YOUR SAY

While our forum is being developed you can use this section of the site as a message and discussion board. Please - contact us with any thoughts, comments or queries you would like to share with other museum workers - we will post them here for you.

REQUESTS:

March 2003 Children in Hospital
Birmingham Children's Hospital is currently developing arts based projects with its children and staff. One of their aims is to make links with other cultural organisations, including museums. They are looking to put together a bid for a heritage project and would like to engage with museums. Do you have any experience of museum hospital projects? Would you be interested in becoming involved? If you would like to get in touch please contact Janet Hetherington, Arts Manager, Birmingham Children's Hospital on 0121 333 8504 or email janet.hetherington@bch.nhs.uk

January 2003 Rural/Industrial Museums
The Welsh Slate Museum is looking for contacts from museums in a similar position to them - a small rural industrial workshop museum looking to increase support for young people. They are aware of groups who might like to work with them but are not sure what to offer. If you would like to get in touch please email Celia Wyn Parri, Education Officer on celia.parri@nmgw.ac.uk

 

COMMENT:

May 2003 What Dreams May Be There?
Arthur Wright, Director, Mobile Museum

For years we all dreamed of being able to access national and regional data-bases of museum objects, now (it seems) these dreams may be coming true. Large projects to allow members of the public to view collections from the comfort of their workstation have promised instant museum access, or have they?

In the past my employers had two headaches: first, storage, second, the staff costs. With the creation of the virtual museum it will only be necessary to put all the exhibits in one, packed storeroom and staff costs will be reduced to someone who can occasionally re-jig the website. Neither displays nor curators will be required, no accessible storage either. Think of the savings.

The first evidence of this change will be the decline of visitors to museums themselves as the new generations, especially the young ones, are persuaded that technology will provide all the answers (and all the reality) they require. Then the museum authorities will be able to sell-off the collections and the buildings, retaining only their serial copyrights to the images they hold. Tell me, is this still a dream?

July 2002 Encouraging Long Term Development
Arthur Wright, Director, Mobile Museum

"In the first place, there is no point encouraging young people to think of jobs in museums if worthwhile jobs are impossible to obtain and museums (and galleries too, perhaps) are being side-lined by other cultural and heritage organisations. Spending "free" money may be enjoyable but it is hardly responsible to seek project funding for something which will lead neither to a long-term career/appointment nor to a lifelong learning "gain". Either we claim scarce (there are plenty of other worthy causes) resources in order to enable students to discover a real potential (not one which will be snatched away) or we aim to create a cadre of informed and enthusiastic supporters who will go on to other jobs but continue to provide moral and practical support to culture and the heritage through the rest of their lives.

Over 30 years in museums and galleries I had plenty of experience of volunteer workers of all ages and I know what sort of attitudes curatorial (and other) staff have to them in private. They are not always welcomed, they can be viewed as a distraction (which will be true if proper pre-planning and a clear vision of their role are eschewed) and they can be adopted as "cannon fodder" - "oh good, the native infantry to do the unpopular and dirty jobs" form of imperialism.

Museums are still, too often, "snooty" places and their academics as jealous and petty as any in a university. It doesn't matter whether a volunteer/placement is old or young, many specialists are not prepared to encourage them or to give practical help. The same is true of the "security" staff and cleaners, "porters" and "attendants" as used to be. These people are made to "know their place". True, the odd "gem" can turn-up without the effort of mining but remember, not every web-site is a good one, or a good advertisement! This is true for all sorts of charities and, sometimes, the result just serves them right: silk purses and sow's ears come to mind.

Which is not to say that I do not believe that "gems" a-plenty exist out there, quite the reverse, I hold heretical beliefs in this respect. As Browning's Abbot says, "what, loose a sparrow and lose a lark?" When I was curator of Southend I kept this as a motto and worked on promising sparrows. Eventually economic pressures and the authority's own desire to practise legerdemain in all its labour relations gave me the opportunity to convert "attendants/cleaners/porters" to "museum assistants" with official blessing. Having prepared for this I was, overnight so to speak, able to replace the porters with guides, gardeners, re-enactors, competent carpenters, tailors for historic costume and even an ex-cleaner who could play the lute and read tablatures as well as modern notation. In terms of "front-of-house" and educational work they were of greater practical value than the curatorial staff and far more motivated.

