A display case of numerous old light bulbs with four circled and highlighted in red.

Opening a Museum

How many people does it take to set up a museum? Conventional histories of museum founders usually concentrate on individuals – the collector whose artefacts provide the basis for a new institution, and heroic directors or curators who single-handedly drive forward their vision of a museum. In our experience, establishing a museum is a collaborative […]

Small museums in a global context

In June 2019, the Mapping Museums team ran a half-day symposium, where specialists on Brazilian, British, Canadian, and Tibetan museums talked about museums of taxidermied gophers, the importance of place, alternative histories, and the factors underpinning the expansion of the museum sector, among other topics. If you missed the event you can now watch those […]

The Smallest Museum in the UK?

In 1983 the Museums and Galleries Commissions noted ‘many’ of new museums being established across the UK were ‘very small’ enterprises that had ‘been set up in an initial wave of enthusiasm and volunteer effort’. Surveying the sector in 1990, Victor Middleton thought that by far the majority were ‘very small’ and the historian Raphael […]

Not Knowing About Museums

There is a lot that we don’t know about museums. In an age when it is possible to download an institution’s annual reports and follow their exhibitions and events via social media, it seems unlikely that academics, museum professionals, and the museum-going public would be so uninformed about the recent history, characteristics, and scope of […]