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The Cambridge Dictionary Online defined museums as places of study, buildings where objects of historical, scientific or artistic interest are kept, preserved and exhibited. To The Museums Association, a museum is an institution which collects documents, preserves, exhibits and interprets material evidence and associated information for the public benefit. Since 1998, this definition has changed. Museums now enable the public to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artefacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society. Mike Wallace (1996) categorised museums into four distinct types, namely National Museums that hold collection of national importance, Armed Service Museums, Independence Museums and Local Authority Museums.
According to Wallace, the importance of museums lies in their role as a nations memory bank. Personally, what matters most about museums is that they are the only source of living history and perhaps an insight to the future world that lies before us. History should be displayed for study not only because it is essential to individuals and to society, but also because it harbours beauty. Museums provide an ideal learning environment, whether it is formal or informal learning, active hands-on participation or passive observation (Hein, G. E, 1998). In The British Museum, each of the museums curatorial departments offers student research facilities, for instance Ancient Near East, Egyptian Antiquities, Japanese Antiquities, Medieval and Modern Europe and Prehistory and Early Europe.
The Education Department even set aside Study days to allow more intensive exploration of the cultural background to an exhibition or area of the collections and they usually include slide lectures and gallery talks. In addition, The Education Department provides a range of services for teachers to help enhance students' experience of the Museum and about the cultures represented in the Museum's collections. The 2000 / 2001 brochure, listing events and resources for teachers and students, is promised to be available soon. Majority of the other museums also provide such educational services to the public. The National Museum of the Performing Arts has an Education Department that runs an annual programme of activities designed to support teachers in the delivery of the National Curriculum and to trigger the interest of their pupils in the performing arts. These activities complement study programmes in a range of core subjects including English, Drama, Theatre Studies, Design and Technology, History, Art, Music and Social Sciences.
A greater number of educators are looking to museums to help them attain their educational objectives. Howard Gardner has identified Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood as the perfect environment for stimulating the natural curiosity of a child. Furthermore, in response to demands for new educational approaches, older children are using museums to develop their critical facilities in art and design (Campbell, 1992). Hooper-Greenhill (1994) places high importance in the role of museums as they offer many different opportunities of enabling children and adults to enter worlds where they may play out skills that are vital in the real worlds. With the rise of technology, museums are able to provide the mass with interactive education.
The Close Education Centre in The National History Museum has an Investigate area which is a hands-on science centre. Visitors can experience hundreds of natural objects and investigate them further using scientific tools and instruments that are provided to encourage visitors to make observations, look for relationships and draw their own conclusions. The National Science Museum can be said to be one of the most interactive museums in Britain. Their large number of interactive galleries include The Launch Pad and Flight Lab, The Garden and a make-believe earthquake in a Japanese supermarket for visitors to have a first-hand experience of the turmoil of natural calamities. Technology advancement also aided museums in catching up with the cyber-savvy world today.
Almost all the museums in Britain have found a home on the World Wide Web (Museum Net). Not surprisingly, museums began to use the Internet as a medium in extending educational resources right to the homes of the people. On The British Museum website, one can easily download information sheets, resources, events, further reading list and web-links about more than thirty different cultures or topics, such as art history, Mesopotamia and textiles. The Science Museum site has an impressive range of online exhibitions about vast topics, for instance Life, the Universe & the Electron, Digitopolis (digital technology) and Exploring Leonardo da Vinci. The cyber home of The National History Museum houses ten online exhibitions, such as Ant Cast, Dino Directory and Eclipse. It also has the first online national woodlouse survey (Walking with Woodlouse), which is my personal favourite because other than providing interactive information, it allows for exchange of ideas via a flash-designed message board for fellow knowledge-hungry web-users.
By employing technologies of the 21 st century, museums are not only able to fulfil their essential role as an educational resource but also to make learning a fun and memorable experience. Museums offer a storehouse of information about how people and societies behave through the ages (Hudson, K, 1987). We would not be able to understand the influence of technological innovations, or the rise and fall of the Qing dynasty, or the role that beliefs play in shaping family life, if we do not know about the experiences in the past. This, fundamentally, is the reason why museums are so important: it offers the only extensive evidential base for the contemplation and analysis of how societies function, and people need to have some sense of how societies function simply to run our own lives (Hudson, K, 1987). As Robert Crawford, Director General of The Imperial War Museum, so eloquently put: This is not a Museum of the distant past, but about people still alive today, their parents and grandparents. The wars of the twentieth century have affected each and every one of us in some way, and the Museum is here to tell all our stories.
We cover all aspects of life in wartime - heroes, villains and the millions who are neither - and all human experience, at home and on the battlefield. The past caused the present and the present would inevitably shape the future. Fairly recent history will suffice to explain a major development, but more often than not, we need to look further back in the realms of the past to identify the causes of change. This is where museums play a big part in our visual understanding of the world. Freud Museum documents the developments in the Psychology field while London's Transport Museum is the place to be if one wishes to witness and appreciate the changes in transportation through the years. Their collection ranges from a spiral escalator to enamel signs.
The Museum's collection traces nearly 200 years of transportation development. There is no comparable collection of metro rolling stock anywhere in the world. To understand the one thing that drives the world round today, The Bank of England Museum traces the history of money and the Bank from its foundation by Royal Charter in 1694, to its role today as the nation's central bank. Their displays include gold, evolution of bank notes and a reconstruction of the 18 th century office.
Only through studying history can we grasp how things change; only through history can we begin to comprehend the factors that cause change (Wilson, D. M, 1989) and only through museums can we see history unfold as a spectator. Museums display evidential historical and present data about how families, groups, institutions and whole nations were formed and about how they have evolved while retaining cohesion. This provides a sense of identity for the visitors. Take for example The Jewish Museum, it opens a window onto the history and religious life of the Jewish community in Britain and beyond. Family and religious identity is established and confirmed.
National identity for the citizens of London can be formed at the Museum of London where galleries use artefacts and images to display London's rich and diverse history, from London children's pastimes and experiences to the entertainment industries over the centuries. Museum exhibits that tell the national story, emphasising the distinctive features of the national experience, are meant to drive home an understanding of national values and a commitment to national loyalty (Alexander, E, 1979...
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Research essay sample on British Museum Performing Arts
