Presenting History From A University Museum : A View from the Egypt Centre

 Abstract:

Each year over two million visits are made to university museums in Britain, some of which have a centuries-old tradition of serving social reform and a number now see themselves as principal portals for widening participation in further and higher education. Yet, astonishingly, university museums are still sometimes regarded as merely a means of gaining elitist prestige, useful only to narrow disciplines, handmaidens to individual academic departments.   

This paper will summarise the greater possibilities for university museums striving to fulfill a wider public role, and will have specific, but not exclusive, reference to Swansea University ’s Egypt Centre. There are of course many problems but here I intend to see the cup half full, to concentrate upon the possibilities. I aim to enhance awareness of the tremendous potential of university museums, to encourage both academic and non-academic interest in history through objects.

While I use the Egypt Centre and Egyptology as my example, the implications are valid for other branches of history.    

At this point a couple of definitions. I take museums to mean collections which are at least partly accessible to the public. And as for the public, they are all those working outside museums. Thus, Egypt Centre has many publics. Here I deal with the position of the university museum serving the scholastic public within universities and the public outside academia. I apologise for lack of slides of academics, they aren’t usually as photogenic as children!  

I should also point out that I do recognize that there is a continuum between the academic and non-academic public, that I am caricaturing the differences to make the point. I also realize that not all university museums are insular and academic.  

SLIDE 1 (Ivory Tower)

I begin with the old fashioned view of what a university museum must be. Even within large, prestigious and outward looking institutions there is an element of elitism, and an attachment to serving the university public above those outside. Though one might expect a variety of opinions within large institutions.  

SLIDE 2 (A few facts about University Museums)

There are a number of very well organized university museums, well positioned to serve all their publics. However, a huge percentage are grossly underused often only known to small groups of academics.  

Recent surveys suggest that the greatest impediments to university museums lies in their lack of a clearly articulated role within their institutions as well as their junior position in the political hierarchy. It is my opinion that this problem of role is perhaps because university museums simply do not fit neatly into the modern academic tradition. They are criticized by some for being too populist, by others for being too academic. They struggle to fulfill two seemingly opposing demands.  

Yet the potential power of the university museum lies in that which makes their role. Other museums, it could be argued have a similar liminal position, but the university museum is closer to the heart of academia thus, one might argue, can act as a more direct two-way conduit.  

SLIDE 4 (Kate)

Between 1971 and 1996, Swansea Classics Department controlled what might be considered a rather typical university museum. That is not to say that it was not a credit to those who preserved it. If it were not for this lady (Kate Bosse Griffiths), there would be no Egypt Centre in Swansea. The museum made efforts to invite in school children and in 1996 it gained Registered status.  

It was however grossly underused with around 300 visitors per annum, no professional staff, only partially catalogued and hardly known, even by the students studying Egyptology at Swansea.  

Then Sybil Crouch of the image committee at Swansea University suggested that the university might make use of this small collection to break down barriers between town and gown. This idea was supported by the Classics Department and others within the university.  In 1998 a new museum was born with its first professional curator, regular opening hours and brand new display. To the credit of the University and also thanks to the Council for Museums in Wales, European Regional Development Funding and Heritage lottery, the museum has to a large extent been able to steer the course between its academic and non-academic public, and it is my belief that this has benefited both. Now situated under libraries, we have over 20, 000 visitors per year and the university boasts an ever-growing department of Egyptology. The liminality of the museum has been used to advance the use of history, in form of Egyptology, to benefit of all.  

So what are the liminal and positive factors for the academic and non-academic publics in university museums?  

Research (Slide)

The nature of research in museums is different to academic research. It is also true that research is easier in the university museum than most local authority or independent museums. Both these aspects increase the potential of university museums.  

