Museums and communities: Changing dynamics An analysis of the Cobb+Co Museum in Toowoomba, Queensland 1987–2010

Abstract

The engagement between museums and their stakeholder communities needs greater attention if they are to share a creative future together. While much has been written and spoken about the need for museums to engage with and be responsive to their communities, many museums, in practice, still remain indifferent to their key stakeholders. At the same time, the wider domain of heritage has become more mainstream and is accessed by communities as never before. Larger museums now generally at least claim to be ‘audience focused’, but, in reality, they are far from being responsive to the preferences of contemporary heterogenic communities. Audiences can be ambivalent about museum offerings, but there remain important and embedded symbiotic relationships between museums and their communities. Of seminal importance is the fact that museums can play substantial leadership roles within communities. This occurs when the relationship between the museum and its community becomes entrenched with shared values. These values can facilitate social, cultural, and economic benefits for both museums and their communities. This thesis is in two parts. Part A analyses the three-stage transformations of the Cobb+Co Museum in Toowoomba, Queensland. This case study provides an example of the positive effects that the changing dynamics between museums and their communities can have, particularly in regional areas. These positive effects can result in a relationship between the museum and its community that is highly valued and supported by the community. This study illustrates that each of the Cobb+Co Museum’s transformations represents a different, unique identity for the museum. Each transformation was marked by a structural change, but each change was integrated within the others. Each of these three diverse and hybrid identities evolved as a reflection of the local community’s responses to specific national and international discourses relating to museums and heritage. The transformations occurred through accumulative processes that represented both time- and place-specific adaptations to broader trends. Part B of the thesis attempts to gives ‘voice to values’ by investigating how communities estimate and articulate the worth of their museums. Traditionally, politicians, policy makers, and other museum professionals have been recognised as the major stakeholders of museums, and the assessment frameworks adapted to value museums from their perspectives have been narrow. Recognition of the community as the primary stakeholder requires a very different methodology to effectively gauge a museum’s worth. To assess the Cobb+Co Museum’s value to its community, a ‘Contingent Valuation Methodology’ (CVM) study was devised to value the Queensland Museum, of which the Cobb+Co Museum is a part. This major study was undertaken in December 2008. Using a detailed survey instrument delivered online to nearly 1200 Queensland residents, both users and non-users of museums, the CVM study sought the participants’ willingness to pay in dollar amounts for both existing products and services and for a raft of new developments proposed by the Queensland Museum. It also investigated a range of nonmarket values that were important to both users and non-users of the Queensland Museum.The results obtained indicated that the people of Queensland placed a value on the Queensland Museum that was more than twice that reflected in current government funding for day to day operations. The results also demonstrated that the respondents would be in favour of funding the proposed level of new facilities and services, including the National Carriage Factory project at the Cobb+Co. Museum. This thesis, while exploring the changing dynamics between the museum and its community, will assess the relevance and value of these ongoing developments at Cobb+Co Museum by addressing three questions: • Has the Cobb+Co Museum’s identity transformation over this period of more than twenty years reflected general changes taking place in museums, or has it been timeand place-specific? • To what extent are these conversions valued by the community? • Can the processes enacted by the Cobb+Co Museum in developing and implementing its transformative models act as an exemplar for other museums in other regions? In this thesis, it is argued that, in considering the future of museums in Australia, particularly in regional communities, there are specific and general lessons to be learned from the Cobb+Co Museum’s transformations.