Archive for the 'Case Studies' Category

UMG/NCCPE event: Impact and evaluation – learning together

Published on February 10, 2012 in Case Studies.

Report on the UMG/NCCPE event: Impact and evaluation – learning together
7th Feb 2012, Great North Museum, Newcastle

Download this report as a pdf –  UMG NCCPE Event report, Feb 2012

An interest in issues around how university museums demonstrate their successes and their value brought around fifty people together in Newcastle for an engaging and thought provoking day at the Great North Museum this week.  Discussions were both wide-ranging and deep, so this is an attempt to summarise the key themes of the day, with apologies for any over-simplifications or omissions:

Paul Manners of the NCCPE provided an extremely useful keynote, outlining the differences between evaluation and impact, and how we might move use the former as evidence of the latter.  Evaluation is important for measuring what we did and how well we did it.  It might be undertaken for a number of reasons: for internal communication; as a means of learning from mistakes or successes; for reporting to funders; and as a tool for advocacy.  The results of evaluation might be presented differently, depending on the intended audience.  For example, an internal report might include a ‘warts and all’ analysis including the things that went less well; whereas a report to funders or external stakeholders might present the data in a more purely positive light.

Impact is different from evaluation in that it implies a requirement to account for the success of the activity as a whole.  Put another way, it’s the difference between ‘outputs’ (eg how many holiday activities did the museum run, and how many children came?); and ‘outcomes’ (ie what difference did we actually make to those children?).  The current concern with impact in the museum sector is perhaps an indication of the realisation that a ‘bums on seats’ (or ‘visitors through the door’) method of accounting for our activities is no longer sufficient.  We need to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the transformative potential of museum experiences.  Only then will we really be able to make the case for continued funding, from whichever source, in an increasingly difficult economic climate.

There are a number of different models that can be used to assess impact.  For example, the Generic Learning Outcomes framework, developed by the MLA several years ago, was an attempt to map the impact of museum visiting on visitors.  The Arts Council have defined their goals as excellence, reach, engagement, diversity and innovation, while other organisations have developed their own frameworks (eg the BBC, the New Economics Foundation, local authorities), all of which might have some relevance for museums.  So there is no shortage of models which museums could use to measure their impact, depending on where their priorities lie.

In the context of today’s discussion, much of the emphasis was on the Research Excellence Framework (REF), used to assess the activities of the Higher Education sector, and therefore of particular interest to those in university museums.  As well as the ‘excellence’ of an institution’s research outputs, the REF is concerned with the ‘impact’ of that research.  In other words, there is a requirement to demonstrate that research has been ‘effectively shared’ with audiences beyond academia, and this accounts for 20% of an institution’s overall score.

The day’s discussions therefore ranged between impact in general and ‘impact’ in REF-able terms.  As Paul Manners indicated, the concept of measuring impact was not universally welcomed by academics when it was introduced a few years ago.  It was seen as an attempt to measure the un-measurable and to impose a market culture on universities, and was fiercely resisted by many.  However, the general feeling within today’s gathering was that university museums ought to be in a good position to help their institutions demonstrate impact, since they provide an interface between academia and the wider public, and should therefore have a role in making new ideas available to audiences beyond Higher Education.  It was generally agreed that the REF might offer university museums the opportunity to reposition themselves at the centre of their host institutions’ activity.

At first glance, it looks quite straightforward.  Find an academic in your institution who has written an interesting (and REF-able) article or book: turn it into an exhibition.  Result: impact.  In reality, however, it’s a little trickier.  On the one hand, it’s not always easy to account for the passage of ideas from an article to an exhibition, since there are many other factors at play.  Secondly, a great academic paper does not necessarily translate well into an interesting and engaging exhibition which anyone will actually want to see.  Thirdly (and perhaps most frustratingly), lots of interesting work in museums is done by people (curators, artists in residence etc) who are not academic staff, hence their work is not ‘REF’-able’, and can’t be counted.

There is work to be done, then, on making university museums more easily able to demonstrate impact in terms of the REF.  We need to gather good case studies which show clear evidence of linkages between university research and public outcomes.  We need to value the very particular skills that museum staff often have in making complex ideas accessible to non-specialist audiences, and we need to stop thinking of exhibitions as the only vehicle for the dissemination of ideas (what about podcasts, websites, blogs, wikis etc? – all of which could be ‘curated’).  Above all we need to develop a vision for the role that university museums might play, in order to position ourselves strategically for the forthcoming REF and for the one after that.

