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The British Museum: Storehouse of Civilisations 

What is the purpose of a book about a museum? This question sprang to mind as I read James Hamilton’s The British Museum: Storehouse of Civilisations, because I was baffled by it. It could have been a great opportunity to add to existing histories and help readers think about the present day British Museum. Instead it presents a hackneyed and awkwardly written history that does its readers and the British Museum a huge disservice.

The British Museum publishes two books on its history: Marjorie Caygill’s The History of the British Museum, and David Wilson’s The British Museum: A History. Unsurprisingly, neither tackles the more difficult subjects relating to the Museum, such as the colonial origins of its collections or governance or sponsorship. Unfortunately, Hamilton’s account is equally sanitised. It is notable that the book is part of a series on “the history of civilisation”, a tone so in keeping with the British Museum’s self-image it might explain the lack of critique.

In fact, it’s hard to find anything new in Hamilton’s history. Like the other books, it takes a chronological approach, starting with Hans Sloane’s Will. Along the way the usual events and themes in the British Museum’s history are described: Montague House, not-so-public access, the King’s Library, the new building, the addition of departments, the dispersal of its collections, the British Library… Chronology is a difficult structure: it’s hard to know where to end, or to draw a conclusion about on-going events. Hamilton draws the main storyline to a close with the opening of the British Library. That’s surprising because the late twentieth century saw a period of turmoil in the Museum that related directly to its management and governance in the preceding centuries. Those events had a huge impact on the British Museum of today, so it seems strange not to mention them.

Drawing the history to an end in the early 1970s also means there’s no discussion of Neil MacGregor signing the Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museums, which in effect doubled down on the British Museum’s previous refusals to repatriate stolen objects. It’s hard to discuss the British Museum without mentioning its colonial origins and present day responses to them, yet where Hamilton does mention this it is disingenuous, to put it mildly. Hans Sloane’s connection to slavery is described as income “from plantations his wife had inherited” (p16), rather than his active complicity as outlined in James Delbourgo’s biography. Similarly, in the nineteenth century artefacts “arrive” because museums are “institutions of suction, drawing stuff towards them” (p 52), rather than being active participants in collecting stolen objects. Hamilton acknowledges the dispute over the Parthenon marbles, but later appears to dismiss concern about them while simultaneously sighing about protests over oil company sponsorship.

The lack of original content is exacerbated by Hamilton’s uneven style, which veers from pretentious (e.g. Sloane’s “courageous embarkation on dangerous travel expressed itself multifariously” (p 16)), to sensationalist (Sloane’s Will contained a “killer demand” that made “hostages” of the trustees (p24)). The book is peppered with faux-academic tropes including footnotes *and* endnotes. There are appendices containing an odd selection of information, but very few primary sources. A lack of precision gives rise to some ambiguities, such as the date the Natural History Museum came into being.

The British Museum is a flawed institution, albeit one that has a significant role in the past and present of museums. A book that discusses its history, warts and all, and places it in context of contemporary discussions about museums could enable everyone to have a more informed discussion about its future. This book is not it.

The British Museum: Storehouse of Civilisations by James Hamilton. Published by Head of Zeus imprint, Browns Books for Students. ISBN 978-1786691835

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Collecting the World

There are few people who would deny that the British Museum’s history is steeped in colonialism. Apologists have chosen to gloss over this past by claiming the Museum now has a special status as a universal museum. James Delbourgo’s new biography of Hans Sloane, Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane, should make them think again, and give pause for deep reflection to all museums with colonial connections. 

Delbourgo charts Sloane’s rise from an Ulster-born outsider to a wealthy, well-connected member of the London elite. En route Sloane became physician to the governor of Jamaica, an event that would transform his life. It not only conferred status to the nascent physician, it was here that Sloane collected the specimens that made up his Natural History of Jamaica and established him as a significant collector. The trip also led to his marriage to the widow of a plantation owner, giving him an income from sugar production that would help sustain his future collecting. As Delbourgo makes clear, Sloane’s collecting was only achieved through his complicity in slavery and colonialism.

It is hard to find any redeeming features in Sloane’s character when reading about his time in Jamaica. With a colonial, capitalist outlook, Sloane saw the Jamaican landscape as containing commodities to be owned, traded and used by white English owners. His treatment of slaves was abhorrent. He was brutal to them as patients and documented their public torture and execution without emotion or intervention. He considered “Indians and blacks” as specimens to be inspected and scrutinised. His writing amplified racist stereotypes, while his accounts of sugar production erased the slaves whose labour created it.

And yet it was the Jamaican landscape and natural history that established Sloane as a collector of repute, and it was slaves who did some of that collecting for him. Their contribution was, of course, written out of Natural History of Jamaica, alongside the artists and engravers whose meticulous drawings recorded specimens and illustrated the book. Sloane the arriviste was not acknowledging anyone else.

Delbourgo elegantly details the way in which Sloane’s collecting and scientific and medical practices combined to further all elements of his life. Sloane’s rising status in his practice provided him with huge wealth and a network of contacts throughout the expanding empire. And through this network he expanded his collections. Delbourgo places this story against a deftly woven backdrop of political and social contexts and histories of science and medicine to create a rich and compelling account.

There are parts of Collecting the World that will ring true for present-day curators, particularly the logistics of documenting and cataloguing the collections. The catalogues give pause for reflection on the ways knowledge is created through collecting material culture. Delbourgo points out that much of Sloane’s collection, now dispersed across several institutions, is unused and unexamined. The original descriptions, written through a colonial lens, are extant and we can no longer collect other contemporaneous accounts. It’s a reminder to be reflective about present-day practices and prejudices.

Delbourgo’s style is easy to read, though in his eagerness to pack the book with detail it is rather uneven. The chapters on processes of collecting are over-long and meandering. The weakest chapter is the last, on the development of the British Museum. Here Delbourgo falters and appears uncritical and unable to bring current thought and debate in museology to his account. A significant omission from the book is women. We hear almost nothing about Elizabeth, Sloane’s wife, apart from her money, and his daughters get a mere mention. A few female collectors get a couple of pages between them, but otherwise women are absent.

Nonetheless, Collecting the World is an important read. It shows why the glib responses to museums’ colonial origins are unacceptable, and it should make us reflect on the continued deification of Sloane and other colonial collectors. It is essential reading for all in museums, particularly directors and trustees.

Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane by James Delbourgo. Published by Allen Lane, 2017.

