The recent report created by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in collaboration with the National Museum Directors Council (NMDC), looks at the efforts of 17 major museums across the UK that have partnered across the museum circles, both locally and internationally on projects such as object loans, and the sharing of knowledge and cultural heritage.
Object loans made up a substantial part of their efforts between 2017 and 2018. The report revealed that the UK national museums made 69,299 object loans. These objects were put on display across 2110 locations altogether and were witnessed by 32.9 million visitors at the very least. Along with this, roughly 14.4 million people saw these objects across various museums outside of the UK. A perfect example would be that of the object loans made to an exhibition in China, which were seen by 2.2 million visitors. This went on to facilitate more extensive cultural exchanges such as reciprocal staff exchange and a Chinese language website.
Meanwhile, 60,022 cultural objects were loaned out to more than 900 local sites that were able to reach an 18.4 million-strong audience. These also included touring exhibitions (37, to be exact) that visited 127 different locations all over the UK.
These object loans come with substantial costs attached. National museums usually invest the largest amounts as they provide staff expertise and equipment. Besides the national museums, trusts and large foundations also contribute to these loan programmes. The Dorset Foundation, for example, has lent financial support to British museum’s object loan programmes since 2002. UK national museums have themselves assisted other museums in acquiring objects. There have been 462 acquisitions so far that have been enabled by UK national museums for 205 different organisations across the UK.
They also increasingly provide training programmes. For example, the National Museum of Scotland has a national training programme that trained 310 staff members from 75 different organisations during 2017-18.
On the sidelines, UK national museums are also active members in several groups and networks such as the Museums Computer Group, UK Registrars, and other sector-specific networks. For example, National Museums Liverpool served as the leading body for the Federation of International Human Rights Museums (FIHRM). This body has over 130 members across 37 countries.
The national museums are also active in the corporate and skills development sector with their traineeship programmes. Their 60 apprenticeship programmes have paved the way for youth who are interested in working in the museum sector to gain entry into this sector. The National Gallery’s curatorial traineeship programme is a yearlong trainee programme which provides thorough training across two sites. Royal Museums Greenwich offers a diploma in conservation while BM’s Museum Futures programme trains the youth in the management of digital data.
Furthermore, there are over 2584 partnerships that the UK national museums have forged across the globe. 1025 of these are with local educational institutions. National museums have also collaborated with 68 universities across the UK to co-host 287 doctoral students.
