Uncertain future for small museums
The uncertain future facing Erewash Museum Service (Museums Journal November 2004, p8) highlights a growing crisis threatening to cut a swathe through this part of the museums sector.
Time and again in recent months, we have seen cost-cutting councils use the smokescreen of the Disability Discrimination Act and associated 'service reviews' in order to target a non-statutory service.
In the Erewash case, public reaction to the proposed closure has proved that the museum's services have been used and valued by a broad section of the local community.
Crucially, however, the broader council organisation has never recognised this community service role, but simply regarded the museum as a passive leisure venue. It may have been called the 'jewel in the crown' of the borough - but who wants to be a jewel when it comes to the time to flog the family silver?
At times like this, managers of small museums need not just sympathy, but external help to convince council decision-makers of the true potential of their institutions. Unfortunately, the legacy of Renaissance in the Regions has been to leave such local authority museums more exposed than ever.
As predicted, the loss of area museum services cut away a vital source of external support and, through their lobbying role, protection (something that proved vital when Erewash was last threatened during the 1980s).
If museums such as Erewash and Daventry continue to close, the implications are serious. Not only do local communities suffer, but also small museums often provide many museum workers with their entry into the profession - both as volunteers and in paid positions.
The choice is clear: do we abandon museums such as Erewash to their fate, or is it time for the Museums Association to spend a little less effort courting the nationals and a little more actively opposing this decimation of an entire tier of our profession?
Matthew Constantine, keeper of social history, Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle (former curator of Erewash Museum Service)
Update: Erewash Borough Council executive has voted to continue some sort of funding of Erewash museum service and to keep it in the town of Ilkeston in Derbyshire. The council is still reviewing whether the service will remain in its present building.
It's all in the name
There were a few small errors in your article on the waterways museums (Museums Journal October 2004 p5).
In the last paragraph you state that the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield was awarded a grant of £1.3m a year in 2001. Firstly our correct full title is the National Coal Mining Museum for England, as there are national coal mining museums also in Scotland and Wales.
Secondly we are not located in Wakefield; the Museum is situated at Overton, seven miles from Wakefield and seven miles from Huddersfield. Thirdly our annual grant was awarded following a report from a Working Party, which reported to the secretary of state for culture, media and sport in August 1998; the secretary of state announced our grant in September 1998; and it has been paid annually since then from April 1999.
It was in 2001 that we were given funding to enable free admission for visitors under seventeen and over sixty (totally free admission came the following year in 2002).
Margaret L Faull, director of the National Coal Mining Museum for England
Crying foul on diversity
It is a common response from institutions that are challenged on diversity, to cry foul, as is the case of the National Maritime Museum (Museums Journal, November 2004, p16). While leadership sentiment at this august institution allow them to state that they are striking a balance, they nonetheless concede that there is 'scope to do even better'.
The minister of the arts, Estelle Morris, has endorsed our Diversity Museum initiative and we are working closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It recognises that the museum sector does not currently reflect the society it serves and that more needs to be done to strengthen the diversity of the museum workforce.
The department has backed our initiative because it believes we can deliver a credible process of identifying, recruiting, training and retaining talented individuals from across a diverse range of backgrounds for the sector.
The National Maritime can learn some instructive lessons from the likes of the British Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museums Association, the National Portrait Gallery and The Petrie Museum who, like them, are keen to extend their performance in this area.
Far from partnering with consultants who deliver little more than weighty equal opportunity reports that are left to gather dust, they have the foresight to back a unique approach, developed by Global Graduates that identifies and meaningfully engages 'high-quality' future workforce talent at a young age.
Naturally, we would be willing to extend this partnership to include the National Maritime Museum too, but only if they are willing to refrain from such intemperate responses.
Yolande Beckles, CEO, Global Graduates
Objects lose the plot
As someone with an acute case of book-on-the-wall syndrome. I can empathise with Lawrence Fitgerald (Museums Journal November 2004, p18).
The problem is though, how can one make stars out of objects which spent their entire previous lives as bit players? Works of art are the natural prima donnas of the museum and gallery word. They were made to be looked at, their purpose is to stand in the spotlight and belt out the big numbers. They were born to be stars.
But many museum objects were the props and extras of the original play. Pluck them from their natural habitat, ask them to stand by themselves and tell their story, and they tend to lose the script. Not surprising then, if the script loses them. Remember though that bit players and character actors at least have the advantage of versatility.
