Museums and heritage

A research project is supporting a set of museums and galleries to make their collections more accessible for people with disabilities.

The Sensational Museum is a £1m project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It will support museums in creating sensory interventions that are accessible to all and created for people who cannot experience museums in traditional ways.

According to the project’s website, twelve museums, galleries, archives and heritage sites are involved in the pilot.

Among them is Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which is planning four workshops in September and October.

The museum’s Head of Public Engagement and Learning, Sarah-Jane Harknett, told the BBC it will work with local people to "shape not just this museum, but museum practice".

"It will be the ideas from the participants that will really help make it more engaging, more accessible, just better for lots of different people," Harknett said.

The Sensational Museum project will also work to showcase best practice examples of museums and heritage sites across the UK.

The Director of the British Museum, Nicholas Cullinan, has said he plans to keep the institution free to all visitors.

Speaking to The Times, Cullinan, who took up post in June, said: “Free admission is one big reason why I have stayed in this country. It makes our museums very special.

"That said, it doesn’t mean museums shouldn’t be constantly thinking about how to earn income and be as self-sufficient as possible. But they already are doing that. Most museums are funded primarily by themselves, not the taxpayer.”

Discussing a slate of planned renovations, rebuilds and an innovative digital database, estimated to cost a total of at least £1bn, Cullinan said: "Luckily, I enjoy fundraising. But this is obviously quite a challenge.”

With £50m of funding secured from BP, Cullinan spoke of accepting money from controversial donors: “I think the debate has changed, but what hasn’t changed are the two criteria against which you weigh up donations and sponsorship.” 

“One is: was the money legally acquired? The other is: will accepting it cause us reputational damage? I think you have to have very good, clear reasons for turning down money that would help to keep the British Museum free to the public.”

Cullinan also discussed his hopes that a forthcoming redesign of the institution's 'western range' galleries, which house the Parthenon Sculptures, the Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies, would allow for an opportunity to rethink how visitors navigate the building and interpret the collection.

Clarifying his intentions around changes to how the collection is displayed, Cullinan said: “What I mean is making sure our scholarship is up to date, not conforming to a particular sort of political agenda."

A digital platform that will bring together more than 100 million object records from 1,750 accredited museums and other collections across the UK has launched today (13 September).

Created through a collaboration between Art UK, Collections Trust and the University of Leicester and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Museum Data Service (MDS) is a single, unified resource for researchers, educators, curators and content developers.

Allowing organisations to upload and securely manage their object records easily, MDS has been designed to be accessible for all museums, regardless of size, while making it easy for users to search and retrieve records across multiple collections and diverse databases.

The platform will also be a backup resource, especially for smaller collections lacking robust digital infrastructures.

MDS is primarily designed for institutional use and does not include images, but it allows onward users to incorporate visual content.

Its initial collection will comprise 3,129,798 records from 21 museums, with another nearly two million records in the pipeline. Art UK, the first major user of MDS, aims to double the number of artworks on the platform from 300,000 to 600,000 by the end of the year.

"The launch of the Museum Data Service is a landmark achievement for the cultural and academic sectors, offering a powerful new tool for researchers and curators," said Professor Nishan Canagarajah, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester. 

"By centralising millions of museum records in one accessible platform, we are not just preserving history, we are making it easier to explore, study and innovate."

Kevin Gosling, MDS Managing Director, added: “The website view of the data is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more going on in the back end, with innovative features that allow museums to manage their data securely and share it in a controlled way. Building trust across the sector is key, and the MDS is designed with that in mind.”

Professor Christopher Smith, Chair of the AHRC, said: “This major milestone in the full integration of modern technology and our rich cultural heritage will create a place where anyone can access the immense resources held by our museums.

“Not only will this open these resources up to the public in ways that would have been unimaginable even twenty years ago, but it will also enable museums to manage and share their data securely and sustainably."

A collection of artefacts of significant cultural importance to the Aboriginal Warumungu Community in Australia's Northern Territory have been returned by the Horniman Museum in London.

