"Cry for help and comfort" from NH museums survey

Most of the museums responding with freeform comments to the questionnaire seem to be under pressure - especially financial pressure and stakeholder pressure. They feel that it is increasingly difficult to maintain what has been built up in the late twentieth century in what appears to be them a much tougher twenty-first century environment and probably getting worse.

There is widespread frustration that what they - the people who are running the museums - have identified as priority museum needs are apparently often not shared by government, government agencies and local authorities. This is seen as creating barriers to long term sustainability and is a clear and present threat to their existence. This is particularly seen in the tension between education and access on the one part and collection development and conservation on the other.

Their frustration makes them bitter and vitriolic in their disappointment with funding initiatives which fail to deliver exactly what they believe they and their museums need. They are unable or disinclined to understand the limitations imposed upon all public funding initiatives and apparently have little or no interest in longer term visions for the sector as a whole.

Taken together the comments reflect a collective cry for help and comfort. Many museum curators and managers are feeling alienated and uncared for in a time of significant change.

Updates of the National Heritage Survey are published regularly. For more information please contact the Administrator, Liz Moore