At the same time, museums – including university museums – ought to be prepared to demonstrate their impact on and benefit to, society more generally.  In other words, while undoubtedly important, the REF is not the only game we are playing.  Eric Cross of Newcastle University outlined the way in which the redevelopment of the Great North Museum from a number of smaller institutions was spurred on by the University’s concern for greater impact in terms of the local and regional economy, public engagement, income generation and so on.  A number of other speakers also presented case studies of projects which offered really excellent outcomes for a variety of audiences.  We need to remember that universities are concerned with other agendas including enhancing the student experience, which might mean a concern for scores in the National Student Survey as well as the REF.

In summary, it seems to me that we all need to get better at evaluation, which means setting the right objectives in the first place, measuring the right things, and asking the right questions of ourselves.  We need to present the data, both as individual institutions, and as a sector, so as to demonstrate the remarkable achievements that university museums make.  (In fact we might need to juggle the same data to present evidence of different kinds of impact to different funding bodies or stakeholders).  Only with all of this in place will we be in a position to provide evidence of impact whether for the REF or against criteria set by other funders, and thus ensure that we are really worth what we cost, not merely worthwhile.

Zoë Hendon, Head of Museum & Collections
Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture
Middlesex University

Feb 2012

‘Life without air conditioning’ presentations

Published on December 23, 2010 in Case Studies.

On 10 December 2010, the University Museums Group organised a seminar ‘Life Without Air Conditioning?’ at the University of Cambridge, which involved over 100 museum and gallery professionals, including senior figures in conservation and collections care in national museums and galleries, university museums and galleries, universities and consultants. The seminar was aimed at reviewing the current evidence provided by conservation science on the appropriate standards for the exhibition, loan and storage of museum and gallery objects. This is because in order to achieve current standards, it is necessary to specify the installation of air conditioning in all galleries which receive loans, which is undesirable at a time when we are more concerned about energy costs and the environment.

Copies of the presentations made during this seminar can be found below.

Sarah Staniforth (National Trust) ‘The Museum Environment: think globally, act locally’.

Sarah Staniforth presentation 10 Dec 2010

Stephen Hackney (Tate) ‘Museum environmental conditions – a sustainable range’

Stephen Hackney presentation 10 Dec 2010

Maria Balshaw (Whitworth Art Gallery) ‘A case study of the Whitworth’s new capital development’

Maria Balshaw presentation 10 Dec 2010

The papers and discussions at the seminar reviewed research over the last 15 years and recent discussions through the Bizot group and others, and at its conclusion made the attached declaration, approved by all participants (save one abstention).   UMG seminar declaration Dec 2010

Participants agreed that the declaration should be circulated for comment and that other organisations should be invited to adopt it and implement it if they see fit.

Please email any comments to Nick Merriman, Chair of the University Museums Group, at nick.merriman@manchester.ac.uk by 1 February 2011.

Learning together: Haida people, Haida collections, and the Pitt Rivers Museum

Published on October 21, 2010 in Case Studies.

Institution name: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Summary:  How do museums create ongoing relationships with overseas indigenous communities around the collections from those communities?  How can both the museum and its staff and audiences, and the community, benefit from working together around the collections?  Supported by a Leverhulme International Networks grant, we invited a group of Haida artists and elders to work with the Haida collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum.  They benefited from seeing historic masterpieces and cultural treasures: artists learned technique and refined form, language terms were retrieved, memories recorded of traditional life.  The Museum gained information on nearly all 300 objects studied.  We are now looking together at future projects to sustain our relationship: an internship at PRM?  A placement at the Haida Cultural Centre?  The carving of a replica box to match a masterpiece and take home to Haida communities?  We hope all of these and more will happen in the future.

Download this case study as a pdf: UMG member project case study – Pitt Rivers Museum, Haida people

Keywords: Haida – Indigenous source community – collaboration

Background: The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum of world cultures from all periods of history; it is famous for its Victorian-inspired displays and cutting-edge ethnographic curation.  We have worked with Indigenous communities in North America for over a decade to create access to collections and learn about them.