Academic departments today are very much led by the Research Assessment Exercise. A museum which is purely part of an academic department must follow this lead. As has been said by many academics, the Research Assessment Exercise is a narrow means of assessing excellence. Museum research is very different. It tends to be more opportunistic, related to the collection and conducted with an eye on the public outcome. Museums, unlike universities, must also act as facilitators of the research of others rather than engage in a struggle for individual one-up-man-ship.  

All museums, university or otherwise, carry out research. The act of putting on an exhibition, of answering a public enquiry, or of documentation demands it. Staff of university museums, however, are freer to carry out research. In local authority museums, the research may be considered a decedent, self-indulgent exercise. In the university museum it is almost a requirement.   

As one might expect, it is the larger, more traditional university museums with extensive collections which are at the forefront of university museum research. Yet even Egypt Centre with a shoestring budget, a small collection and no research staff is also able to carry out research and I would say with greater freedom than would have been possible in a local authority museum.  

Here are few items illustrating our research which has found an output in displays, cataloguing, in publications, both our own and peer reviewed, in local and international lectures and talks.  

Facilitating Research (Slide)

And an example of facilitating research for students. This item is now being published.  

Academic skills and museological skills (Slide)

In the past, and to some extent today, curators of university museums tended to be appointed on the ground of academic excellence alone. This was to the detriment of collection care and the needs of the public both academic and non-academic. While academic staff may have a great deal of expertise in certain areas they are rarely able to ensure that the collection is properly cared for. More recent appointments to large university museums have tended to employ staff with both professional museum qualifications and subject specialist knowledge.  

Now that Egypt Centre has professional staff, the collection is now more accessible than ever before. One aspect of this is the online searchable database useful for researchers as well as those wishing to casually browse on the web.    

A non-academic place but on campus (Slide)

Universities can be intimidating places, especially to those with no tradition of further or higher education. The position on campus can be used to the good of the non-academic role of the museum in that it can be used to bring the non-academic public physically onto campus and to make the university experience a normalizing one. This is a great advantage to universities wishing to improve their widening participation work. Museums are particularly good at widening participation because they are able to target young groups whereas university widening participation projects tend to target secondary schools.  

Young Egyptologists

On Saturdays Egypt Centre runs a workshop for disadvantaged children- children who may be socially or economically disadvantaged. We work with the schools in this and children are collected from schools and taken back. They are provided with lunch and a host of Egyptologically related activities. We aim to raise standards of literacy and numeracy but more importantly to raise children’s confidence. Some of these have now gone on to University.  

The neutral environment of the museum can attract potential students and aid student retainment. It also means we can provide the pastoral care which an academic department may find difficult to provide. The Egypt Centre staff are well used to tearful students needing pastoral support.  

Finally, the museum can act as a place where university staff meet. Surveys have shown that unfortunately it is usually the support staff of universities which make the most use of museums in this way. The same is true of Egypt Centre. Nevertheless the potential is there for academic staff too.    

Informal Learning Environment (Slide)

The museum can be used as an informal learning environment for both academic and non-academic audiences. This has advantages particularly for those alienated by the traditional learning experience.  

Children’s University

This is another education programme in which Egypt Centre is involved. Our child volunteers now have their work at the Centre recognized and on achieving an award are allowed an interview at the University.  

However, students also benefit from learning away from the seminar room or lecture theatre.  

Interdisciplinarity (Slide)

Interdisciplinarity may be something which is upheld within academia but in practice it is something very difficult to achieve. A museum which is separate from an academic department may find interdisciplinary work easier to achieve. Such interdisciplinary work can be used for the benefit of both the scholastic and non-academic publics.  

Interdisciplinarity is very important for the long term survival of the museum; it can be used to make topics traditionally considered dull more interesting, it can be used to make ivory tower topics appear more relevant.  

Museums should move away from the dry and positivist (Slide)

Again this is a sweeping generalisation, but non-academic interest in history is often personal and humanistic. Academic writing is often dry and positivist. The museum can engage the non-academic public through acknowledging this. However, it is my belief that with some exceptions few museums, whether university or non-university are prepared to take this line. Labels tend to give bare facts, to hide authorship, are devoid of any personal feeling and certainly humour is frowned upon. In this they tend to imitate academic writing.  

