The volunteer's story
Ten years ago I wrote an article in Museums Journal about the role of volunteers in museums. I was young, unemployed and frustrated. Ten years on and I now work in the non-museum sector on public policy and improvement.
I have recently worked again as a volunteer on an arts project in a museum setting, and this has led me to reflect on the differences of being a volunteer at different times of your life and in different financial circumstances.
My role as project coordinator on Made in England - an arts-based project based on the history of the Potteries -came about from seeing a request for volunteers on a well-regarded local history website.
I thought the project sounded interesting - to make a large mosaic from donated pieces of backstamps (the stamps on plates and cups which show the maker and place) - while also using the stories of those who worked in the pot banks as part of a social history website.
What did I do? I met with artist and mosaicist Emma Biggs, coordinated donations from the local council at Stoke-on-Trent where I work, and interviewed people who worked in the pot banks.
The results: a tremendous permanent work of art for the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and a developing website on cultural history.
What were the results for me? An experience of working with an artist on a public project. Hearing and documenting the stories of retired workers as well as learning about the history of ceramics from the city that boasts Josiah Wedgwood and Clarice Cliff as local potters of international renown.
There is no doubt volunteering is a different matter when you are working full time. You contribute when you are able. Maturity brings honesty and quicker decision making.
The government is sporadically interested in volunteering - there is a rich vein of employed people who can also contribute to local and national projects pastimes. The question is how to attract their attention.
Whenever people ask me about volunteering, I now say it is one of the most self-interested things to do: experiment without responsibility, appreciated, meet new people, use different muscles.
John Ross, Nantwich, Cheshire
Stimulating debate
The article about museums dealing with difficult subjects was stimulating (Museums Journal November 2007, p28). However, it was surprising that it did not mention the role of university museums in providing a space in which contentious subjects can be debated.
Universities are places where new thinking can be developed and orthodoxies challenged, and the best university museums manifest this in their work.
At the Manchester Museum it is part of our mission "to provoke debate". For example, we have recently opened a permanent gallery called Myths about Race, which looks at the past role of museums in classifying peoples in ways we now find to be racist, and we are currently working on the re-interpretation of the ancient body of Lindow Man (on loan from the British Museum for a year from April) from a variety of perspectives, placing the views of pagans alongside those of scientists.
Nick Merriman, director, Manchester Museum
I was very impressed by many of the sentiments expressed in the article about museums being forums for debate and by the efforts of the museums featured in keeping their institutions relevant and directly connected to the public they serve.
Entirely neutral exhibition and interpretation is an impossibility. Viewers come to an exhibition with their own unique assumptions, knowledge and experiences and will create their own unique meaning.
Meanwhile, every decision made regarding what objects should be displayed, what they are displayed alongside and accompanying text, makes assumptions about the relevance and meaning of the object, and the abilities and interests of the viewer.
Since some element of bias is inherent in exhibitions, the best way for museums to remain "neutral" institutions is by accepting that there will be alternative readings and allowing multiple interpretations and the inclusion of viewers' interpretations.
Museums are in a unique position to provide an arena where multiple viewpoints can be expressed in a public space that contains the primary and supporting artefacts. No other institution in our communities can offer this.
If individuals are inspired and moved to express an opinion at such an event, surely this is evidence that museums are still relevant to them. As stated, there are associated risks, but these can be carefully managed and are well worth the potential gains.
Thomas Arnold, Plymouth
Hard times
I'm afraid I can't share your upbeat assessment of museums over the past 10 years (Museums Journal November 2007, p22). The world of the local authority seems poorer in many ways than it was in Margaret Thatcher's time. Her henchmen undoubtedly started the rot, but the current government is heading in much the same direction.
I see three problems. Firstly, subject specialist curators are simply not being replaced. Once they go, their collections will cease to have any academic relevance.
Meanwhile the keen young curators of today are trapped in a world of short-term, fixed-contract projects, and unable to acquire the kind of solid subject knowledge that they need to produce quality displays or education programmes.
Secondly, local elected representatives rarely seem to have the power (and money) to do anything positive. Funding comes in short, unconnected bursts from unelected bodies.