Objectives: To bring the Pitt Rivers Museum and an Indigenous community from whom the Museum holds historic collections together in a permanent and mutually supportive relationship, to explore what our different needs and goals are, and to explore ways of meeting these and maintaining a relationship in the long term.

Project details:  With a Leverhulme International Networks grant, we were able to hire Dr Cara Krmpotich, a specialist on Haida culture, as network facilitator.  Krmpotich organized the visit and ensured the smooth coordination of retrieval, photography, and conservation of 300 objects and the addition of information into the database following the visit.  Since the entire Museum staff was involved, and a large group of Haidas travelling from abroad (some for the first time overseas), the facilitator was essential.  We also worked with the British Museum and took the Haida delegates to see collections in their storage facility.  This was a logistically demanding project, requiring extensive travel arrangements, new techniques for managing a large number of objects being processed over a 6-month lead-in period and then put away after the visit.  We also trained Museum staff in cross-cultural skills for recording information and working with Haidas in the object handling sessions.  It was a joy to see real expertise brought by Haidas to the objects, to see objects danced, to hear traditional stories told about the crest figures decorating Haida objects, and to witness public dance performances and demonstrations.

Project outcomes and impact: The photographs of Haida objects were posted on Flickr, our first experiment with that site, and attracted positive comments from Haidas who were not able to come to the UK.  We are now working on a book about the project and its process, which will be co-authored with Haida participants.  Artists have taken inspiration from historic collections in the making of new works, and want very much to return to copy a box in the PRM collections.  UK project staff travelled to Haida Gwaii in August 2010 to consult with Haida delegates there about future work together, and we hope to sponsor an intern in the UK for training and to do placements to train staff at the Haida Gwaii Museum.  While there, UK staff also worked to begin a facilities report for the Haida Gwaii Museum, so that it can accept loans of treasures held in the UK.  PRM has new educational material for public programs which we hope to improve again soon with Haida help, and we anticipate several podcasts and new display labels as a result.  And, we have Haida colleagues to whom we can turn for answers to cultural and ethical display issues.

What went well? Getting to know Haida people and their perspectives on historic treasures; the dance/public performances and art demos, which were enthusiastically given and received; the mutual respect that developed between PRM staff and Haidas during the object study sessions, as we all came to recognize each others’ knowledge.  And the great respect shown by Museum staff, who agreed to active forms of object handling such as dance (for some masks and dance paddles), so that Haidas could feel a deep sense of reconnection with the collections.

What could have been done better? The length of the Haida visit to the UK was 3 weeks, which was a long time to be away from home in strange environments.  We didn’t have budget for as much video/audio recording as we would have liked, and we had too many eager volunteer note-takers: it was difficult to get a balance between learning for the Museum’s records and not interfering with Haidas’ learning from the artefacts.

Conclusions and recommendations for the future:  This required a great deal of planning and logistical coordination inside the Museum and for the travel aspect of the project; a dedicated post was needed to facilitate the project.  We also found that we needed to invent new ways of storing a sub-collection in active use for some 9 months during preparation for the visit and during the visit; we needed to think through how objects would be presented to Haidas, and deal with emotional, cross-cultural interaction during the study sessions: this sort of project requires mentoring from those who have the ethnographic and cross-cultural skills and who have done such handling/study sessions before.  It’s worth it, though!

Contact name and email address:

Dr Laura Peers

Curator (Americas)

Pitt Rivers Museum

Laura.peers@prm.ox.ac.uk

Case Study: Lindow Man temporary exhibition

Published on August 27, 2010 in Case Studies.

Institution name: The Manchester Museum

Summary: The loan of the 2500-year-old Lindow Man, Britain’s best-preserved bog body, by the British Museum resulted in an award-winning temporary exhibition at the Manchester Museum (April 2008- April 2009). Staff at the Manchester Museum had been working on the ethical treatment of human remains in museums. The exhibition Lindow Man: a Bog Body Mystery attempted to raise the issue for public debate. Following a public consultation staff decided to interpret the body from a number of perspectives, in order to show what the remains meant to different people. There was an outcry when the exhibition opened because some people didn’t like the design or the multi-vocal approach to interpretation. The issue of the sensitivity of human remains that the Museum set out to tackle became a debate about interpretation, expertise and authority.  

