it is at the moment. It is also vital to record contextual information such as who made the object; who used it; where was it used; and a person's reaction to it.
The human stories behind the objects are often what are most unique and engaging about them. For example, a recent television programme featured a cheap 1920s rice bowl. As an object itself it was not very important or interesting, but the story behind it is - it helped to save its owner's life when he worked on the Burma Railway, on the bridge over the Kwai during the second world war.
The best place for museums to start when thinking about knowledge management is the MDA publication Spectrum Knowledge, written by myself, Matthew Stiff and Helen Ashby of the National Railway Museum. This book looks at the procedures, for example User Needs Analysis, Information Resource Cataloguing, needed to set up and maintain an information system in a museum.
It also provides practical guidelines on interoperability, the sustainability of information, and resource, implementation and legal issues.
The impact of knowledge management in museums also needs to be advocated both in the sector and to the community at large. MDA is doing this in partnership with the Museums Association through the Collections for All campaign. The campaign will investigate the social, professional, economic and intellectual impact that stems from knowledge management.
Gordon McKenna, standards and systems manager, MDA
In defence of Their Past, Your Future
I found Caroline Worthington's review of the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Their Past, Your Future exhibition interesting, but partial (Museums Journal October 2005, p38-39).
I can see why the exhibition might not work in a shopping centre. I have viewed the Welsh version of this in Merthyr Tydfil and Chepstow. In both places it was used as the centrepiece of a considerable local display, and a pivot for a range of lively events and school visits. As the education officer at the Swansea Museum I was then in part responsible for doing something similar.
Its practical strength is twofold. It has proved a very efficient 'flatpack', being speedily erected, and activated each morning by a single switch. It also carries the name and prestige of the IWM.
What made it something special for us is the wider programme of which it forms a part. The exhibition has been augmented by a reconstructed shop and air raid shelter, superb aircraft models from enthusiasts, and a great body of personal reminiscence, documents,
photos and artefacts contributed by each community.
The schools responded with predictable enthusiasm, but so did Women's Institutes, church groups, history societies, senior citizens and many others.
So far, 34 organised groups have visited. Veterans, especially the RAF Association, have worked on the exhibition daily, aided by a very full rota of other older people. Many have really enjoyed talking to the children, for whom it is a superb way of learning. All this involvement is the best sort of advertising for the museum - the volunteers and visitors go home and tell their friends.
People have got involved in the history and have danced to the music, and this has a great deal to do with how the project is structured. Local museums have the knowledge and contacts to engage people; this project gives us the impetus, the resources and the freedom to do it. It is a worthy model.
Gerald Gabb, senior education officer, Swansea Museums Service
We need to learn about leadership
Mark Taylor's (fantasy) programme of secondments (Museums Journal December 2005, p16) is to be encouraged, but he has curbed his imagination. He refers to a 'ring-fenced part of the scheme to be made available to bring secondees from outside the sector'.
I hope he is not confining this to archives and libraries. What about journalism, the armed forces, manufacturing? These industries have much to offer in terms of leadership, which is about people, not strategies, objects or processes. We have a lot to learn from those outside the field who put this into practice every day. Secondments are fine, but exchanges involve mutual investment and can be cheaper.
He also talks of a 'nationwide' scale. Surely we should be aiming to share skills across borders? Museums are frequently about turning fantasy into reality. Let's do it with a bold programme of secondments and exchanges.
Richard Munro, hub manager, South West Museum Hub
The BDA Museum bites back
It was interesting to read the recent article on the British Dental Association Museum (Museums Journal December 2005, p38-39). However, I would like to correct several errors.
Regarding the assumption that we are not seeking to work with school groups, a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £48,700 was awarded specifically to pay for an education officer who would work with schools and non-specialist adult groups.
The museum is also preparing to pilot resources with local schools. Although it may not be able to cater physically for large school groups, this does not preclude school work in the form of loan boxes and outreach visits.