Sadly there were dangers. What I could not do was to remove their cleaning duties and I could not pay them substantially more (as they deserved) but their enthusiasm made short work of the "household chores" each day. One might also say that their appetite for learning and development was something of a hazard for it became voracious. Their voluntary studies required guidance and input from me but there seemed to be no limit to what we could do. Sadly, I do not think the experiment continued for long after I left, my professional colleagues were too jealous, which was petty as they were not prepared to re-enact or to study in new fields.

Nevertheless, this sort of in-house training, whether linked to a formal vehicle such as N.V.Q's or not, is what one would expect in other areas of the heritage and tourism sector. It is what drives people to join re-enactment societies rather than drama or historical groups. It certainly demonstrates that under adequate direction such energies and enthusiasms, which are there (I believe) in most people, can be used to create in-house re-enactment and interpretation, or even (when refined) used to give schools a better service than they often get, either from museums or from outside re-enactors. Here is a very rewarding, "new", field for long term development, re-enactors and guides, even musicians and crafts people.

Isn't it a shame, an inexplicable shame, that the "expert" staff in most museums can't create their own educational resource to promote in-house development, that we can't have really good re-enactment groups founded on academic excellence and public collections? Isn't this the way we should be going with museums instead of hiring-in part-timers and actors and leaving them to package our history for the public? Shouldn't curatorial staff learn a few presentational skills rather than leaving a teacher (desperately needed in a classroom) to struggle with an unfamiliar field of specialisation on extension and outreach work? When we say, "reddite ergo quae sunt Caesaris…." which end of the telescope are we using?

Years ago the Museums Association had a diploma which it was proud to call academic. The (very) old, specialised diploma which had to be sat by those without strictly relevant degrees, was offered up as a sop to the academic vanity of formal education when it should have been retained, defended and commended. I am not at all sure that our new (=very new) style diploma does really serve a need in the profession and isn't just a stalking-horse for an obsession with the politics of "ethics", a subject which seems to be divorced (at times) from the conventional idea of a professional code of behaviour. Indeed, I am not sure that the rather friendly monster of an M.A, which we had years ago, hasn't become a real dinosaur today?

Instead of its obsessional "professionalism", actually a cocktail of ethics and IT, shouldn't the M.A be making real efforts to find a future for Museums & Galleries in the modern world of heritage & culture? Julian Spalding has a vision for the museum of the future, a vision which says, "museums have not yet clearly defined their role in modern society"! It is an out-of-focus vision, you must agree, but I think it shows greater perception than the M.A has done.

The latest "Code of Ethics" has set a very rigid straight-jacket around the definition of a museum, not per se but by making a series of assumptions that it "will be" this or that. If recensions and rescissions are proscribed, how can it evolve and find new roles? Holding things in trust, for example, makes them (by definition) trusts and public property, a long way from their origins and a considerable restriction of their potential. Why not come straight out with it and say "to be a museum you must be a trust", but then where would that leave the Royal Palaces and the stately homes of England? Where would it also leave my Mobile Museum (www.mobile-museum.co.uk ) which depends on private collections and is trying hard to develop new ideas? Where would it leave the big, profitable chunk of national heritage used by most tourists?

Well, I have gone a long way 'round to say that I cannot see how the dear old M.A. can possibly find ways of developing opportunities for young people outside formal education unless it is prepared to tackle the business of the role of museums in a modern society. What the museum business needs is a complete culture change hand-in-hand with some real vision. If the M.A can't say what we want our museums to be and how they might profitably develop how on earth can we use them to inspire volunteers or young people? And I am very disturbed by the unethical attitude that we use and beg for public funds for something which, as yet, we cannot even define. It is not difficult to make people, even young people, enthusiastic about museums. Sometimes we can do that in spite of the people who run them and if everyone pulls together it is impossible to stop them. The real problem is what do we do when they find they have no place in this exclusive world we have briefly offered to them? How do we make that time-bomb safe?"

Arthur Wright, AMA. FRSA
Director, Mobile Museum
Email: mobile_museum@hotmail.com