This article first appeared in Museums Journal in winter 2017.

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Rethinking museum training and careers

The stories of poor quality training, difficulty getting jobs and lack of support recounted in my previous post shouldn’t come as a surprise. Maurice Davies’s report on this subject, The Tomorrow People, was published in 2007 but very little seems to have changed between then and the publication of Iain Watson’s Working Wonders (pdf) report in early 2013.

Why should that be? One answer is that there is very little incentive to initiate change. Why would museums want to do away with cheap labour? Surely universities are happy that a high demand for jobs means there is a similar demand for their Masters courses? Another answer presents itself when you look at who is consulted on this matter: Watson’s report, for example, leans heavily on the opinions of senior professionals. Perhaps unsurprisingly its first recommendation is “strengthen leadership and management.” However, it is the case that there is no apparent over-arching leadership across all parts of the sector (museums, universities, funders etc): no one seems to want to champion this cause. One might expect the Museums Association to fill that role, but given that it commissioned both Davies’s and Waston’s reports but has done little with them, it is difficult to have faith in its ability to do so.

The only recent new initiative for training is The Teaching Museum set up by Norfolk Museum and Archaeology Service (NMAS). This takes eight people per year from any background, and gives them on-the-job training over a nine-month period whilst paying them a salary. It is a refreshing move, but it is not without its own problems: in particular, trainees are assigned to one department for the whole course, and it is NMAS staff that decide that placement. Plus there are limits outside of the control of NMAS: the scheme only has funding for five years, there is no guarantee of a job afterwards, the scheme can only take eight applicants, and it does not address the problems of career progression. What is really needed is a profession-wide, holistic approach to training and careers.

Fortunately Webb, Crossley, Dendy and Hussey have some clear ideas about what should change and how. What is striking about their ideas is that although I interviewed them separately, they gave very similar answers. 

Careers advice

All four are adamant that museums and universities need to work together to produce clear career guidance at undergraduate level. They suggest that universities should offer elective modules on undergraduate courses such as history-based degrees, anthropology and archaeology that will introduce students to museums and museum work. They recommend that museums should reconsider their approach to volunteering to ensure that it is mutually beneficial to the volunteer and the museum. They also suggest that funding bodies and museums should work closely together to create programme of free workshops for those thinking of embarking on a museum career. These could be skills based, or simply open days.

Most importantly, though, museums and universities need to be honest about what qualifications you actually need for certain roles in a museum. As Crossley says “education jobs tend to go to teachers” so there’s no point in doing an MA in museum studies if you really need a PGCE. But as Dendy points out, there is no co-ordinated approach to museum qualifications, and no single place (website etc) that has all the advice you need.

Finally Crossley, Dendy and Hussey point out that in their experience many people leave an undergraduate degree not knowing what opportunities are available to them, and so decide on a career in museums because they can’t think of anything else to do. Better all round careers guidance at universities would help with this, and perhaps would help reduce the number of people wanting to work in museums.

Training

The underlying principle of Webb, Crossely, Hussey and Dendy’s vision for museum training is that it must include theory and practice. Students must gain an understanding of all the different roles in a museum, specific skills such as how to use databases and write a grant application, they must have at least one substantial work placement, and they must gain an understanding of theoretical, reflexive approaches to museums to enable them to contextualise their work. Furthermore, places on these courses must be limited. 

It is easy to imagine academics throwing their hands up at this idea and wondering how on earth they’re meant to fit all that into a twelve-month programme. That is easy to answer as soon as one realises that a museum studies MA is a professional qualification. As Crossley points out, other professional MAs, such as those in social work, take place over two years full time (see here for example). Webb, Crossley, Dendy and Hussey suggest that universities and museums should work together to develop a similar scheme. The first year would comprise some theory, introductions to the different aspects of museum work and skills training, and a long placement. If students then decided a museum work wasn’t for them they could leave with a Diploma. Those continuing in the second year would specialise in one area of museum work, write a dissertation and do an additional work placement.

This is a remarkably simple solution and has some important features. First, it combines skills training, experience and theory. Second, it enables people with little understanding of museums’ behind-the-scenes jobs to see the variety of different roles they could undertake; as Crossley explains, “people often don’t know what is available.” In addition, a long work placement will give students the experience that museums demand in a meaningful way. That experience will also help students discover whether this is what they really want to do. Finally, the theoretical modules will enable students to become reflexive practitioners and understand museums as political sites; as Dendy says “I think you need a critical mindset [to work in a museum]. A critical outlook on the way the West collects.”

However, this scheme is not perfect. In particular, students will still need to pay fees and living expenses while doing it. Postgraduate course fees are an issue that the university sector recognises but hasn’t got far in addressing. But as this problem remains whether courses are reformed or not, it might be an idea for museums, universities, funding bodies and others to work together to find a way to offer financial support to students.

Career progression

It is difficult to know how to address the thorny issue of career progression, expect by suggesting that museums need to be far more transparent in their person specifications than appears to be the case at present. What is clear, however, is that Dendy, Crossley, Hussey and Webb all feel that mentoring is essential to help with this. The long work placement in the revised MA they suggest could offer students the chance to establish mentoring relationship with their supervisor. An alternative solution might be to establish a kind of ‘museum mentor matching’ service in which people who would like to be mentors are put in touch with people who want to be mentored.

Pay and conditions

Dendy, Webb, Crossley and Hussey could not offer any solutions to the perennial low pay except perhaps that museums should try harder. However, repeat short-term contracts, lack of on the job training and lack of clarity about the possibilities of progressing within an organisation could and should be addressed.

The way forward is through engagement

In spite of a list of grievances it is striking that Webb, Crossley, Hussey and Dendy are far from bitter. None of them was thinking of leaving the profession, but all were frustrated that their voices had not been heard before. This is a great loss to the sector, because senior professionals cannot possibly have an in-depth idea of what needs to change if they don’t ask. Furthermore, it is clear that early careers professionals have some interesting and imaginative ideas of how these problems could be resolved. Even more importantly, they are the senior professionals of the future and including them in the future direction of the sector must help to ensure a long-term outlook. If the sector really wants to change it must engage with them, and it must do it soon. And then there must be action.

This article first appeared on the London Museums Group website in October 2013, and led me to organise the Future of Museums conference in spring 2014.

