Many museum visitors are surprised by the fact that what they see on display is, to use a cliche, simply the tip of the iceberg. It conjures up in their minds images of dusty rooms with floor to ceiling cabinets filled with pieces of broken pottery, stuffed animals and fading pictures.
Of course, we know it's different. The rooms are anything but dusty. They are humidity, light and temperature controlled and they are not just filled with collections. This might sound reassuring to some, but to others, including those responsible for funding museums, this simply creates another set of questions. If libraries manage to put all of their books on shelves for the public to access, then why can't museums?
The title (and subtitle) of this book does not really help when museum professionals are looking for ways of persuading people that collections management and care are central to the work of any museum. I hope that collections are not "lost" and while they are undoubtedly treasures, they had better not be buried.
Lost in the Museum was a real pleasure to read, though. Its author, Nancy Moses, a former museum director in the United States, visits nine collecting institutions (not all of them museums) around the US to view and discover the stories behind an object or a collection that is in storage rather than on public display.
These range from the stuffed birds at the Academy of Natural Sciences that John James Audubon used as the basis for his famous ornithological illustrations, through to clothing worn by a Tibetan princess which is housed in the Burke Museum in Seattle. Common themes are woven through the narratives that Moses tells. She starts with how each institution came to acquire these objects.
Like collections in museums around the world, these objects seem to have arrived at their modern homes through a combination of happy (and occasionally unhappy) accident and the interest of one particular individual.
I'll pass over the collection of more than 250 pessaries held by a medical museum in Philadelphia and concentrate on a remarkable collection of models of sea invertebrates made from glass that are currently at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
The glass-making Blaschka family created them because many of the specimens held by the museum were simply rotting away. At first they were regarded as nothing more than scientific models, but gradually they began to be regarded as works of art in their own right.
Moses also quite rightly does not regard these objects in isolation. In every chapter the contextual information is there. We are given background on the societies that gave rise to the objects. For instance, a silver bowl, now in Philadelphia, was given to an American businessman for his role in the destruction of one of the first US trade unions.
The chapter explores the hostile attitude of many in 19th-century America to organised labour and how business and authorities colluded in order to stifle these unions at birth. The clothing worn by the Tibetan princess is explored as part of the story of Tibet and the 1959 Chinese occupation.
In every chapter in the book there is no separation between the object and the institution holding it. For Moses, museums are not simply repositories for objects. The stories behind the museum itself and the staff that care for the collections are intertwined with the objects that she has chosen.
What shines through this book is the passion and the knowledge that the curatorial staff have about the collections in their care. They want everybody to know about "their" collections. The objects may not be instantly accessible, but the knowledge about them is.
The one thing that this book can teach us, especially those who hold the purse strings, is this: collecting objects is not enough. Caring for objects is not enough. What is needed above all else are curators to expand the pool of knowledge about these objects and to pass that knowledge on to this and future generations.
Colin Hynson is a freelance museum education consultant
Of course, we know it's different. The rooms are anything but dusty. They are humidity, light and temperature controlled and they are not just filled with collections. This might sound reassuring to some, but to others, including those responsible for funding museums, this simply creates another set of questions. If libraries manage to put all of their books on shelves for the public to access, then why can't museums?
The title (and subtitle) of this book does not really help when museum professionals are looking for ways of persuading people that collections management and care are central to the work of any museum. I hope that collections are not "lost" and while they are undoubtedly treasures, they had better not be buried.
Lost in the Museum was a real pleasure to read, though. Its author, Nancy Moses, a former museum director in the United States, visits nine collecting institutions (not all of them museums) around the US to view and discover the stories behind an object or a collection that is in storage rather than on public display.
These range from the stuffed birds at the Academy of Natural Sciences that John James Audubon used as the basis for his famous ornithological illustrations, through to clothing worn by a Tibetan princess which is housed in the Burke Museum in Seattle. Common themes are woven through the narratives that Moses tells. She starts with how each institution came to acquire these objects.
Like collections in museums around the world, these objects seem to have arrived at their modern homes through a combination of happy (and occasionally unhappy) accident and the interest of one particular individual.
I'll pass over the collection of more than 250 pessaries held by a medical museum in Philadelphia and concentrate on a remarkable collection of models of sea invertebrates made from glass that are currently at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
The glass-making Blaschka family created them because many of the specimens held by the museum were simply rotting away. At first they were regarded as nothing more than scientific models, but gradually they began to be regarded as works of art in their own right.
Moses also quite rightly does not regard these objects in isolation. In every chapter the contextual information is there. We are given background on the societies that gave rise to the objects. For instance, a silver bowl, now in Philadelphia, was given to an American businessman for his role in the destruction of one of the first US trade unions.
The chapter explores the hostile attitude of many in 19th-century America to organised labour and how business and authorities colluded in order to stifle these unions at birth. The clothing worn by the Tibetan princess is explored as part of the story of Tibet and the 1959 Chinese occupation.
In every chapter in the book there is no separation between the object and the institution holding it. For Moses, museums are not simply repositories for objects. The stories behind the museum itself and the staff that care for the collections are intertwined with the objects that she has chosen.
What shines through this book is the passion and the knowledge that the curatorial staff have about the collections in their care. They want everybody to know about "their" collections. The objects may not be instantly accessible, but the knowledge about them is.
The one thing that this book can teach us, especially those who hold the purse strings, is this: collecting objects is not enough. Caring for objects is not enough. What is needed above all else are curators to expand the pool of knowledge about these objects and to pass that knowledge on to this and future generations.
Colin Hynson is a freelance museum education consultant
By Nancy Moses
AltaMira Press, £14.99
ISBN 978-0759110700
AltaMira Press, £14.99
ISBN 978-0759110700