Download case study as a pdf: case study – Manchester Museum, Lindow Man

Keywords: Exhibition, Archaeology, Human Remains, Ethics, Museology

Background: The Manchester Museum is part of the University of Manchester.  It actively encourages students and lecturers to make use of the collections for teaching and research and attracts over 300,000 visitors a year.  Some 4.25 million objects are held in the natural sciences and human cultures collections.  These disciplines are reflected in the Museum’s mission to promote global sustainability and understanding between different cultures. 

The Museum had a special interest in displaying Lindow Man: staff helped to recover the body in 1984 and two previous temporary exhibitions  in 1986 and 1991 attracted record numbers of visitors. 

Objectives:  In displaying Lindow Man for a third time since the discovery in 1984. The Manchester Museum wanted to engage a new generation of people from Manchester and the North West with one of Britain’s most famous archaeological discoveries, to stimulate public debate about how human remains are treated in museums and other public institutions, to display the body in a respectful and sensitive manner and to explore different interpretations of the body.  The Museum wanted to reflect recent discussion about Lindow Man’s dating, the circumstances of his violent death and the interpretation of the evidence.   

Project details: The public consultation in 2007 was the first important milestone in the project. Given the potentially contentious nature of the subject matter the Museum invited a selection of different people to discuss the project. The group included museum curators, archaeologists, pagans, members of local archaeological societies and a representative from Manchester City Council. Consultation established that people wanted the Museum to treat the body sensitively and respectfully and to present different interpretations of Lindow Man.  The continuing archaeological debate about when and how Lindow Man had died meant that there was little about him that was not contested. It seemed that the most detailed forensic study of the body still had not resolved the big questions.

The Museum, therefore, took a multi-vocal approach to interpretation and invited seven individuals, each of whom had expertise or experience regarding Lindow Man, to contribute to the exhibition. They included two peat workers who discovered the body, the forensic archaeologist who examined Lindow Man at the British Museum, a landscape archaeologist, a member of the Lindow community involved in the unsuccessful campaign to repatriate the body to the North West, two museum curators and a pagan, for whom the body held spiritual significance.

Extracts from interviews held with the contributors and objects and personal mementos featured in the exhibition together with archaeological exhibits from both the Manchester Museum and the British Museum. 

The project also featured an innovative programme of education sessions and public events and activities. For example, in The Verdict secondary school students in a courtroom setting debated different interpretations of how Lindow Man had died.  A number of teams presented different interpretations of the manner his death: accident, murder or ritual sacrifice.  The team which presented the most convincing case on the day was the winner. There were also public debates, guided walks on Lindow Moss where the body was discovered, talks and seminars.

Engagement with the public about the issue of how museums treat human remains was a crucial element for funding bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Wellcome Trust.  Visitors to the exhibition filled in comments cards and posted them on a board for others to read and respond to.  Through the comments boards, the Museum posed several questions during the life of the exhibition such as ‘How did Lindow Man die?’ ‘and ‘Should museums display human remains?’ These questions stimulated considerable debate. The public also contributed comments and questions to the Lindow Man Blog.

Project outcomes and impact: This was the first time a high-profile project had been delivered by a team of curators and staff from different sections of the Museum, each contributing their own experience and expertise. A project team gave strategic direction whilst a content team developed the interpretative approach and the exhibits. This new way of working, different in style from traditional curator-led exhibitions, helped to develop team-working skills in the Museum.

Secondly the project engaged large numbers of visitors and other participants. Some 190,000 people participated in the project in some way. The project developed a model of exhibition making that integrated displays with education, marketing and public programmes. Rather than simply using the exhibition as a vehicle for communicating knowledge, the Museum was able to explore with audiences different aspects of Lindow Man through a range of media as appropriate.

The use of up-to-date media such as Blogs, YouTube and Flickr helped to promote discussion and disseminate coverage about  the exhibition in a stimulating way that engaged a new computer-literate audience.  This has now become embedded in the Museum’s practice.