Thirdly, the surviving curators of smaller museums have had their productivity undermined by the changing work practices. More than half of their time is now likely to be swallowed up in site-management duties.
Museums have larger and more varied audiences and this is good, but if there is no serious research going on into their collections, then they are not renewing themselves and will become increasingly irrelevant.
Robert Hartley, Nottinghamshire
Out of Africa
Felicity Heywood says a journalist's role is to question "and to try and find the truth" (Museums Journal December 2007, p21). Heywood is right that I talked at the Museums Association conference about ways of presenting Egypt as part of African history; she is right that the current Egyptian displays at the Fitzwilliam Museum do not privilege this approach above others.
Heywood implies a Cambridge - and wider - conspiracy of white academics and white visitors. But with the support of the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Arts and Humanities Research Council I am actively engaged in introducing Ancient Egypt into prison education courses and assessing its impact, with a significant focus on developing an African approach to the subject.
As background for this project and also with the aim of collecting accurate information that the museum can feed into future display developments and new outreach activities, we have also been working with Cambridgeshire residents including people from African and Caribbean backgrounds and of mixed ethnicity.
Sally-Ann Ashton, senior assistant keeper, department of antiquities; Saira Law, projects manager, Fitzwilliam Museum
Capital controls
In his otherwise excellent article on the capital of culture, (Museums Journal December 2007, p24) Simon Stephens got one point wrong: he said that National Museums Liverpool (NML) terminated the contract of architects 3XN after disagreements over cost-cutting measures.
Actually, it is the architect's responsibility to work within the project budget. There has been no cost-cutting, just a determination on NML's part to keep costs under control within a generous budget.
David Fleming, director, National Museums Liverpool
Cross words
I'm sure that after many months working on the redesign the last thing you want to hear is 'What happened to the crossword?". But, what happened to the crossword?
Susan McFarland-Lyons
Correction
The National Museum Cardiff is moving works to St Fagans: National History Museum and not the other way round (Museums Journal November 2007, p7).
Ten years ago I wrote an article in Museums Journal about the role of volunteers in museums. I was young, unemployed and frustrated. Ten years on and I now work in the non-museum sector on public policy and improvement.
I have recently worked again as a volunteer on an arts project in a museum setting, and this has led me to reflect on the differences of being a volunteer at different times of your life and in different financial circumstances.
My role as project coordinator on Made in England - an arts-based project based on the history of the Potteries -came about from seeing a request for volunteers on a well-regarded local history website.
I thought the project sounded interesting - to make a large mosaic from donated pieces of backstamps (the stamps on plates and cups which show the maker and place) - while also using the stories of those who worked in the pot banks as part of a social history website.
What did I do? I met with artist and mosaicist Emma Biggs, coordinated donations from the local council at Stoke-on-Trent where I work, and interviewed people who worked in the pot banks.
The results: a tremendous permanent work of art for the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and a developing website on cultural history.
What were the results for me? An experience of working with an artist on a public project. Hearing and documenting the stories of retired workers as well as learning about the history of ceramics from the city that boasts Josiah Wedgwood and Clarice Cliff as local potters of international renown.
There is no doubt volunteering is a different matter when you are working full time. You contribute when you are able. Maturity brings honesty and quicker decision making.
The government is sporadically interested in volunteering - there is a rich vein of employed people who can also contribute to local and national projects pastimes. The question is how to attract their attention.
Whenever people ask me about volunteering, I now say it is one of the most self-interested things to do: experiment without responsibility, appreciated, meet new people, use different muscles.
John Ross, Nantwich, Cheshire
Stimulating debate
The article about museums dealing with difficult subjects was stimulating (Museums Journal November 2007, p28). However, it was surprising that it did not mention the role of university museums in providing a space in which contentious subjects can be debated.
Universities are places where new thinking can be developed and orthodoxies challenged, and the best university museums manifest this in their work.
