Abstract
ABSTRACTOver the past 30 years, Britain’s large archaeological museums and collections have shifted their focus away from academic visitors exploring their stores and collections and toward the dynamic presentation of permanent and temporary displays. These are arranged to emphasize compelling and relevant interpretative narratives over the presentation of large numbers of objects. The shift to digitization and the online presentation of collections is a major feature of public engagement activities at many museums but also might open older and less accessible collections up to research. In this article, we consider what role digital platforms may have in the future of British museum-based archaeology, with special reference to initiatives at the British Museum. We suggest that online collections have the potential to mediate between engaging the public and allowing professional archaeologists to develop sophisticated research programs, since these platforms can present multiple narratives aimed at different audiences.
Highlights
Over the past 30 years, Britain’s large archaeological museums and collections have shifted their focus away from academic visitors exploring their stores and collections and toward the dynamic presentation of permanent and temporary displays
Frieman and Neil Wilkin has changed yet again, from comprehensive and pedagogically valuable repositories of knowledge to be mined by researchers to sites of public engagement with a broad remit and a key role to play in community cohesion (Black 2005; Hooper-Greenhill 1994; Hudson 1998; Weil 1999)
A key part of the New Museology’s critique of the traditional museum is focused on the centrality of objects to museum displays and, to the apparently objective truths encapsulated in glass cases full of large numbers of carefully measured and dated things
Summary
As developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, have long acted as curiosity cabinets: showcases for wonderful, mysterious, and often eye-catching things designed to educate, catch the imagination, and inspire visitors to dream of other places and times (cf. Bohman 2000; Opper 2003). Hit institutions, remaining curators and collections management assistants are often too busy with day-to-day administration, loans, exhibitions, and public engagement activities to do more than register new materials and one-third of museums surveyed by the Museums Association report that they expect a decrease in collections research in the years ahead (2014: 16) In this context, outside researchers should play a key role in exploring rapidly expanding collections, investigating new material, and linking it with older interpretations; but the financial pressures on many collections—especially in smaller and regional museums—are such that supporting and supervising research visits in collections are straining already stretched budgets.. We will build on these case studies to present some broader thoughts on the implications of these sorts of endeavors for the future of museums and museum archaeology
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