Turning objects into museum objects gives them new meaning. it also places them in a context they were never meant to inhabit, which is actually quite surreal. Stretching the analogy to breaking point perhaps the Theatre of the Absurd can give us clues as to how to draw out meaning in displays.
Peter Stott, Falkirk Museum
I can't agree with Lawrence Fitzgerald's criticism of the mismatch between the audiovisual presentations and the object-based displays at the Imperial War Museum North, Salford. In my admittedly limited experience the contrast between the two forms of communication is a great success: after watching a presentation visitors seem to return to the displays with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
But I do agree that many museums are wrongly subsuming individual objects in overwhelming narrative structures. The themes and issues explored in some galleries are complex enough to fill an academic tome. This may be too ambitious. Objects risk being reduced to illustrations to wordy graphic panels.
We believe objects matter - and we should be devoting all our ingenuity to encouraging visitors to get closer to objects. Interpretation is crucial in this but needs to work from the particular - the individual objects - to the general. Museums should generate interest in themes and issues by telling stories about individual objects, rather than using objects as illustrations to a theme.
There are other problems with much current display practice: so much of what museums give people to read is facts. Some facts are essential, of course, but for years we have known museums are better at encouraging 'affective' learning - changing people's attitudes - but still they persist in making didactic displays.
And those displays are often linear, like a book or a film. But surely one of the potential strengths of museums is that visitors can (and do) choose their own route through the space. The ability to avoid linearity should be one of the great strengths of the way museums approach displays. Instead they think they need a clear beginning, middle and end.
Maurice Davies, deputy director of the Museums Association
Bustin' up the galleries
I read with delight in the columns of a reputable newspaper - well the Guardian anyway - a piece praising the art of curating. Curatorship it seems is now an essential component of professional success. What a boost for the AMA and FMA, I thought. Alas, on reading on, I learned that curating is the term given to a new style of disc warping and rapping by top DJs.
I wonder where the name came from or by what route? The new definition hardly seems to share the same root as the care of souls or artefacts. Unless of course Nicholas Serota and his fellow national museum directors have been doing a spot of moonlighting?
Peter Lewis, Hexham
The uncertain future facing Erewash Museum Service (Museums Journal November 2004, p8) highlights a growing crisis threatening to cut a swathe through this part of the museums sector.
Time and again in recent months, we have seen cost-cutting councils use the smokescreen of the Disability Discrimination Act and associated 'service reviews' in order to target a non-statutory service.
In the Erewash case, public reaction to the proposed closure has proved that the museum's services have been used and valued by a broad section of the local community.
Crucially, however, the broader council organisation has never recognised this community service role, but simply regarded the museum as a passive leisure venue. It may have been called the 'jewel in the crown' of the borough - but who wants to be a jewel when it comes to the time to flog the family silver?
At times like this, managers of small museums need not just sympathy, but external help to convince council decision-makers of the true potential of their institutions. Unfortunately, the legacy of Renaissance in the Regions has been to leave such local authority museums more exposed than ever.
As predicted, the loss of area museum services cut away a vital source of external support and, through their lobbying role, protection (something that proved vital when Erewash was last threatened during the 1980s).
If museums such as Erewash and Daventry continue to close, the implications are serious. Not only do local communities suffer, but also small museums often provide many museum workers with their entry into the profession - both as volunteers and in paid positions.
The choice is clear: do we abandon museums such as Erewash to their fate, or is it time for the Museums Association to spend a little less effort courting the nationals and a little more actively opposing this decimation of an entire tier of our profession?
Matthew Constantine, keeper of social history, Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle (former curator of Erewash Museum Service)
Update: Erewash Borough Council executive has voted to continue some sort of funding of Erewash museum service and to keep it in the town of Ilkeston in Derbyshire. The council is still reviewing whether the service will remain in its present building.
It's all in the name
There were a few small errors in your article on the waterways museums (Museums Journal October 2004 p5).
In the last paragraph you state that the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield was awarded a grant of £1.3m a year in 2001. Firstly our correct full title is the National Coal Mining Museum for England, as there are national coal mining museums also in Scotland and Wales.
Secondly we are not located in Wakefield; the Museum is situated at Overton, seven miles from Wakefield and seven miles from Huddersfield. Thirdly our annual grant was awarded following a report from a Working Party, which reported to the secretary of state for culture, media and sport in August 1998; the secretary of state announced our grant in September 1998; and it has been paid annually since then from April 1999.