At the Manchester Museum it is part of our mission "to provoke debate". For example, we have recently opened a permanent gallery called Myths about Race, which looks at the past role of museums in classifying peoples in ways we now find to be racist, and we are currently working on the re-interpretation of the ancient body of Lindow Man (on loan from the British Museum for a year from April) from a variety of perspectives, placing the views of pagans alongside those of scientists.
Nick Merriman, director, Manchester Museum
I was very impressed by many of the sentiments expressed in the article about museums being forums for debate and by the efforts of the museums featured in keeping their institutions relevant and directly connected to the public they serve.
Entirely neutral exhibition and interpretation is an impossibility. Viewers come to an exhibition with their own unique assumptions, knowledge and experiences and will create their own unique meaning.
Meanwhile, every decision made regarding what objects should be displayed, what they are displayed alongside and accompanying text, makes assumptions about the relevance and meaning of the object, and the abilities and interests of the viewer.
Since some element of bias is inherent in exhibitions, the best way for museums to remain "neutral" institutions is by accepting that there will be alternative readings and allowing multiple interpretations and the inclusion of viewers' interpretations.
Museums are in a unique position to provide an arena where multiple viewpoints can be expressed in a public space that contains the primary and supporting artefacts. No other institution in our communities can offer this.
If individuals are inspired and moved to express an opinion at such an event, surely this is evidence that museums are still relevant to them. As stated, there are associated risks, but these can be carefully managed and are well worth the potential gains.
Thomas Arnold, Plymouth
Hard times
I'm afraid I can't share your upbeat assessment of museums over the past 10 years (Museums Journal November 2007, p22). The world of the local authority seems poorer in many ways than it was in Margaret Thatcher's time. Her henchmen undoubtedly started the rot, but the current government is heading in much the same direction.
I see three problems. Firstly, subject specialist curators are simply not being replaced. Once they go, their collections will cease to have any academic relevance.
Meanwhile the keen young curators of today are trapped in a world of short-term, fixed-contract projects, and unable to acquire the kind of solid subject knowledge that they need to produce quality displays or education programmes.
Secondly, local elected representatives rarely seem to have the power (and money) to do anything positive. Funding comes in short, unconnected bursts from unelected bodies.
Thirdly, the surviving curators of smaller museums have had their productivity undermined by the changing work practices. More than half of their time is now likely to be swallowed up in site-management duties.
Museums have larger and more varied audiences and this is good, but if there is no serious research going on into their collections, then they are not renewing themselves and will become increasingly irrelevant.
Robert Hartley, Nottinghamshire
Out of Africa
Felicity Heywood says a journalist's role is to question "and to try and find the truth" (Museums Journal December 2007, p21). Heywood is right that I talked at the Museums Association conference about ways of presenting Egypt as part of African history; she is right that the current Egyptian displays at the Fitzwilliam Museum do not privilege this approach above others.
Heywood implies a Cambridge - and wider - conspiracy of white academics and white visitors. But with the support of the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Arts and Humanities Research Council I am actively engaged in introducing Ancient Egypt into prison education courses and assessing its impact, with a significant focus on developing an African approach to the subject.
As background for this project and also with the aim of collecting accurate information that the museum can feed into future display developments and new outreach activities, we have also been working with Cambridgeshire residents including people from African and Caribbean backgrounds and of mixed ethnicity.
Sally-Ann Ashton, senior assistant keeper, department of antiquities; Saira Law, projects manager, Fitzwilliam Museum
Capital controls
In his otherwise excellent article on the capital of culture, (Museums Journal December 2007, p24) Simon Stephens got one point wrong: he said that National Museums Liverpool (NML) terminated the contract of architects 3XN after disagreements over cost-cutting measures.
Actually, it is the architect's responsibility to work within the project budget. There has been no cost-cutting, just a determination on NML's part to keep costs under control within a generous budget.
David Fleming, director, National Museums Liverpool
Cross words
I'm sure that after many months working on the redesign the last thing you want to hear is 'What happened to the crossword?". But, what happened to the crossword?
Susan McFarland-Lyons
Correction
The National Museum Cardiff is moving works to St Fagans: National History Museum and not the other way round (Museums Journal November 2007, p7).
