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Defining Museums For The Twenty-First Century.
Museums instruct and amuse, educate and entertain: how will they fulfil these roles in the face of swiftly changing technology and ever increasing competition from other attractions like theme parks? Visiting a museum is one of Britain’s most popular leisure activities today but will it be as popular even ten years from now? How can we make today’s museum fit for the future?
The lecture and debate on this topic took place at the RSA in London on Wednesday 20 May. Here is a summary of the presentations. More details will follow shortly. Join in the debate on this issue by emailing us.
The Chairman of the discussion is Loyd Grossman, Chairman of the Campaign for Museums.
Speakers;
* Richard Foster, Director, National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside
* Rosalind Savill, Director, Wallace Collection, London
* Michael Jolly, Chairman and Chief Executive, The Tussauds Group
Richard Foster, Director, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside
Richard Foster takes a wide view of national and regional museums and considers how they will fare in the future when the public enjoys more disposable income and more choices for their leisure time. For publicly funded museums resources are likely to remain constrained and thus there will be a need to earn more of the museums income.
In these circumstances museums that fail to take their visitors’ likes and dislikes into account will not only see fewer visitors and but also falling receipts. In trying to attract new audiences museums will have to become better at positioning themselves and promoting their public services.
National museums will continue to flourish with their outstanding collections, greater critical mass and locational advantage. Smaller town and city museums on the other hand may be threatened by not being at heart of their local authority service and possibly subject to increased competition from projects such as the new Science and Discovery centres, funded by the Millennium Commission. Large regional museums face some of the same problems; some are already "designated" as holding pre-eminent collections. However the government has so far failed to provide any new funding for these designated museums, so that they are able to enhance their services and collections and realise their full potential.
It is the care and presentation of objects that distinguishes museums from other institutions. But they can only survive by retaining and widening their audience. Much of what the staff does is unseen and unappreciated by the public and museums are often reluctant to share their collections with the public. A sort of intellectual and physical "apartheid" exists in some museums between the staff and reserve collections on the one hand and the public on the other. The future lies in unlocking access to reserve collections, to encourage the public to explore these with the help of trained staff. In the new Conservation Centre at the Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool conservators are trained to show the public what they are working on and answer their questions over a two-way video-link.
Information technology is the key and will set the menu for the future, allowing much more personal choice for the visitors in terms of who and what he/she wishes to see. If museums grasp the great opportunities of developing on-line services they will be in direct contact with huge numbers of new potential visitors, providing advance information on the museum and even the opportunity to book a customised visit. Many people may use this technology to remain at home and make the museum a "virtual visit". But the access to the real objects in the company of other people will always remain a compelling attraction.
The revitalisation of cities as places to live and work will strengthen the need and the role of museum in the society. However rationalisation of museum management in some areas is likely to happen as museums struggle to provide qualitative access in the most cost efficient way.
So the outlook for museums is "cooler than of late", the key is the future being a creative appreciation of the past as a reassurance of the present.
Rosalind Savill, Director, The Wallace Collection
Roslaind Saville offers a personal perspective on a single collection - The Wallace Collection. It is unique as a family collection in the original family house. The collection was acquired randomly and range from the oddly eccentric to great works of international importance. We are unashamedly "object" led - preserving the past to present it to the future.
We all love our own everyday objects - our bedside clock, the glass we drink from. Why should curators, in current popular thinking, have to apologise for looking after trinkets from the past? Our collections will be relevant for as long as there are human beings to look at visual images, design and draw, eat and drink, work and play and need spiritual sustenance.
Most objects are inanimate but it is our challenge as curators to make them communicate their special properties to the visitor through physical, intellectual and sensory access. The notion that museums are boring usually comes from a dullness in the atmosphere or presentation, rather than from the objects themselves.
At the Wallace Collection we are moving into the 21st Century with a redevelopment designed by Rick Mather. It will add a study centre and a Sculpture Garden restaurant. We are enhancing the quality of the visit, enlivening the atmosphere to remind visitors that it is a town house not a museum. Staff will be seen at work in the galleries. Richer colours, brighter lighting, improved displays, concerts, filming, plays and lectures will all add to the atmosphere. The Study Centre will provide the explanatory material and educational opportunities.
Four new galleries will be added - one section on fakes and forgeries, one a conservation gallery, a library, seminar room, schools room and lecture theatre.
The Study Centre will have mobile it units to explain works of arts and set them in context. But this technology must never supplant the experience of confronting the works of art "in the flesh".
Our Centenary project will give the Wallace the tools to excavate our resources, make them accessible and better understood. Museums may be mere grains of golden sand in the great scheme of things, but they too will glisten, and in them we will see reflected our world: past, present and even future.
Michael Jolly, Chairman and Chief Executive, The Tussauds Group
In considering ways in which museums may develop in the future, Michael Jolly spoke from the perspective of commercial enterprise. He divided the functions of museums into two distinct, separate sets of activities: activities which are paid for through the public purse and other activities that are best funded through admission charges and various commercial initiatives. The role of each set of activities together with the required management skills suggest that both the public and private sectors have a valuable contribution to make to the museums of the 21st Century.
The first are the curatorial activities which involve keeping the collection, storing, conservation and sometimes adding to the collection. The audience for this range of activities are, in the broadest possible sense, "students" with an existing interest in the content of the museum.
The second sent of activities are related to the museum as an "experience". This involves attracting the public, exciting their imagination and arousing their interest to encourage a visit. The potential audience for this is "everyone". Expertise required for this is "communication".
The curatorial activities have a cost - and a - value which could be argued to benefit society as a whole. The Museum as an experience has a value and should therefore be offered at a price to society.
We hear a great deal today about the "virtual museum" and the questionable desire by anyone to want go out and visit what they can or will be able to see in their own home on the computer screen. I don’t buy that school of thought. Madame Tussaud’s has survived both photography, television and holography and still, today it’s the most popular visit in London where’s there’s in the admission charge. There will always be a role for the museum as a place to go and a place to experience.
In considering the museum as a collection the question of pressure on space has to be considered. Storage space of the right quality does not have be in the museums in prime location. In communicating its story to "everyone" rather than the student it is important museums don’t overwhelm but arouse, making something accessible doesn’t mean exhibiting the biggest collection. "Less is more" is very relevant to communication.
Putting a price on the visit is important (a) it ensures that the visitors puts a value on the experience - museums are not for casual visits - they are more significant places; and (b) the museum that delivers a ‘charged for’ experience will need to see that it delivers a value against that price expectation.
An indoor visit, should last no longer than two hours. Museum contents should be focused on filling 2 hours of communication, serving the visit through the process. This is the day out market. It must be enjoyable.
Technology will play a role in museums of the 21st century, as it does already in terms of database management and serving the needs of students. For the commercial activities, technology will play a role in arousing interest to encourage a visit. This is the role of advertising and editorial but may well be via the Internet on a variety of websites in the future. Technology will also be used to pre-book visits; most people will not think of going to visit anything in the future, if they haven’t got the tickets in their hands.
Once inside the museum technology will stimulate visitors and encourage the process of finding out more. This may involve CDs or videos of the collection to take home, participation on Internet chat lines; the creative exploitation of the intellectual property of the museum will be important to the cashflow.
These are just some of the ways in which technology might offer more exciting opportunities. What I have tried to illustrate is that the separation of the museum functions into very separate activities will be very beneficial to grasping just those opportunities.
The Campaign for Museums
21 May 1998
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