The museum does not tackle issues such as the inability of people in some areas to obtain an NHS dentist because it would not be appropriate for this exhibition. With less than 40 sq metres, it was decided to focus on the 19th century, the most significant period in dental history. The museum collects news reports on current issues so that they will be available for future displays.
As an emeritus professor of dental public health I am painfully aware of the problems highlighted by Brady, but they must wait for a later historical display.
Stanley Gelbier, honorary curator, BDA Museum
Sedgwick Museum funding
I was happy to see the article about the Sedgwick Museum (Museums Journal January 2006, p34-35). However the funding that the museum has received from the Designation Challenge Fund since 1999 is well over £300,000, rather than £30,000.
The Sedgwick is good at doing a lot with a small amount of money, but the generosity of the fund enabled the major refurbishment of the gallery and the resources that go with it.
Liz Hide, museums development officer, University of Cambridge
I read with interest Deborah Mulhearn's piece about company collections (Museums Journal January 2006, p24-27) and thought readers might also be interested to know how Cable and Wireless, a historic telecommunications company, has dealt with its substantial and important historic collections.
In 1997, the company supported the foundation of a charitable trust to hold its museum collection and buildings at Porthcurno, the historic site near Land's End, which had been the 'hub' of Britain's undersea cable network since 1870.
In 1998, the PK Trust (named after the telegraphic code for Porthcurno), was awarded grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Agency among others, to develop the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum and make the site accessible to the public.
This was all in the context of the mainstream company activities on site having been terminated for business reasons and the whole historic environment coming under threat.
Since then, the company, through its community involvement and corporate communications functions, has provided about 50 per cent of the trust's income in the form of revenue support, with the rest being generated by admissions, project grants and commercial activities.
The relationship with the company remains close and supportive, with a service level agreement in place for the provision of heritage services to the business.
There are no financial guarantees in the long term, but the vulnerability of the collection to business and management changes in a very fast-changing commercial environment has been removed.
The Porthcurno Telegraph Museum has developed its own activities, identity and role in the community. It has made the collections far more accessible and rendered them eligible for capital and revenue grants in support of its education and access work.
As far as I am aware, ours was one of the earlier examples of this type of transfer to trust status and it has since been used as an example of good practice by others. We now have years of experience of the pros and cons of becoming a trust and I would be happy to discuss our experiences with anyone considering a similar move. I can be contacted at mary.godwin@cw.com
Mary Godwin, director, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum & Archive, Cornwall
Displays benefit from the human touch
I write to support the arguments put forward in Nikola Burdon's comment piece, Working Knowledge (Museums Journal November 2005 p16-17).
MDA (the former Museum Documentation Association) is the UK's lead organisation for knowledge and information management for museums. We believe that long-term knowledge management is the key to delivering effective services to users, both online and offline. This is one of the key strands of the Collections for All advocacy campaign (www.collectionsforall.org.uk).
The first step in managing knowledge in museums is the documentation of basic information about our objects: what it is; who did the museum acquire it from; and where it is at the moment. It is also vital to record contextual information such as who made the object; who used it; where was it used; and a person's reaction to it.
The human stories behind the objects are often what are most unique and engaging about them. For example, a recent television programme featured a cheap 1920s rice bowl. As an object itself it was not very important or interesting, but the story behind it is - it helped to save its owner's life when he worked on the Burma Railway, on the bridge over the Kwai during the second world war.
The best place for museums to start when thinking about knowledge management is the MDA publication Spectrum Knowledge, written by myself, Matthew Stiff and Helen Ashby of the National Railway Museum. This book looks at the procedures, for example User Needs Analysis, Information Resource Cataloguing, needed to set up and maintain an information system in a museum.
It also provides practical guidelines on interoperability, the sustainability of information, and resource, implementation and legal issues.
