Collections for People

COLLECTIONS FOR PEOPLE

The stored collections of museums as a public resource

Report on Workshop 3: Birmingham

21st February 2008: Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Arranged by ICON: the Institute for Conservation

Participants

The workshop was advertised via the project mail list, and local sources such as the Hub news list and CyMAL. About 24 people attended.

Programme

Introduction – Simon Cane, ICON Chairperson

Progress report - Suzanne Keene

Workshop discussions

§ Accessibility and preservation: complement or conflict?

§ Ways in which conservation can assist access

§ Arguments against access to collections

§ What’s most important in facilitating use, what are the obstacles?

Reports back and general discussion

A: Accessibility and preservation: complement or conflict?

Access can cause problems if not handled professionally – e.g. under pressure from councillors or other ‘owners’. Perceptions of viability are often not informed by knowledge of conservation considerations; special risks if such exercises undertaken simply for short term PR benefit.

Need for education of public and politicians. Also education within museums – need for better internal communication – not all staff have the same base of knowledge – e.g. outreach and education staff. Even exhibition staff need education. Need for different departmental staff to work together to balance conservation and access.

Desirability of greater dissemination of the practicalities of using collections, e.g. via 3rd party organisations. Users show that they want to know about how museums work.

Accessibility is always seen as physical access: should this be challenged? Discussion around ‘virtual access’: to what extent do enquiry answers, online access, etc count? How to deal with the benefits delivered through these? Digital access very useful for e.g. 2D objects such as paintings, prints + drawings, documents (tho’ large volume of latter). Should all collections be online? Is it better for curators to broker information (Does this mean information in – I would agree – or information out – why?)

Museums are seen as being too precious about objects.

Noted: the vogue for lending in the 1950s and 60s – many objects had to be retrieved in 1970s/80s. It is always important pieces that are sent out.

Extended opening hours in National Trust houses do have conservation implications, as there is less downtime to carry out essential repairs and conservation.

Funding is needed to bring objects up to display [visitable?] condition.

Risk-based approach

Can the use of objects be rationed? not easily.

Are there other ways of accessing objects? – digital surrogates, handling of duplicates, providing photos reduces most people’s need to see them.

Digital: Digital access can be used as an argument for disposal; Not all digital material is online.

Surrogates: in natural science collections, can use modern specimens for handling.

Drawers are a good way of getting more on display, but collections shouldn’t be sanitised.

Use sponsorship opportunities of preservation / conservation to bring unused objects to public attention?

Dialogue between preservation and access is needed.

Benefit: access by researchers can improve knowledge of the collections.

B: Ways in which conservation can assist access

? Can any collections be accessible? Issues of practicality of access to every collection, how much to very important / delicate objects?

Conservation:

§ Keeps the object in existence

§ Reveals hidden information

§ Provides an impetus for research on collections

§ Can enable objects to be displayed

§ Access to conservators is also a fair obligation, e.g. researching past treatments

§ Rendering and keeping safe

§ Possibility of using red / amber / green categories to preserve vehicles: - managing and monitoring access, - risk assessment / conservation audit a good precaution

§ Can extend knowledge and understanding

§ Engagment in realistic debate (philosophical basis) about use / damage / risk

§ Interpretation through conservators’ knowledge? - understanding how it’s made, providing information with object

§ Access to the conservation process itself – showing people at work, before / afters. Making people aware of the conservation approach to objects – resulting in more respect for objects.

§ Behind the scenes tours etc

§ Improving storage encourages institutions to promote access

What are you going to keep? – use conservators’ knowledge

Conserve the worst example – but this risks over-repairing it to make it handleable.

Handling collections = sacrificial collections!

A Conservation Museum?

C: Arguments against access to collections

Security issues: which can be got over – small or valuable objects, medals, unique. – issue over supervisors’ time. Need appropriate security.

Legislation, health & safety. Stores are difficult for H&S anyway – e.g. fire hazards. Dangerous or sensitive collections.

Need to disclose information can mean disclosure of bad information – unknown provenance, can’t find object.

Problems when people want very broad access, One museum noted unrealistic requests e.g. “I want to see your geology collections” – how to deal with those?

People will see the stuff we don’t want them to see – the boxes of stuff!

Issues over delicate objects, e.g. unique radio valves

Group access can be difficult to manage

Presumption always to some level of access

- group objects by accessibility?: occasional, teaching (supervised), handle to destruction (i.e. dispose).

Creating handling collections: risk of parallel collections.

Categories of access allows management of use, and ‘replacement of collections items with higher quality items.

Inappropriate storage: means limited physical access.

Unaccountable organisations: e.g., staff time - % on display etc, % on access

Without an infrastructure for access it becomes a burden

If you promote access you must be able to provide access (e.g. delays in providing). Fear of raising expectations – potential for disappointment if stored collections don’t meet expectations.

Visitors might go away with a superficial experience – must be a strong reason and purpose behind opening stores.

Undocumented collections

By creating access a specialist group can show interest in collections

Pressure to provide high profile access

Managing access needs to be proportional to organisation’s resources.

Could constrain daily activities of staff

To sum up, arguments against are:

Legislative – listing, physical restrictions, legal issues, health & safety

Documentation – poor quality, closed collections, reveals poor recording, lost objects, unclassified collections

Preservation of collections – access may be destructive, damage gradual or immediate; security issues

Visitor expectations – managing a wide range of visitor needs; specialist groups can skew expectations; want to see everything or nothing!

Resources – Manage access to appropriate resources

Organisational resistance.

D: What’s most important in facilitating use?

Examples (anonymised):

Victorian collection ... prints & drawings – used by booked groups etc.

Local museum 1 – No policy – lack of study space for access – no stuff in store

Transport Archive – limited access

Local museum 2 – encouraging access to collections – former experience of local museum with pre-arranged access only – but not to stores

Local museum 3 – stores on each site – lack of documentation, records are still physical, access to objects dealt with locally – viewing for personal reasons – very few academic research enquiries.

Local museum 4 – enquiries personally dealt with. Some stores offsite, little access, no space, some stores H&S problems - very little access to staff and none even for volunteers

Private museum – small art store – temp store for special collections 30,000 photos, access difficult (due to cataloguing) – hence enquiries on hold – waiting for new building to facilitate access and new collections management database (ongoing)

Large local authority museum – archive of paperwork – 2 staff – public search room, limited publicity

If funding available:

P&Drawings on a drop-in basis and to field enquiries: feeling that should still justify access for specific drawings.

Better research facilities – advanced notice system – more staff to facilitate – manned store

Publicity – promotion – more of an appointment approach

With funding, still few staff, wd need appointments. Improve computerised documentation.

Find out ‘what they want to see’?

Examples for the public of ‘access to collections’?

Collection care issues

General points

General issues of difficulty for even museum staff to find out what’s in the collections.

Cost/benefit: e.g. London Transport Museum – wide range of ‘users’ need to be catered for to avoid disappointed visitors – Long queues for their store a turn-off (but see the Royal Academy!) – they are stopping offering opening in summer due to lower demand.

General lack of policy – no study spaces – short of resources – knowledge and understanding of what’s in the collection – difficulty of access even for staff

An aspiration should be to remove any feeling for ‘users’ that they have to justify a request to see collections.

Do people have a right, an entitlement, to see / access / use collections? We haven’t made that decision.

What measures would be appropriate? e.g. one person / one object = a unit?

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