The consequences of the coronavirus and the physical limitations it imposes on museums and their visitors force museums to rethink cultural identity and to approach the exhibition of material artworks differently. Only a limited number of people are allowed to visit the museum at one time, booking time slots is mandatory, making it difficult to welcome visitors. As most Dutch museums are largely self-funded, the lack of tourists, visitors, educational programmes that generate income, together with the insufficient financial support of the Dutch government, have greatly impacted their policies. This report analyses the coronavirus’ effects on the role of museums within the Dutch ‘<em>anderhalvemetersamenleving</em>’ (one and a half meter society). This report offers an overview of the changes that have taken place in Dutch society due to the limitations of physical interaction with artworks and the museum space as well as the way Dutch museums have reacted to these consequences. Lastly, this report offers an analysis of the success of these new developments and the challenges that still need to be overcome. Thus, ways will be proposed in which Dutch museums can learn from these actions in maintaining their critical function in society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced museum communities around the world to rapidly re-examine their approach to safe visitor engagement. In an atmosphere of uncertainty, increased attention to hygiene and social distancing, the following is a reflection by <em>SparkLab</em> Sciencentre in the Queensland Museum, Australia, two months after reopening. It highlights the key lessons learnt and strategies adopted, as they continue to reshape and reassess their approach to safe hands-on visitor engagement. This reflection also emphasises the overarching importance of agile planning, open communication, and continued monitoring of COVID-Safe operations, visitor engagement and staff wellbeing.

For the heritage sector the global pandemic has introduced unique challenges; with infectious viral particles persisting on some surfaces for days, people must be protected from objects as much as the objects need to be protected from people. Until recently information on persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19) on different materials has been dispersed through the scientific literature, often with access limitations. Similarly it has been difficult to find information on how to disinfect heritage surfaces using methods which avoid the damage to the surface. Recent work by Historic England has collated information from Conservators and Microbiologists on the cleaning of viral particles from historic surfaces to combine the current information in one, accessible, place.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of life and how work is accomplished. Travel restrictions and health concerns have hindered courier trips, making virtual condition reports and deinstallations necessary to retrieve loans. However, transmission pathways of the virus and the related viral attenuation on different materials and surfaces influence employee safety concerns when multiple people interact with surfaces, requiring quarantine periods or disinfection guidelines to be written to address these concerns. This paper illustrates how the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&amp;A) worked together virtually to safely return an important 1933 map to the US from England using quarantine periods.

New Zealand (NZ) opted for complete suppression of the spread of COVID-19. We summarise how the rules, introduced by the NZ government, affected the operation and staffing of the biggest regional museum and science centre, the Otago Museum.

This short article aims to draw from Transformational Education Theory to highlight an opportunity for museums to contribute actively to individual and societal change through the delivery of transformational experiences. This paper advocates for intentional practice, inspired by Theory, with a clear purpose aimed at changing mind-sets and suggests a mechanism for creating these experiences. This sense of purpose has the potential to establish a significant role for museums as part of the societal response to the pandemic.

The creation of barkcloth begins with harvesting the inner bark of certain types of trees followed by soaking and beating with grooved beaters, a process which often leaves undulations on the surface of the bark, also known as the beater mark. The cloth can then be decorated using colorants, applied as particulate pigments, dyes or paints. The resulting material is highly ornate with varying surface textures and colours. The usefulness of stereo and standard light microscopy, ranging from around x10 for low and up to x200 for high-magnification microscopy, and macro photography to examine the subtleties of the surface of the cloth is highlighted in this research, with examples of barkcloth from the Hunterian, University of Glasgow, Glasgow and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London collections. Examples of beater marks, particulate dye material, cracking painted surfaces, as well as the presence of two species used to create one cloth are shown, aspects that are not immediately obvious when examining the cloths with the naked eye. To further enhance the analysis from microscopy XRF and FTIR were used when appropriate. Observing the material in this way can increase appreciation for the aesthetic aspects of barkcloth and can further knowledge of the materials used in production. This can inform condition reports, storage requirements, and potential conservation treatments.

Museum collections not only provide educational tools for the public, but also reference material for osteological research and baseline information for understanding historical population dynamics and food webs. Such applications are only possible, however, with accurate identifications of museum osteological specimens, which is sometimes challenging, as specimens can be separated from their original information. In order to clarify missing information about provenience and species identifications, we analysed 13 historical whale bone specimens from the Museum of Zoology, Strasbourg, using a multidisciplinary approach that combined historical document analysis, osteology, and Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS). These analyses enabled identification of elements from seven different whale species: five baleen whales (Mysticeti) and two toothed whales (Odontoceti). Two skeletons could be connected with letters from the early 1900s indicating they derived from whales stranded on the shores of South Island, New Zealand. One of these skeletons was digitized using a 3D scanner and can be freely viewed online. All of the samples will be available through a digital archive. The identification and digitization of these museum whale specimens, which include threatened and endangered whale species whose past histories are not yet fully understood, is of great value and ensures they are fully available for future systematic research. The study demonstrates a new and useful application of ZooMS, particularly in concert with other methods, to support museum collections research.

The intimacy and affective impact of the audio guide – and the spoken voice – could make it a suitable medium to represent and construct cultural memory. Research on the relevance of the audio guide in the context of cultural memory has, to the best of our knowledge, not yet been conducted. This article will address this by presenting experimental findings on the impact of two custom-made audio guides on visitors and subsequently examining these within a theoretical framework based on Alison Landsberg’s concept of prosthetic memory, as well as Gerard Genette’s writings about paratexts. In doing so, the focus is on examining the emotional distances perceived between the audio guide and the object on the one hand and the audio guide and its user on the other, as well as the balance between these two. We show that a close link between object and audio guide can either help emotionally engage the user or feel restrictive. A close connection between audio guide and user may be perceived as misleading but can also involve the user in creating prosthetic memory.

The aim of this work was to assess how improvements to the indoor environment could affect the future condition, frequency and costs of major conservation-cleaning campaigns on the monumental paintings (1909–1916) by Edvard Munch, centrally located in the Aula assembly hall of the University of Oslo. A lower soiling rate is expected to reduce the need for frequent and major cleaning campaigns. Estimations were performed using the freely available NILU-EnvCul web-model. The conservation of these large, mostly unvarnished, oil paintings is challenging, and it is important to understand the potential benefits of preventive conservation measures. The results from the model suggested benefits from preventive conservation in protecting the paintings, and as a cost-efficient strategy to reduce the soiling and cleaning frequency. The model results indicated that an improvement in the indoor air quality in the Aula, of 50–80% as compared to the 1916–2009 average, would increase the time until the next similar major conservation cleaning campaign from approximately 45 years to between about 85 and 165 years. This should give a 45–70% reduction in the respective conservation costs. This saving was probably initiated by improvements in the recent past, before the last Aula campaign in 2009–11.