The items, including a Wurtil (water carrier), Ngurrulumuru (pick), Marttans (knives), Murkutu (sheath), Warnanja (axe) and Wartilykirri (hooked boomerangs), were returned on Wednesday (11 September) at a formal handover ceremony at the museum.

​The Horniman said the return took place after a formal request for the Warumungu materials was received on 3 May 2023.

Michael Jones Jampijinpa, Senior Warumungu Elder, said: “Because it’s been taken away from here, we would like to see all those things come back to the area where they were collected. 

"They are Warumungu and they need to come back to Warumungu country. I want to thank them [Horniman Museum] for sending those things back to us. They’ve made a choice to send them back to where they belong. 

"It wasn’t them who collected it, it was their ancestors, so I want to thank them.”

​Michael Salter-Church, Chair of the Horniman Museum and Gardens, said the return of the objects will support the passing on of Warumungu culture and lore to future generations. 

"The trustees of the Horniman Museum and Gardens are very pleased to enable their return and are honoured to welcome community elders to Forest Hill for the ceremony. 

"Throughout the return process, the Horniman has enjoyed a warm and collaborative relationship with all representatives from Australia. We look forward to continuing this into the future as we connect our visitors and community with global cultures and the natural environment, encouraging us to shape a positive future for the world we all share."

A council report has warned that plans to revamp Hereford Museum and Art Gallery could cost £21.8m instead of the £19.2m budgeted, partly due to the unexpected discovery of asbestos in the building.

Higher scaffolding fees and a new electrical substation have also contributed to the increased predicted spending.

Herefordshire Council's progress report said that the anticipated costs “can be reduced through working with a contractor" but that the project will only proceed if it is “deliverable and within the approved budget”.

The project will add six new galleries and display spaces to the grade II-listed building, as well as a temporary exhibition space, a fifth floor, and new commercial and retail space.

The local authority is contributing £8.4m while a further £10.8m has been secured from government, the National Lottery and Arts Council England with other funding bids "also being explored".

Councillor Harry Bramer said the council would probably adjust where and how the available budget is spent at the final design stage.

“We won’t get final costs until we work through the detailed elements of the design with a construction partner, which is the next phase of the project," he said.

Nottingham City Council is considering operating its museums and galleries under a charitable trust model.

Commissioners were appointed in February to assess how the council should run its museums services, following the reopening of Nottingham Castle after the independent Nottingham Castle Trust went into liquidation.

According to local press, the assessment suggested the creation of a development trust and exhibition trust, which would be used to supplement the council in running the museum's service.

During a Communities and Environment Scrutiny Committee meeting held in July, a council officer said Nottingham could mirror operations in Leeds and Manchester, which both operate development and exhibition trusts that are wholly-owned by the council and help bring in extra funding and tax relief.

The officer said control, transparency and oversight from the council is “imperative”, adding “there is no intent to replicate the Nottingham Castle Trust model”. 

The council’s museums service currently runs Wollaton Hall, Newstead Abbey, Nottingham Industrial Museum and the Museum of Nottingham Life, alongside Nottingham Castle.

The National Trust has "much more" to do in order to ensure it has a diverse workforce, according to the organisation’s annual report.

The report states that the trust's ambition “is for a broader diversity of people to be represented in the demographics of our staff and volunteers as well as our visitors". 

As part of its Everyone Welcome initiative, last year the trust published The Everyone Welcome Inclusion and Diversity Progress Report.

This showed that 3.8% of staff were disabled people, 3% were people of colour and 6.9% identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and other minority sexual orientations.

Staff numbers in all these categories were increasing.

The annual report said that although the Inclusion and Diversity Report showed that workforce diversity is gradually increasing each year, "we have much more to do, especially when it comes to recruiting people of colour and disabled people”.

The Everyone Welcome programme is also focusing on broadening the range of people who visit trust venues. 

According to its annual report, in 2023/24 the trust spent £5.5m on improving physical access for disabled people.