What went well? In quantitative terms the project was a success. Visitor figures were high. There were over 26,000 hits on the Lindow Man website. The project won two awards:- the Design Week 2009  Award for Best Temporary Exhibition and the British Archaeological Award for Best Innovation for its engagement of the general public about the issue of human remains. Over 12,500 visitor comments cards were filled-in. Sixty-seven percent said they wanted the Manchester Museum to display human remains. This will guide future displays of human remains.

Qualitatively, the Museum received a great deal of thoughtful feedback from the public. Despite the clear wish to continue to see human remains on display at the Museum, many people stressed that this should be done in a respectful manner, by allowing visitors to choose whether they wanted to see the remains.  

Visitor Services Assistants stationed in the exhibition for security purposes also helped to interpret the body and answer questions from visitors.

The ‘low tech’ comments cards boards worked remarkably well and encouraged visitors to respond to the deep questions posed by the exhibition.  The shared experience of the exhibition was constantly changing.

The exhibition received good reviews in the academic literature.

What could have been done better? When the Lindow Man exhibition opened in April 2008 the Museum was criticised in strident terms on a number of Manchester websites. Critics claimed that the exhibition lacked content, that it pandered to ‘woolly pagan thinking’ about human remains and that it was ‘political correctness gone mad’.  Some questioned why it did not include an Iron Age roundhouse, a chariot and a model of a hill-fort. The aggressive tone of the criticism was unprecedented.

This criticism from more conservative quarters has prompted a debate about narrative authority and about whose voices should be heard in museum interpretation.  This is a fascinating subject for further discussion in seminars and at conferences.

The Museum could have framed its authorial responsibility more clearly. Despite its public consultation, critics said the Museum had left behind mainstream consumers of public archaeology.  The Museum revised an introductory panel following the opening to make it easier for visitors who found the exhibition challenging.  

Some consultees were disappointed with the Museum’s display of Lindow Man’s body and felt that it was not sufficiently sensitive.  The Museum’s inability to satisfy all the consultees’ expectations was an issue despite the exhibition team making it clear at the outset that it couldn’t implement everything asked of it.

Conclusions and recommendations for the future: The public consultation was a crucial stage in the project that helped create a degree of consensus about how the Museum should approach its Lindow Man exhibition and generated good will towards the project. Ideally consultation would be the foundation of all high profile projects but especially in the case of potentially contentious subjects such as human remains.

Despite the vehement criticism that greeted the opening of the exhibition from some quarters , the Lindow Man project attracted record numbers of visitors and successfully engaged the public about how human remains are treated in museums.  It is entirely appropriate for a university museum to mount an innovative and challenging exhibition of this kind. A local authority museum would likely have had its exhibition closed in the circumstances.  It is important that university museums offer exhibitions of this kind to challenge the stereotypical interpretative approach  recommended by some of the exhibition’s critics. 

Contact name and email address:

Bryan Sitch

Head of Human Cultures

The Manchester Museum

Bryan.sitch@manchester.ac.uk

0161 306 1582

Case Study: Arthur Silver Award

Published on August 27, 2010 in Case Studies.

Institution name: Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (MoDA), Middlesex University 

 

Summary:  This case study looks at the launch of an undergraduate Award aimed at encouraging more Middlesex students to use MoDA’s collections for inspiration.  In around 2008, we became aware that we had previously tended to promote the collections as an historical resource, and that this was of little interest to one of our key target audiences, namely Middlesex Art & Design students.  Our collections are an excellent resource for visual research leading to students’ own creative practice, but we had not promoted the collections on these terms.  Middlesex students were not using the museum’s resources for their own creative work despite being on their doorstep, although they often visited museum collections elsewhere. We realised that we needed to offer a tangible incentive for students to use our collections, and that a cash prize would raise the profile of the museum and give us a way of publicising our resources to the undergraduate body.

Download case study as a pdf: case study – MoDA, AS Award

Keywords: Undergraduate – inspiration – collections – cash – award

Background: At MoDA’s core is the Silver Studio Collection, relating to the work of a commercial design studio which ran from 1880 to 1963.  The collection consists of wallpapers and textiles designed by the Studio, as well as visual reference material collected by the designers.  However, when the museum opened in 2000, the emphasis of the exhibitions was on wallpapers and textiles as a way into social history narratives, rather than as design inspiration.  This approach worked for a general audience but was less relevant to undergraduate students.