It was in 2001 that we were given funding to enable free admission for visitors under seventeen and over sixty (totally free admission came the following year in 2002).
Margaret L Faull, director of the National Coal Mining Museum for England
Crying foul on diversity
It is a common response from institutions that are challenged on diversity, to cry foul, as is the case of the National Maritime Museum (Museums Journal, November 2004, p16). While leadership sentiment at this august institution allow them to state that they are striking a balance, they nonetheless concede that there is 'scope to do even better'.
The minister of the arts, Estelle Morris, has endorsed our Diversity Museum initiative and we are working closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It recognises that the museum sector does not currently reflect the society it serves and that more needs to be done to strengthen the diversity of the museum workforce.
The department has backed our initiative because it believes we can deliver a credible process of identifying, recruiting, training and retaining talented individuals from across a diverse range of backgrounds for the sector.
The National Maritime can learn some instructive lessons from the likes of the British Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museums Association, the National Portrait Gallery and The Petrie Museum who, like them, are keen to extend their performance in this area.
Far from partnering with consultants who deliver little more than weighty equal opportunity reports that are left to gather dust, they have the foresight to back a unique approach, developed by Global Graduates that identifies and meaningfully engages 'high-quality' future workforce talent at a young age.
Naturally, we would be willing to extend this partnership to include the National Maritime Museum too, but only if they are willing to refrain from such intemperate responses.
Yolande Beckles, CEO, Global Graduates
Objects lose the plot
As someone with an acute case of book-on-the-wall syndrome. I can empathise with Lawrence Fitgerald (Museums Journal November 2004, p18).
The problem is though, how can one make stars out of objects which spent their entire previous lives as bit players? Works of art are the natural prima donnas of the museum and gallery word. They were made to be looked at, their purpose is to stand in the spotlight and belt out the big numbers. They were born to be stars.
But many museum objects were the props and extras of the original play. Pluck them from their natural habitat, ask them to stand by themselves and tell their story, and they tend to lose the script. Not surprising then, if the script loses them. Remember though that bit players and character actors at least have the advantage of versatility.
Turning objects into museum objects gives them new meaning. it also places them in a context they were never meant to inhabit, which is actually quite surreal. Stretching the analogy to breaking point perhaps the Theatre of the Absurd can give us clues as to how to draw out meaning in displays.
Peter Stott, Falkirk Museum
I can't agree with Lawrence Fitzgerald's criticism of the mismatch between the audiovisual presentations and the object-based displays at the Imperial War Museum North, Salford. In my admittedly limited experience the contrast between the two forms of communication is a great success: after watching a presentation visitors seem to return to the displays with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
But I do agree that many museums are wrongly subsuming individual objects in overwhelming narrative structures. The themes and issues explored in some galleries are complex enough to fill an academic tome. This may be too ambitious. Objects risk being reduced to illustrations to wordy graphic panels.
We believe objects matter - and we should be devoting all our ingenuity to encouraging visitors to get closer to objects. Interpretation is crucial in this but needs to work from the particular - the individual objects - to the general. Museums should generate interest in themes and issues by telling stories about individual objects, rather than using objects as illustrations to a theme.
There are other problems with much current display practice: so much of what museums give people to read is facts. Some facts are essential, of course, but for years we have known museums are better at encouraging 'affective' learning - changing people's attitudes - but still they persist in making didactic displays.
And those displays are often linear, like a book or a film. But surely one of the potential strengths of museums is that visitors can (and do) choose their own route through the space. The ability to avoid linearity should be one of the great strengths of the way museums approach displays. Instead they think they need a clear beginning, middle and end.
Maurice Davies, deputy director of the Museums Association
Bustin' up the galleries
I read with delight in the columns of a reputable newspaper - well the Guardian anyway - a piece praising the art of curating. Curatorship it seems is now an essential component of professional success. What a boost for the AMA and FMA, I thought. Alas, on reading on, I learned that curating is the term given to a new style of disc warping and rapping by top DJs.
I wonder where the name came from or by what route? The new definition hardly seems to share the same root as the care of souls or artefacts. Unless of course Nicholas Serota and his fellow national museum directors have been doing a spot of moonlighting?
Peter Lewis, Hexham