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The low down on the life of early career museum workers

You’ve got to love museums to want to work in one: if you’re lucky, after years of study and volunteering you’ll get a low paid job on a short-term contract, and even getting one of those is a slog. But while senior professionals approach this problem by wringing their hands over training or declaring they have the solution, the voices of early careers professionals have rarely been heard. If you do ask, you’ll hear that entry routes are inadequate, there is a lack of cogent thought, structure and guidance throughout the sector, and that the solution is a wholesale change of approach to museum training and jobs. 

Marginal benefits from a Masters

Many people see a Masters degree in museum studies or equivalent as an entry into the museums sector. However, with fees ranging from £5,000 at UEA to £8,500 at UCL for a full-time one-year course starting 2013, once you factor in living costs an MA could set you back £25,000. Leaving aside for now the implications of this for access and workforce diversity, for those who can afford to do an MA, the question is: is it worth it? 

Laura Crossley finished her MA in Heritage Studies in 2011, and Kristin Hussey finished her MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies in 2010. Crossley says her Masters taught her skills she wouldn’t have learned elsewhere, particularly how to write exhibition outlines and interpretation plans which now forms the basis of her freelance work. She and Hussey both agree that the reflexive content of their MAs – understanding museums’ cultural, social and historical contexts – was also important: “I’d argue that everybody working in museums should have that background,” says Hussey. For Crossley, that contextualization helps her think about future employment: “I now have a clear idea of what my stance is [on the purpose of museums], and would want to work in museums that share [it].”

However, neither feels that an MA either got them a job or prepared them for working in a museum. Crossley’s first heritage job was at Norwich HEART, and although doing her MA work placement there helped her get in the loop, it was her experience of EU-funded grants gained as a university administrator that actually won her the position. She later managed a small museum in Sheringham but “I didn’t feel prepared to do every job in the museum because I didn’t know how [the different departments] worked.” Her MA had not provided her with information on the structure and roles in a museum.

Hussey is scathing about the omissions from her course. With an ambition to be a curator, she cites a list of things it didn’t cover that would have aided her transfer into museum work: “I went into a museum not knowing what a loan agreement looked like, not knowing what a registrar does… a young professional needs to be able to say ‘I can use Modes, Calm, KE Emu, Adlib. Mimsy’, [you need to know] what are Spectrum standards, what is government indemnity…” Although Hussey’s course gave a two-hour introduction to KE Emu, it was only the opportunity to use Mimsy during her work placement that enabled her get a job.

While Crossley and Hussey point to pros and cons of an MA, Miki Webb’s experience implies that for some roles the cost isn’t justified. Webb started her MA in Public Archaeology two years ago on a part-time basis. In October 2012 she took an interruption from studies in order to work full time to save up for the next year. Webb is now on a one-year contract as a visitor services assistant at the National Martime Museum, and finds that many of her colleagues, on the same contract, have MAs and even PhDs. What, she asks, is the point in continuing with the MA if it’s going to get her the job she’s got now? Crossley agrees: she worked full-time at HEART and other heritage sites whilst doing her MA over a period of five years: “it’s difficult to get to a certain age and think ‘wow, I’ve spent lots and lots of money for a career that won’t pay me very well and that I might not get a job in.” She contemplated withdrawing from her course, given that she had a job, but felt that she needed the degree to get a job. 

Here is the museum world’s sleight of hand. A quick trawl through Leicester University’s Museum Job Desk at the time of writing (August 2013) shows only one job advert in the first fifty that explicitly requests an MA in museum studies; most asked for experience and subject-related degrees. However, this conceals the underlying cutthroat jobs market, in which entry level qualifications have inflated to crazy levels. Forget appearances, if you want to get ahead in museums you need all the experience and qualifications you can get. 

Gain skills but not cash

Volunteering is often cited as a way to show your enthusiasm, get experience and learn some skills. Terri Dendy is perhaps an extreme example of this. She doesn’t have an MA, but got her first paid museums job immediately after she graduated from university solely on the back of her voluntary work. She had been volunteering in museums from the age of seventeen and knew even then that she wanted to work in collections. However, the volunteering roles at her local museum were front-of-house and education based, and not aimed at people who were thinking about a museum career. Dendy, however, was pushy enough to wangle her way into voluntary roles behind the scenes cataloguing and accessioning works. At university she continued volunteering: “there was one point [where] I had four jobs: interning [at Orleans House Museum], volunteering [at the Horniman Museum], working at the National Maritime Museum in the shop and working as a supervisor at Waitrose.” 

But before Dendy is cited as illustration of how to get into museums with out an MA, let’s review what she did: it took her four years of unpaid work to gain the skills get a job; in addition she had to really push to get the experience she needed. In Dendy’s opinion, the volunteer programmes in major museums are over subscribed, but smaller museums may not have programmes that a useful to those wanting to start a museum career. In the local authority museum where she started volunteering the programme was geared to “mainly older women, retired, doing a little bit here and there, pottering around, nothing career based.” Crossley agrees: “I know people who have spent years and years volunteering, and because a lot of volunteering roles are just not very useful [to a career] they’ve just never progressed.”

It is worth noting here that some museums may distinguish between voluntary work (front of house, administration) and internships or work placements (more technical areas such as conservation and registry). Museums and applicants should note that the terms internship and work placement have no legal status, and that people undertaking them may be considered workers and entitled to the national minimum wage. The Museums Association has guidelines on internships, but even then suggests that three months unpaid work is acceptable.

Voluntary work isn’t the only way to gain skills; there are plenty of training courses available but these are expensive ­– unless, of course, you have a job and your employer will pay. There are some exceptions. Crossley speaks with enthusiasm about Share Museums East’s free courses, which it can fund because it was one of nine recipients of funding from Arts Council England’s museum development fund. It is not clear, however, whether the other eight recipients offer the same opportunities.

Given the price of these courses, in the highly competitive museum jobs market, poor quality volunteering roles and unpaid internships become highly problematic. How else to gain skills not acquired elsewhere and/or show your enthusiasm for museum work? Doing unpaid work has become accepted practice in the sector, and although one understands there is an all-round lack of funding, it would appear that the sector has adopted an iniquitous attitude towards its future workforce.

Workplace woes

Forget the difficulty of actually getting a paid job in a museum, once you have one life isn’t a bed of roses. “I am shocked at how bad [employment practices] are” says Hussey, who has now worked on four 6-month contracts. Dendy left her job at the Science Museum to be an art technician because “I kind of got fed up of playing that contract game of waiting until the end of the month and then being told that you might actually work the following month.” There are even anecdotes that allege some museums play fast and loose with continuous employment. 

