Standards for touring exhibitions / Museums & Galleries Commission.

  • Great Britain. Museums and Galleries Commission
Date:
1995
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Standards for touring exhibitions / Museums & Galleries Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4 Standards for research 4.1 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 Research should underpin the development of proposals for exhibitions. 4.2 have a formal research policy; 4.3 allow sufficient time and budget for the cost of any necessary research; 4.4 request lenders to make available research on their loans; 4.6 make available to the organiser any information on the subject of the loan that may be relevant to the exhibition; 4.7 recognise the value of insights which an exhibition can bring; 4.8 add details of the exhibition to the exhibit’s record. 4.9 contribute to any new insights into individual exhibits; 4.10 welcome research and contributions from visitors; 4.11 pass on to the organiser any insights or contributions. Guidelines and notes This section is concerned with the academic, scholarly or specialist basis of the exhibition, and not with research into its effectiveness with visitors [2]. The institution’s overall policy should incorporate a statement on research, which should be realistic and relevant to the institutions’s public role, its staff and resources and the needs of its exhibitions. Time and expenses should be allocated for travel and materials for research purposes. An institution’s research policy should control as well as encourage personal initiative and enthusiasm, both inside and outside the institution. An exhibition can provide an opportunity for a curator to undertake research or to commission such work from scholars or other experts. The effect of researching an exhibition on other work in the institution should be gauged, and external experts commissioned where necessary [8]. A research brief should set out the objectives of the research, a realistic timetable, expenses and the form of any final report. There should be a mutually-supportive relationship between research and exhibitions. Gaps in information on particular objects in a collection can lead to research, and an exhibition may then bring together isolated objects that have been compared with similar material elsewhere (and a tour may be arranged to lenders or other centres with similar material). Conversely, market research might identify exhibition proposals, which will require research to ensure that exhibits are chosen on the basis of sound knowledge [3]. Research should include visits to potential lenders and personal inspection of possible exhibits [24]. Very often the same exhibits are repeatedly requested from the permanent displays or published catalogues of major collections, while equally suitable items lie neglected because they are not on view
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