The impact of knowledge management in museums also needs to be advocated both in the sector and to the community at large. MDA is doing this in partnership with the Museums Association through the Collections for All campaign. The campaign will investigate the social, professional, economic and intellectual impact that stems from knowledge management.
Gordon McKenna, standards and systems manager, MDA
In defence of Their Past, Your Future
I found Caroline Worthington's review of the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Their Past, Your Future exhibition interesting, but partial (Museums Journal October 2005, p38-39).
I can see why the exhibition might not work in a shopping centre. I have viewed the Welsh version of this in Merthyr Tydfil and Chepstow. In both places it was used as the centrepiece of a considerable local display, and a pivot for a range of lively events and school visits. As the education officer at the Swansea Museum I was then in part responsible for doing something similar.
Its practical strength is twofold. It has proved a very efficient 'flatpack', being speedily erected, and activated each morning by a single switch. It also carries the name and prestige of the IWM.
What made it something special for us is the wider programme of which it forms a part. The exhibition has been augmented by a reconstructed shop and air raid shelter, superb aircraft models from enthusiasts, and a great body of personal reminiscence, documents,
photos and artefacts contributed by each community.
The schools responded with predictable enthusiasm, but so did Women's Institutes, church groups, history societies, senior citizens and many others.
So far, 34 organised groups have visited. Veterans, especially the RAF Association, have worked on the exhibition daily, aided by a very full rota of other older people. Many have really enjoyed talking to the children, for whom it is a superb way of learning. All this involvement is the best sort of advertising for the museum - the volunteers and visitors go home and tell their friends.
People have got involved in the history and have danced to the music, and this has a great deal to do with how the project is structured. Local museums have the knowledge and contacts to engage people; this project gives us the impetus, the resources and the freedom to do it. It is a worthy model.
Gerald Gabb, senior education officer, Swansea Museums Service
We need to learn about leadership
Mark Taylor's (fantasy) programme of secondments (Museums Journal December 2005, p16) is to be encouraged, but he has curbed his imagination. He refers to a 'ring-fenced part of the scheme to be made available to bring secondees from outside the sector'.
I hope he is not confining this to archives and libraries. What about journalism, the armed forces, manufacturing? These industries have much to offer in terms of leadership, which is about people, not strategies, objects or processes. We have a lot to learn from those outside the field who put this into practice every day. Secondments are fine, but exchanges involve mutual investment and can be cheaper.
He also talks of a 'nationwide' scale. Surely we should be aiming to share skills across borders? Museums are frequently about turning fantasy into reality. Let's do it with a bold programme of secondments and exchanges.
Richard Munro, hub manager, South West Museum Hub
The BDA Museum bites back
It was interesting to read the recent article on the British Dental Association Museum (Museums Journal December 2005, p38-39). However, I would like to correct several errors.
Regarding the assumption that we are not seeking to work with school groups, a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £48,700 was awarded specifically to pay for an education officer who would work with schools and non-specialist adult groups.
The museum is also preparing to pilot resources with local schools. Although it may not be able to cater physically for large school groups, this does not preclude school work in the form of loan boxes and outreach visits.
The museum does not tackle issues such as the inability of people in some areas to obtain an NHS dentist because it would not be appropriate for this exhibition. With less than 40 sq metres, it was decided to focus on the 19th century, the most significant period in dental history. The museum collects news reports on current issues so that they will be available for future displays.
As an emeritus professor of dental public health I am painfully aware of the problems highlighted by Brady, but they must wait for a later historical display.
Stanley Gelbier, honorary curator, BDA Museum
Sedgwick Museum funding
I was happy to see the article about the Sedgwick Museum (Museums Journal January 2006, p34-35). However the funding that the museum has received from the Designation Challenge Fund since 1999 is well over £300,000, rather than £30,000.
The Sedgwick is good at doing a lot with a small amount of money, but the generosity of the fund enabled the major refurbishment of the gallery and the resources that go with it.
Liz Hide, museums development officer, University of Cambridge