Objectives: The objective of the project was to make Middlesex undergraduate students aware of the potential of MoDA and its collections as a resource for their own creative work.  We wanted to raise the profile of MoDA’s collections among staff and students, and be more clearly integrated into the creative life of the School of Art & Design at Middlesex University.  We also wanted to make MoDA’s collections visible at key points in the academic year, notably the Art & Design Degree show.

Project details:

  1.  We discussed the idea with academic staff and agreed the format of entries for the Award.  It was important that entry to the Award would not require students to produce work in addition to that already required by their tutors.  We wanted to avoid asking students to write essays or long pieces of text, since this is not the strength of the majority of Art & Design students.  We agreed that the Award would be open to final year students only, and that their entries should relate to the work they include in their final year show.  Students do not enter their work itself (which might be a textile, a piece of jewellery, or furniture, or a garment etc), but a series of three A3 sheets which explain how they gained inspiration from MoDA’s collections; how they used this to develop their work, and how their ideas evolved to the final outcome.
  2. Having agreed the format of the Award we next had to secure the funding.  The Silver Studio collection was given to Middlesex University (in a previous incarnation as Hornsey College of Art) in the 1960s.  Descendants of the Silver family have been involved with the museum since then and are still represented on the museum’s Advisory Board.  We decided to capitalise on their ongoing interest and ask members of the extended Silver family to support this Award.  With support from the University’s Development Office we devised an appeal letter and wrote to family members outlining our request. We had agreed that we should offer an Award of £1,000 per year over three years.  With the help of Gift Aid, we needed to secure slightly less than £3,000 from the Silver family in order to make this achievable. 
  3. Once we were confident that the funding would be achieved we started to promote the Award to students.  In the first year we saw a significant increase in Middlesex students using the Study Room facilities, although only a handful of applications were received.  In the second year we were able to use images of the first winner’s work to promote the Award.  Study Room use increased again, as did the number of applications and their overall standard.  In 2010 we were able to award £1,000 to the overall winner with an additional two students being ‘highly commended’ .

Project outcomes and impact: As we prepare for the third academic year in which we have offered this Award, we are delighted to find that levels of interest in the museum by students and tutors is higher than ever.  Having struggled for years to attract attention from academics, we have now succeeded in making use of our collections a compulsory element of several third year courses (BA Fashion & Textiles and BA Illustration), thus guaranteeing that more students will enter for the Award.  We are working more closely than ever with tutors to embed the museum’s resources into teaching and learning across the Art & Design department, helping us to demonstrate the value of the museum to the University. 

We now promote the collections to students in terms of their value as a visual resource for inspiration.  We try to make it clear to students that the collections are relevant to their own creative practice and that participation does not require knowledge of facts or dates.  Thus the Award is part of a shift in emphasis in the way we present the museum’s collections to this important audience. 

What went well? In addition to fulfilling the main objective, which was to increase use of the museum’s collections by Middlesex students, we have also found that the business of handing over the Award to the winning student (£500 given at the degree show, £500 at the University’s main awards ceremony) raises the profile of the museum and provides ‘good news’ stories and photo opportunities.

Thus the Award has had a huge impact, disproportionate to the relatively small amount of money involved. 

Conclusions and recommendations for the future:  As a University museum we need to balance the needs of our public audience and our responsibility to the academic community of which we are part.  It took us a long time to realise that Art & Design students are not interested in approaching our collections in the same way as ‘general’ visitors, and that we needed to do something quite different to attract their attention. 

We hope to secure further funding to enable us to continue to offer the Award for three more years, thus building on the success of the project so far.

Contact name and email address:

 Zoe Hendon

 z.hendon@mdx.ac.uk

Case Study: Disposal?

Published on May 4, 2010 in Case Studies.

Institution name: UCL Museums & Collections

Image © UCL Museums & Collections, courtesy Richard Hubert Smith

Summary: Disposal? was an interactive exhibition designed to consult with our audience – UCL staff and students and the general public – about UCL Museums & Collections about what we should keep and what we should get rid of.

Keywords: Disposal, Interactive exhibition, Consultation

Download this case study as a pdf (885 kb)

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