Opinion
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 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
Is the Women’s Library an unaffordable luxury?
London Metropolitan University’s decision to try to divest its responsibility for the Women’s Library should raise real concerns across the museum sector. If no new sponsor or home is found for the library by December, its collections will essentially be mothballed and services reduced to an unrecognisable level. It will open just one day a …
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 …
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 …