Hussey and Webb have both experienced a kind of snobbism towards, and ignorance of, their roles in the museum. Walking back to the Royal Observatory after our talk, Webb eyed the masses of visitors waiting to get in and sighed, “the people in the office jobs think we [visitor services assistants] just stand around all day. If only they knew.” Hussey has found a that curators’ lack of understanding of her role can even be detrimental to the museum: “Today we found an object in the CTR, a transport room, because a curator had bought it for an exhibition, didn’t think to write any paper work for it, now can’t quite remember where it came from, so who owns this object? Then it becomes the registrar’s problem.”

It is worth noting that Hussey, Dendy and Webb are working for large museums where, if their experience is typical, ignorance of the museum’s structure, organization and roles is endemic. Hussey’s experience in a five-month temporary job confirmed this. It was a much smaller museum and she rapidly learned what other people were doing, and felt she was able to contribute more. Crossley concurs. Talking of her experience at Norwich HEART she says, “I was part of a very small team. I was always asked for my opinion at the team meetings so I really learned what everybody in that team did.” 

As if the in-post frustrations aren’t bad enough, career progression is nigh on impossible. Dendy wants to move back into a registry post but “if I was to change I’d have to go back to work in an entry level position, or just one above. My vast experience should put me higher, but [museums] seem only to employ internally when it comes to second and third level jobs.” The idea that much sought after jobs should only be available to ‘insiders’ may sound shocking, but a quick skim through some museum websites shows that at the time of writing the V&A, for example, is advertising for a “Curator of Paintings, internal applicants only”.

The job market also makes an impact by enabling museums to be picky about whom they employ. Hussey describes museums as “nothing if not judgmental about the background that you have”, explaining that friends of hers have taken short-term contracts in education or events “because that’s where the work is” only to find that this now seems to bar them from applying for registry, documentation or curatorial posts regardless of other experience. Hussey herself has experienced an apparent hierarchy of qualifications in which having a PhD trumps any kind of previous museum experience.

Structured on-the-job training also seems rare. In spite of having worked at the same institution for four years, the only way Hussey could gain the additional skills and experience she needs to progress was to take five months unpaid leave and do a temporary job at another museum. For Crossley, as a freelance, the cost of continuing professional development is prohibitive. She would love to do the Museums Association’s AMA but “you need to be massively rich” (it costs over £700 over three years at current prices).

The over-heated jobs market and unwillingness for museums to train their staff has resulted in Dendy experiencing the job-seekers’ Catch 22: not having enough experience of loan agreements, but not being able to acquire that skill without having the job. She points out that she can’t solve this problem by volunteering because she has to hold down a full-time job, and she can’t afford to go on a training course.

Surely though it must be possible to ask for guidance, even if a mentor can’t conjure up jobs and money? Hussey’s mentor is the person who supervised her work placement during her MA. The others have not been so lucky. “I would love a mentor. How [else] are you going to know what is the next step [in your career]?” asks Dendy. Crossley agrees, “I just think you need someone who knows the business and you need someone to bounce ideas off.” Crossley feels so passionately about mentoring that she mentors other people trying to get into museums jobs “but trying to find a mentor for me has been impossible.” Thus it seems that in a difficult, complex job market many people are left without help to navigate their way.

Museums’ fixation on rigid person specifications and their inability to support and nurture their staff has led Hussey to take a fairly extreme measure. In spite of an MA in museum studies and four years’ experience working with scientific collections, her undergraduate degree in politics, history and economics has been a block to gaining a curatorial post. She is now applying to do PhD in the history of medicine: “I want to be a museum curator more than anything in the world, and I’ve been fighting for that for quite a few years now, [but] I don’t think I’ll get where I want to go without a PhD.”

What is evident from these accounts that the lot of an early career museum professional can be pretty miserable: there is no career structure, no guidance, no training and no stability. I explore their ideas for changing this in my next post.

This article first appeared on the London Museums Group website in October 2013, and led me to organise the Future of Museums conference in spring 2014.

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Museum people should show off more

Where would you find a theatre director, a man with an extensive collection of VHS tapes and an Egyptologist all in the same room? The answer: Museums Showoff. These are just some of the people who have taken to the stage at an event that enables people from across the museums sector to share their ideas, projects and ambitions.

Every two months, we give 10 participants nine minutes each to tell an audience something interesting about museums in any style or format they like. With a bit of luck these nine-minute sets lead to conversations and new projects and plans. But this is not a stuffy networking event – there are no name tags and awkward introductions.

For a start, it takes place in a pub. There’s a cabaret feel to the evening, which is compèred by Steve Cross, head of public engagement at UCL. Half the acts sign up via our website on a first-come-first-served basis. The other half are invited to try to ensure that the 10 performers represent a wide variety of voices from the museum sector – and this gets to the heart of Museums Showoff.

There’s a huge diversity of roles and disciplines within the museum sector and yet little opportunity for people to come together. It’s unusual to see, say, an architectural historian share a stage with a digital media developer, a pathology curator and an events organiser in front of an equally mixed audience.

Yet as we’ve discovered, often people from seemingly disparate parts of the museums community have ideas in common and knowledge to share. What better way to encourage that exchange than in an informal, relaxed environment where the pressure of work is off, and if someone’s talk grabs your attention you can chat about it over a drink in the interval or after the gig?

Even if you don’t forge new alliances you’re bound to learn something new. That could be discovering a museum you hadn’t known about, hearing a different view on a subject or just simply finding out how someone else approaches, say, on-gallery interpretation. Importantly, showing off does not mean sales pitches. Nor has anyone used it for self-aggrandisement.

In fact, quite the opposite is true; it turns out that museums people are very good at poking fun at themselves, taking a droll look at visitors, talking about the pitfalls of their latest project, and offering frank and witty opinions on anything from the track record of arts ministers to what’s wrong with the Science Museum. They’re also amazingly creative – as well as entertaining talks we’ve had poetry about plastics conservation, songs about dinosaurs, banjo-playing art historians, and panto versions of Roald Dahl stories.

Museums Showoff has been running for just over a year. We’ve done six gigs in London and travelled to Brighton and Manchester, with a running total of 80 people performing to an average audience size of 80+ (you can only perform once in a 12 month period). Though I say it myself, this is an impressive tally given that we have no budget, all our marketing is done by word of mouth and social media, and everyone involved – organisers, venues and performers alike – takes part for no payment.

