About the project
While thousands of visitors every year enjoy the incredible objects in museum collections every year, what many don’t realise is that these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what museums keep. Figures vary, but in 2019 the Science Museum estimated that around 97 per cent of its collections were in storage at any one time (Barrett, Humphreys, 2019). This is duplicated across the museum sector, and in museums around the world. But with public money often used to care for these publicly owned resources, how can museums ensure access to these collections? And what does ‘access’ ideally and practically mean? These questions are being asked in a time of profound change for many museum collections. Pressures on space and budget, have meant many museums are relocating their collections to new purpose-built storerooms, often some distance from their public sites.
Led by the University of Westminster, and in partnership with the Science Museum Group, Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales and Ingenium - Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation, ‘The Building Heritage Infrastructure Network: community, locality, and materiality in the museum storeroom’ an AHRC-funded research network is seeking to explore some of these questions.
Aims and objectives
The network brings together a multidisciplinary group to explore the role that storerooms play in the present-day heritage landscape. Working with professionals from the cultural sector and beyond the network directly informs the ways in which these spaces are used at the point when many museums are rethinking collections storage. We will achieve this via three knowledge exchange activities which will engage with the following research questions:
- What is the current state of access to collections in storage, particularly given the impact on the Covid-19 pandemic on museum closures?
- What does meaningful access to and engagement with museum storage look like for different users and how can this be used to enhance the overall museum experience?
- How can stored collections be used as a resource for educators, from school age through to postgraduate teaching?
- What is the relationship between digital and physical forms of collections access and what might be the benefits of a blended approach?
- What does a successful access strategy to museum storage look like and how can we measure the impact of improving access to stored collections?