Egypt Centre is no exception in that its labels are to my mind dry and positivist and we have been criticised by other museum professionals for being too wordy. Nevertheless, we have been criticised by academics for 'dumming-down'.  

Tick-boxes and altruism (Slide)

Most universities would recognize that they depend upon public support for their existence and would agree that engaging with the public is very much a part of what they should be doing. However, in practice, it is very difficult for academics to do this. The Royal Society recently commissioned a survey into reasons why academics were prevented from working with the public. While this report concerned science it seems to me very relevant to historians. The Research Assessment exercise of course was a big barrier, but also the general academic culture in which pure research is seen as much more important than engaging with the public, and where popularist publications and lectures may actually be to the detriment of ones career and where the pressure to achieve other goals makes public engagement extremely difficult. The university museum however, does not have these pressures.  

Closely related to this is the good PR achieved by having a museum. This PR acts a subliminal message to those outside on the values of the university and, in the best examples, can help achieve not only greater student numbers for history but also attract higher quality researchers.

A two way conduit (Slide)

The university museum as a neutral zone is a perfect means of establishing dialogue between academic and non-academic.  

In the past museum education was very much seen as acting through transmission of correct information to put right deficit.  

The role of the museum as correcting a deficit in public understanding of history has merits but there are problems.  

Firstly, if conflict and debate are central to the notion of history, and they certainly are to the notion of heritage, then correcting ‘incorrect views’ might not be the way forward (Merriman 2004, 6). It might be better to encourage debate.  

Secondly, to insist on one correct view of the past could be argued as self-centred in that it looses sight of the non-academic’s need for history and instead concentrates upon what the academic needs. History should be for all.  

Thirdly, the non-academic public will always renegotiate views of history. Surely it is better to work with this rather than isolate oneself and loose any chance of dialogue.  

While I do not advocate a wholly relativist view of history, isolationism by academia is not the answer.  

Ideally I would like to see much more dialogue between the academic and non-academic publics. It is a controversial step but I should like to see university museums involved in engaging not only with the passive receptors but also with those on the fringe. I firmly believe that the isolationism of academia encourages fringe beliefs. I would like to see exhibitions and conferences, in fact all a university museum does to encourage dialogue. I realise that this is controversial. While museum professionals, it may be argued, are paid to present the ‘correct’ view, the museum can always present contrary arguments in such a way as to clearly explain what is the traditional view and what is the non-traditional view.

However, there is a fear that in taking this step, the museum is bringing its university’s academic staff into disrepute. There appears to be an assumption that dialogue with the fringe means that one is subsumed by the fringe. Fear of peer disapproval, those peers being academic departments holds back what we do but perhaps we should listen more to the non-academic public and take more risks.

Many of Egypt Centre's volunteers are on the 'fringe' certainly not all are academics. they are all encouraged to write labels for the museum, labels which are distinguished from the 'museum ones' through their colour.

It has been argued that encouraging debate with fringe groups can allow a voice to extremists espousing racist or other unethical views. At the Egypt Centre we have a written policy of welcoming diversity for all but also a policy of no bullying harassment or any other unethical practices. On the whole all our volunteers get on.

Dick and Dom

As you have gathered the Egypt Centre does not consider itself wholly academic nor wholly separate from academia. I belief this has been to the benefit of both groups.

Slide-Toast: Conclusions

I would like to conclude by restating that I see the potential of university museums as tools for presenting history lying in their liminality. There are of course many problems and I have skimmed over these. I would also like to state that I do not see university museums as privileged over other museums, rather they have particular strengths which should be exploited and these strengths lie in their liminality not in being handmaidens to academic departments or as being seen as totally outside the academic remit.