So how are we doing with our aim to engage all sectors of the museums community with each other? Those 80 people certainly do come from diverse sectors of the museums world, and it’s been great to follow exchanges on Twitter and see people follow up on conversations started at one of our gigs.

But it’s also true that there are gaps in our recruitment, and it’s interesting to see where they are: we’ve had very few people from art museums and galleries; we’ve not had any exhibition designers or architects; and it’s been difficult to get people from small, independent museums to take part.

I wonder whether to some extent this reflects the sparsity of connections between different parts of the sector that we want to change. When people have participated or come to gigs we’ve found that others in their networks soon sign up or come along. I hope that one or two people from those missing fields will soon sign up, then encourage their colleagues to do the same.

The next night is in north London on 14 May and features a museum director, a PhD student and a professional tweeter among others. Come along, be entertained, learn something, meet people – and even sign up for the next one.

This article originally appeared in The Guardian’s culture professionals’ network pages on 10 May 2013.

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Who Am I?

How should one communicate a complex field of science to a museum audience? This is the question that the Science Museum had to address when redeveloping its Who Am I? exhibition, which re-opened in June.

The exhibition poses the question “what makes you uniquely you?” and explores how genetics and neuroscience may help to provide answers. But it is not just the science that is complex: these areas of research have wider implications which must be discussed if people are to be fully engaged. Unfortunately the Science Museum over simplifies the science and side-steps many of these issues.

Who Am I? first opened in 2000, and has been redeveloped to ensure that the science is up to date. In the centre of the exhibition large cases of objects present science relating to subjects such as ageing, intelligence, gender and appearance. The themes are continued in computer-based interactive exhibits positioned nearby in large silver pods. 

The fact that there are any objects at all is impressive: the equipment used by modern biomedical science doesn’t lend itself easily to display and the concepts it investigates are often abstract. The Science Museum has overcome this by using objects as illustrations rather than as the main focus. For example a case on phobias contains jars of things people might be afraid of, such as string, spiders and balloons. Another case on physical appearance includes a 7-toed cat and a white peacock. All exhibits are accompanied by a wealth of labels – there is an unusual amount of text in this exhibition, no chance that visitors will not get the message.

But that message is confused. On one hand it is highly celebratory: science, particularly genetics, will provide an answer to everything. But then it has to acknowledge that actually our genes aren’t deterministic. A label on phobias is typical: they are “shaped by your genetic inheritance, your experience and by your environment” – which seems to be pretty much everything to me. So where does that leave us? Why not bite the bullet and say frankly that genes are only part of a very complex story and we don’t have the whole picture?

There is almost no mention of the wider social contexts of the science presented, or of controversies within science. A case that presents average body size, IVF, sexual attraction and gender identity (why are these considered together?) has very little mention of the difference between sex and gender and the role of society in defining the latter. An exhibit on intelligence mentions past controversies about racial and social biases in measuring intelligence, but does not acknowledge current similar controversies or question the need for such measurements. None of the interactive exhibits take up these issues. Attentive visitors may want to read the books located at the end of some cases, or use the two nicely presented but out-of-the-way ethics exhibits, but on my visit few visitors had chosen to look at either of these.

The Science Museum may feel it has to champion science, but by taking that approach to this subject it does itself and science a disservice. The areas of science presented here are highly complex and have some profound implications which must be thoroughly debated. Speaking at the launch event for the new exhibition three eminent scientists, Sir John Sulston, Dr Francis Collins and Prof Mike Stratton, eloquently wove together the scientific, social, political, ethical and legal factors of genetic science, highlighting the nuances and limitations of their research. That is the kind of debate that this subject needs and deserves. Who Am I? might be fun, but that is not the right kind of engagement. 

Who Am I? Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD

This article appeared in People & Science, the magazine of the British Science Association, in September 2010.

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Darwin Centre Phase II

In the 1990s the Natural History Museum had a nasty surprise: the buildings housing its spirit collection – specimens kept in formaldehyde – were found to be unfit for purpose, and since formaldehyde is highly explosive this was a problem that needed to be dealt with pronto. The result was the first Darwin Centre. It was conceived as a new storage and laboratory space, but the last minute addition of a schedule of public events proved to be very popular. The recently opened Darwin Centre 2 hopes to build on and improve this “science and museum meet the public” approach in the Cocoon. In particular the NHM hopes to showcase its huge scientific research output. Visitors will certainly learn about some aspects of the Museum’s science, but it’s unfortunate that the Museum’s collection is scantily represented.

The exterior of the Cocoon is incredibly impressive. Designed by C F Møller Architects it is a long, thin, delicately curved structure that reaches eight-stories high. Finished in polished plaster, it a beautiful off-white colour with a slight marbled effect and resembles a large, smooth pebble. There is something rather tranquil about it. The Cocoon is located in a glass and steel atrium and abuts some of the NHM’s research labs, more of which later.

Visits to the Cocoon start on the top floor. Visitors spill out of the glass lift into a welcome lobby in the glass and steel building. From here it’s round the corner into the Cocoon which is dark, gloomy and has a rather industrial feel – all exposed services and concrete walls. There are two introductory audio-visual shows. One introduces us to four scientist guides, four real NHM scientists who crop up throughout the Centre. They are very charming, though clearly speaking from a script. The other film blinds us with impressive figures, most strikingly that the Cocoon houses nearly 20 million entomology and botanical specimens in more than 3.4km of cabinets. That’s a big wow factor, and certainly gets you thinking about what’s coming next….

…Which is why what comes next is a bit disappointing, because the Cocoon seems very empty. Visitors have to follow a fixed path through the centre that descends from one level to the next. The external walls are largely left as bare concrete, with an occasional artistic projection. The exhibits are housed in widely spaced niches in the centre of the Cocoon. Each niche presents a theme through a mixture of text panels, computer interactives, and surprisingly few specimens or other objects. It turns out that the 20 million specimens are housed in a part of the Cocoon that visitors don’t get to see. Even more disappointingly, at the end of the visit when there is a chance to pull out some draws and look at the specimens inside those specimens turn out to be photographs. Yes, photographs, not even facsimiles! 

