Opinion

Best of the blogs

Sharing ideas about sharing knowledge

A welcome tax break for MA members

I recently received a welcome tax relief for my individual Museums Association membership subscription – both for this year and several previous years. I had always been put off by the idea of struggling with the forms, however times are now sufficiently tight for me to decided that it was worth having a go. For …

The diary of a national museum director

Part 24

Vox pop

What kind of international work should museums be doing?

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Editorial

International work is more than diplomacy

The Olympics is about sport not art, so culture needs to drop out of the race

When the best the Cultural Olympiad has to offer is bouncy castles and BMWs, you know it's time for art to take a back seat

Best of the blogs

A throw-down about the term 'curator'

The diary of a national museum director

Part 23

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Should the Wedgwood Museum be saved?

The collection is world-class, but the museum is not

Smouldered staff

I don’t think Colin Firth brooded until he filmed the part of Mr Darcy in the BBC’s 1995  television production of Pride and Prejudice, so I’m curious about the look that he gave the staff at Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton. Giles Verlade, East Sussex

An old friend

I was saddened to read of Shaun Garner’s death. So how does the manager of a museum in far-flung Kalgoorlie down under, know “Shaun from Bournemouth”? In 1988 I attended a costume and textiles group conference in York, in October, I think. I remember the cold, and frosts, and squirrels. And Shaun! Shaun made the …

Worse than you think

In your news story that was headed “Liverpool to shed 120 jobs to meet funding cuts”, it briefly mentioned the current situation at the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) in respect of redundancies and restructuring. Unfortunately your comment that the museum has made “two redundancies in the past year” only paints part of …