The paucity of specimens is rather ironic because much of what the Darwin Centre tries to explain is the relationship between the specimens and the science that the Museum carries out. There is a particular emphasis on the importance of identifying, naming and classifying. There are niches that describe systems of classification, techniques used to identify specimens, how identification of species is important for preventative measures in areas prone to malaria (and, by extension, why it is important per se). The themes are only discussed in relation to science, which is a shame because these processes are central to museums as well and it feels as though an opportunity to explore the two sides of the Natural History Museum has been missed. 

Visitors can also learn about the practical application of the NHM’s work; for example the Museum’s involvement in identifying and collecting species has helped to create biological controls against whitefly and aided sustainable development in Panama. All this is presented in a very positive light. If the NHM had been brave it could have discussed some of the ethical issues surrounding its science, such as those concerning the collection of natural history specimens. 

A unique feature of Cocoon is that there are occasional glimpses into the Museum’s laboratories. What this shows is that science isn’t a glamorous occupation. In fact watching people sitting in front of a computer is not at all thrilling, although there is one room where scientists and visitors can speak to each other through an intercom. Being watched in this way can’t be very thrilling for the scientists either, and in some areas the Museum has had to put up signs asking visitors not to tap on the windows. This aspect of the Cocoon may seem like a damp squib, but arguably it’s a useful insight that counters some conventional, media-fuelled images of science.

In lieu of specimens – human or otherwise – the Cocoon has some very high-tech computer interactives. These suffer from some technical problems such as slow response times and lack of clear instructions, but their content is interesting and detailed. My favourite was about planning a field trip, which raised all kinds of issues that I hadn’t thought of before. There are also lots of videos of scientists talking about their work. The interactives and films are quite time consuming, but on my visit people seemed to be prepared to spend the time. 

The electronic content of the Cocoon continues outside the Museum on its website. Visitors have the option to pick up a NaturePlus card on the way into the Cocoon which allows them to select and store articles on a personalised page of the website. The articles are available at terminals dotted around the Cocoon, and the website contains messages boards and blogs. 

One could argue that Natural History Museum’s aim of showcasing its science has been achieved, but it’s not in an entirely satisfactory way. For a public-facing centre that sits on top of 20 million objects it seems ironic that so little of the collection is on display and that there is such a dependence on electronic content. For a centre that wants to discuss science, it’s a shame that there is no discussion of the complexities and ambiguities of research. Although the Cocoon succeeds in part, such a beautiful building deserves a more sophisticated approach.

The Darwin Centre, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD.

This article was first published in Museums Journal in 2009.

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The Garden Museum

Tucked away at the south end of Lambeth Bridge is the former church of St-Mary-at Lambeth. Threatened by demolition in the 1970s, the building was saved thanks to its connection to two outstanding gardeners. This is the place where John Tradescant and his son are buried, both of whom were royal gardeners and who introduced many new plants to Britain in the seventeenth century.  The Museum of Garden History that was founded in the 1970s has now undergone another transformation. A major building project has opened up the interior of the church, and the museum has become The Garden Museum.

The museum’s new airy, spacious interior bears little relation to its previous incarnation. Prior to this building project all of the museum’s facilities had been crammed into the single storey church. The reception, shop and exhibition merged into one another, there was little room to sit in the café, and exhibits had to be moved around to create space for seminars and other events. There was also no environmentally controlled space that would enable the museum to borrow objects for temporary exhibitions. Little wonder, then, that on his arrival as director Christopher Woodward decided it was time for renewal. 

The new interior was designed by Dow Jones Architects who had the idea of creating a belvedere inside the existing church structure. They have used a timber structure to create a single storey temporary exhibition space at the west end of the church. This space is fully enclosed so that the environment can be controlled. The timber walls of the exhibition space continue around the corner, creating additional storage areas without making the rest of the space feel cramped. 

Above the temporary exhibition space and storage areas sits a space that now houses the permanent exhibition and an education room. True to the concept of a belvedere, the permanent exhibition space is open to the rest of the church so that visitors have views over the nave and towards the stained glass windows at the far end. It is reached via a lift next to the entrance, or by the staircase that meanders up to the first floor from half way along the nave. The stairs serve a second function, namely to create a natural partition between the shop and the events space on the ground floor.

This simple architectural intervention in the building has done just what was asked of it. But it does have a downside: the newfound spaciousness of the museum can also make it feel a little empty. The events space is huge, but when there are no events going on it is simply filled with a line of tables on which are lever-arch files containing information on plants and/or press cuttings. The tables look as though they are waiting for executives to arrive for a board meeting, and the space feels as though it’s missing something. 

However, the temporary exhibition space makes up for this. At present there is an exhibition about the life and work of Beth Chatto, whose gardens within a garden at White Barn Farm introduced a new way of thinking about plants and gardening in the 1960s. The exhibition space has very simple cases that elegantly display photographs, and Chatto’s notes and books. There is art work by her mentor, Cedric Morris, and comments from those she has influenced, so that Chatto’s work is placed in a brief context of gardening history. The exhibition is very nicely designed, with a good use of large graphic panels showing images of Chatto’s creations, and a sympathetic colour scheme. In addition, for a paltry £2 visitors can buy a nicely produced and detailed catalogue.

Upstairs, the redisplay of the museum’s collection of gardening artefacts upstairs is certainly a refreshing change from the previous display. It is also a very small exhibition, and one can’t help feeling that there is more potential than has been realised. A tiny section titled ‘The Hired Gardener’ points out that the term gardener has ambiguous social status – from labourer to professional. This is a really interesting train of thought, but it isn’t really pursued. There is a case of tools belonging to “gentlemen gardeners” (including an all-in-one walking stick and pruning saw!) but it would be nice to have these put in the context of the trade/profession as a whole.

A similar kind of social context would be useful for other sections. The area on lawn care has some intriguing photographs of people posing with their lawnmowers. They were all taken between 1900 and 1935, and it would be wonderful to know why they were taken. 

One thing that is very clear from the exhibition, though not explicitly mentioned, is how little gardening tools have changed through the years. The case titled Oldest Tools contains items dating from 1500 to 1800. Without even reading the labels it is easy to identify shears, watering cans, dibbers and the like. It’s interesting to realise that we may have a more scientific understanding of plants and gardening today, but the tools we use have changed very little over hundreds of years.

Surprisingly there is little mention of the Tradescants. There is a copy of the catalogue of the Museaum Tradescantianuma tiny volume detailing the contents of the Tradescants’ garden in Latin, but that’s it. Perhaps they will be the subject of a later exhibition.

Once visitors have had their fill of gardening exhibits they can wander outside into the museum’s garden. The plants are labelled so that gardeners can take notes. Those whose gardening efforts aren’t always successful can take comfort from the very honest labels that accompany the formal knot garden, which document the trials and tribulations of dealing with dwarf box hedge. It’s refreshing to see that sometimes even professional gardeners run into difficulty.

The redesign of the museum has done exactly what was asked of it and the subtle change in name to the Garden Museum broadens the possibilities for future exhibitions. It’s true that the downstairs area does feel a little empty, and the permanent exhibition could be mined further, but with the addition of a temporary exhibition space this museum definitely feels revitalised.

The Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Rd, London SE1 7LB

This article was first published in Museums Journal in 2008.

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Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain

Dan Dare – “Pilot of the Future” – was the best known of the strips in the comic Eagle, which was published in the UK between 1950 and 1969. First drawn by Frank Hampson, Colonel Dare travelled throughout space in his personal spaceship, fighting his arch enemy the Mekon, ruler of the Treens, in amazing futuristic landscapes. Alongside Dan Dare Eagle also featured “cutaways”, detailed drawings of a piece of the latest British technology. Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain at London’s Science Museum aims to explore how the country tried to reinvent itself in the post-war period to 1970. Unfortunately Dan Dare disappears from the scene early on, and the rather uneven content might leave visitors wonder why they shouldn’t go to see the Museum’s other technological exhibition, Making the Modern World, instead.

Visitors are introduced to Dan Dare in a huge room overlooking Exhibition Road on one side and a void in the centre of the Museum on the other. The windows are covered by blinds printed with scenes from Dan Dare stories, and suspended in the void is a Bristol Bloodhound anti-aircraft missile. This is surely a scene to excite all those visitors who read Eagle as a child. Text panels tell us a little bit about the history of the magazine and its creators. Display cabinets house original Dan Dare storyboards, drawings and memorabilia. Over by the missile is a reproduction of one of Eagle’s cutaways explaining the technology involved. 

But it isn’t clear how Dan Dare or Eagle are going to guide us through the rest of the exhibition. The exhibition explores post-war British technology up to 1970, but doesn’t include the architecture influenced by Hampson’s landscapes, and the cutaways get only the briefest of mentions in this room. But as it turns out, with the exception of this first room Dan Dare isn’t mentioned at all.

From here visitors have a choice of what to see next. The exhibition is wrapped around three sides of the rectangular central void, with the introductory room on a short side and the other two sections on each of the long sides. Take the right hand exit from the first room and you can see Building A New Britain, take the left had exit and see Reinventing the Home. 

Building a New Britain explores how Britain “set out to reinvent itself as hi-tech nation.” Divided into four sections, it examines themes such as health, industry, transport and the military. The exhibits in each section are densely packed. There are large-scale objects from dentists’ chairs to coal cutters and cars, as well as arrays of smaller items like hearing aids and NHS glasses. The objects are almost too dense: they feel crammed against the wall, hidden behind a barrier of text and graphics which tries not only to given stories behind each object, but also to contextualise them as well. Individually, the objects are really interesting and have many stories to tell. But packed together like this, without the chance to examine each on its own, it is easy to feel overwhelmed; there’s no break from the objects, graphics or text and it’s difficult to take it all in. 

The contextualisation is a little tricky, too. Although the text panels briefly acknowledge the post-war social contexts that were relevant to many of the developments on display, the over-arching tone is one of technological advance solving all problems. So for example, at one point the halving of child mortality and routine immunisation seem to be portrayed as the result of new technologies, without the role of the newly formed NHS being fully explained. 

The Science Museum is trying out some of its own new technology in the exhibition, and it’s in this part that visitors can test the mobile phone audio tour. By dialling a UK landline number followed by a three-digit code given on the text panels, visitors can hear a commentary about certain objects. The commentaries start with a dramatic scenario featuring the object, and then go on to give historical information. They’re fun, though they might not satisfy those who want serious, detailed, historical information. The mobile phone audio tour is a neat idea as it’s cheaper and easier than an audio guide – provided that you have a UK mobile phone and speak English. Perhaps in future the service will be expanded to offer cheap rate calls for overseas visitors and a choice of languages.

At the end of Building a New Britain, the awkwardness of the U-shaped space comes to the fore. To get to Reinventing the Home, visitors have either to retrace their steps or wade through a section of the Energy Gallery. Taking the latter option, visitors first encounter a bank of computers testing another new Science Museum technology. This one’s to do with the Ingenious website and the Object Wiki, though it isn’t clear what these are or how they relate to the exhibition. However it is quite possible that the terminals are there to fill space because if Building a New Britain felt overcrowded with objects, this section is almost deserted. It seems rather bizarre that the Science Museum doesn’t have many objects to illustrate post-war domestic technology, even if the story is the failure of British manufacturing to respond to more sophisticated foreign competitors. But then again, perhaps they are all in Making the Modern World?

Two floors below Dan Dare, Making the Modern World is a large permanent exhibition of objects that represent key technological developments in health, industry, transport and the home… Granted, this is more international in scope and over an extended period of time, but it clearly demonstrates that the museum has these objects in its collections, so why not show more of them here? 

Dan Dare is a strange exhibition: one that doesn’t quite use a famous cartoon character to present rather uneven content that is in danger of being outshone by another exhibition. The themes are interesting, and the using new technology for interpretation is a great idea, but the exhibition doesn’t live up to its promise.

Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain was at the Science Museum, London in spring 2008.

A version of this article first appeared in Museums Journal in 2008.

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Experimental Thinking

What is the point of science centres? This is the question currently on the mind of the Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, and science centre chiefs couldn’t be happier.

After concerted lobbying on the part of science centres, the committee is holding an inquiry into their role and funding. The science centres have pushed for this because, they claim, they are so under-resourced that they can only just survive as they are, let alone develop. They hope that the committee will recommend central government funding. But of course it’s not going to be quite that straightforward.

The fact that some science centres are facing dire financial difficulties is clear. Earlier this year At Bristol announced the closure of its IMAX and Wildwalk exhibition in order to shore up its finances. But at least it’s still open; others have not been so lucky — the Big Idea in Irvine closed in 2003 when falling visitor numbers made it unsustainable and the Earth Centre near Doncaster wound up its operations in 2004 for similar reasons. But how did such a parlous state of affairs come about?

The story starts in the mid-1990s when a number of cities submitted proposals to the Millennium Commission for funding to support local regeneration schemes that had a science centre as their flagship project. This idea was repeated in many cities with, it would appear, little forward planning or coordination.

As a consequence many science centres found themselves in a wilderness with scant passing trade — bad news for organisations that need fee-paying visitors. Glasgow Science Centre was the major project aimed at regenerating of Pacific Quay, one of the city’s old docks. Kirk Ramsay, the chief executive of the centre, says that when it opened in 2001 it was in a desolate part of the city with no local traffic at all. ‘The science centre has had to exist on this barren site for all that time, which made life difficult at times,’ he admits. He is beginning to see a change though now that there are bridges to tie the centre to the city, and the soon-to-open next door will also attract people. The new Museum of Transport will also open nearby in December 2010. But the some of the planned redevelopment is years behind schedule. This situation is not untypical.

Goéry Delacôte, the chief executive of At Bristol On says that on top of poor infrastructure and development planning, there was a lack of in-built financial sustainability in the original schemes. At-Bristol was the reincarnation of Explore, one of the UK’s first science centres, when it became the focus of a bid to regenerate Bristol’s city centre. Given At-Bristol’s recent difficulties, it is hard to believe that the initial funding for the new centre and surrounding site was nearly £100m, but of course that was capital funding only which promised nothing towards revenue costs or the future development of exhibits.

But science centres were supposed to be self-sustaining businesses; all of them had to submit business models as part of their Millennium Commission bids. So is it fair to ask the government to bail them out now? Sally Montgomery, at the 5W science centre in Belfast is one the few chief executives to be involved in her project from the outset. She is blunt: ‘The Millennium Commission said that you should be able to stand on your own feet and be sustainable. Well, that’s fine but our business plan never, ever showed that.’

Ramsay in Glasgow, who has been in post for two and a half years, takes the view that often the early management of science centres was poor and says that they often had no knowledge or experience at all in managing an operation. ‘None of them had operated in the commercial world. So when you looked at the fundamentals of how the business was run, and what the expectations were for the business, it was totally unrealistic.’ However, he admits that even when run as competently as possible science centres will not be totally self-sufficient.

Being in a room with the chief exec of a science centre can be a little unnerving: to say they are passionate about their cause is something of an understatement. That cause fits broadly under the heading of science education. Nick Winterbotham, the chief executive officer of Think Tank in Birmingham, says he wants to ‘create a new kind of inquiry’ and talks about an ‘enabling environment’ that makes visitors feel they can make a difference to issues such as global warming. Delacôte wants to be ‘a logistic base for helping schools to change and improve their way of teaching’. All say they want to ‘empower’ ‘motivate’ and ‘engage’ visitors, though those concepts are not always clearly defined.

But ask what the future holds and most chief executives will name two things: outreach and contemporary science. Delacôte wants to ‘reach out to where people are — schools, community centres, teachers, science learning centres’. Peter Trevitt, the chief executive of Techniquest in Cardiff, wants to do more outreach particularly in schools: ‘to reach people who don’t think science is for them’.

Ramsay points to the their independence as a factor that sets them apart from other organisations involved in science education. He cites Al Gore’s film about climate change and a recent Channel 4 documentary on the same subject as an example where presenting very different accounts of the same subject can lead to confusion. ‘The truth is they’re all biased. But you can ask one or two fairly straightforward questions and quickly get to the facts.’ Trevitt agrees: ‘This complex balancing exercise is the missing ingredient [in science communication]. That’s what society lacks; it doesn’t have a body or institution that understands that and can handle it and we can therefore be a kind of trusted reference point.’

But communicating science to the public is a competitive field. The British Association, the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society would all consider themselves to be impartial facilitators in science. And one question that has not yet been asked is how government funding or other sponsorship would affect the perception of science centres’ independence.

A focus on outreach in schools may put science centres in competition with government’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network (STEMNET) initiative. This national agency part-funds local science outreach initiatives called SETPOINTS, with the rest of the money coming from regional development agencies or local businesses.

An additional problem for science centres is the lack of evaluation of their effectiveness. Trevitt says that evaluation and research is needed, but acknowledges the difficulties in measuring the long-term impacts of science centres. Montgomery from 5W agrees: ‘I think we need some more money going into some very careful studies.’ She would like to see a study comparing object-led and interactive-led approaches to science communication. Working out how to do this is important because any new government funding will most likely be dependent on science centres being able to prove their worth.

As it stands science centres are in a tight spot. They were set up as regeneration projects with only capital funding; they cannot sustain their operating costs, let alone development, and they are potentially in competition with other better-funded organisations. Add to that the difficulty of proving their value and it seems as though they are set for a fall. So what is it exactly that they want in the way of help?

The answer is money, but they don’t speak with one voice on the type of funding they would like. Delacôte wants the government to establish a £10m fund to support competitive bids for development projects. How this would differ from, say, Wellcome Trust grants, is not clear; and if all parts of the science communication or science education community could apply to it, £10m may not be enough. Winterbotham feels that the government is shirking its responsibilities, but is more reticent about what he wants. He admits to looking at the situation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with envy. In those countries science centres are already funded by their respective national assemblies. The Scottish funding is a tripartite system: science centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee, receive core funding and are also able to make competitive bids to a development fund. There is a third strand of funding for other science communication operators.

Techniquest in Cardiff and 5W in Belfast both have agreements that give them core funding in return for achieving certain targets. In addition Trevitt would like a source of investment capital to allow Techniquest to ‘grow’; for example to create an outdoor area at the site in Cardiff and to expand activities in the centre’s three outposts. Montgomery points to the capital funding needed to refurbish interactives that have to sustain heavy use, but she is pragmatic on the question of funding. She acknowledges the potential competing interests of science centres and other science education organisations: ‘There are lots of agencies doing similar things and there should be a rationalisation… Why isn’t someone taking a holistic approach and saying we could make some efficiency here by looking at how we deliver [the services]?’

Such a review may be the best that science centres can hope for when the Select Committee inquiry reports in the next two months. Government spending for the next three years will be determined by the Comprehensive Spending Review to be announced in the autumn, and unless the centres get really lucky it’s unlikely that there’ll be an odd £10m floating around for them.

This article was first published in Museums Journal, September 2007.

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