Submission to the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy
Council of Australian University Museums and Collections
(CAUMAC)
The Council of Australian University Museums and Collections (CAUMAC) was formed as a national body in 1992 following a conference on university museums and museum staff training, held at James Cook University, Townsville.
It was clear to those attending that, while the last 30 years had seen a proliferation in universities of museums and collections, that these were largely unsupported by their universities (more so by their departments, Schools or faculties) and unrepresented by the industry peak body, Museums Australia. Their growth has largely been as a response to a perceived need, often from founding individuals, that these collections add a new approach and a new dimension to support the areas of staff teaching and student learning and research.
Despite being poorly housed, under-resourced, minimally funded and under-staffed, these collections have survived, often in isolation from one another, continuing to serve their clients, their subject areas and ultimately their universities exceptionally well.
It was clear at the 1992 conference that many who had applied for outside funding from commonwealth departments were also continually blocked in their initiatives. They were not eligible for grants from the Department of Communications and the Arts (DCA) or the Department of Education, Employment and Training (DEET) as it was then; DEET felt that university museums and collections were a DCA concern because museums were an arts issue, while the DCA saw them as a DEET matter because they are part of universities.
Nevertheless they have survived, often because of the goodwill of their Schools, faculties or disciplines, of well wishers, donors and benefactors, and from the labour of both academic and general members of staff and students who have worked to develop these scientific and cultural outposts, recognising their great potential for, and value to, teaching, research and community outreach.
Following the formation of CAUMAC, the Commonwealth government was successfully lobbied and funding was found via DEET from the National Priority (Reserve) Fund; this was administered through the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, who in turn established a committee to review university museums and collections. The University Museums Review Committee (UMREC), chaired by Dr Don McMichael, produced its report, Cinderella Collections, in early 1996.
Some 250 museums and collections were identified (p3), containing a significant and valuable proportion of the Distributed National Collection. Recent discussions with Dr Peter Stanbury, secretary of UMREC, reveal that there are now some 288 university museums and collections nationally and that their combined value in monetary terms could be well over a billion dollars; certainly their value to the life and work of Australia's universities and to society as a whole is beyond money and thus, incalculable.
This submission attempts to address the role of these museums and collections in the national life of their host universities and looks to show how much they are an integral part of the core business of the higher education sector.
What social, cultural, economic and community functions does the Australian higher education sector perform, and how might this mix change over the next 20 years?
"Museums are first and foremost educational and scholarly institutions in the broadest sense. All museums should be considered as important resources for lifelong learning, and their collections and the information associated with them can be used for educational purposes for people of all ages." (Ambrose, 1993, p86)
This statement largely sums up why museums exist, and particularly in a university setting. Across Australia, the university museums and collections are wide-ranging and diverse in their content, housing material from art works to scientific instruments, biological specimens to archaeological and historical. A complete list of these is available in Cinderella Collections or on-line under the Australian University Museums Information System (AUMIS) home page at: http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/mem/aumis.
They exist as resource centres to support university core business and, individually and collectively, act as a forum to explore in the fullest sense the social, cultural, economic and community functions of the Australian higher education sector. "They help to enhance the quality of people's lives and provide a sense of identity for their area; the [sic] act as a cultural focus contributing to the cultural infrastructure and providing a wide range of cultural activities of value to their users; they support economic development programmes providing a focus with other facilities and services for inward investment and employment; and they foster a sense of local pride and belonging, of particular importance in multi-ethnic communities. Benefits such as these can be thought of in quantitative or qualitative terms, but together they demonstrate that what museums do goes a long way beyond a simple functional description. (Ambrose, 1993, p8)
While many see museums and collections only as static displays of material, they judge their role from this shopfront view, failing to recognise that they are dynamic, innovative and proactive areas in their own right. "To be successful, museums have to be active organisations, and should not be confused with static exhibitions." (Ambrose,1993, p7)
Within the social and cultural contexts, Australia's university museums and collections act to:
For Ambrose, quoted above, museums economically provide "a focus with other facilities and services for inward investment and employment..." (p8).From an economic perspective,this is true also of university museums and collections which:
- the income stream of the universities - its car parking charges, food halls, shops, accommodation and so on
- the economic infrastructure of a locality or a region. This is particularly apparent in regional universities where the university museums and collections are another added attraction to a region for visiting tourists. The collections at UNE, Armidale are one example of this, with their Museum of Antiquities and the Zoology Museum included in visitor information at the Regional Tourist Office.Another example, the Museum of Tropical Anthropology at James Cook University, Townsville, has displays in the foyer area of the Townsville airport terminal to advertise themselves as a local attraction.This sort of mutually-beneficial symbiosis - the link between "town and gown" - is characteristic of the potential of university museums and collections, for both the economic and community categories of this review.
With regard to the question of community function, university museums and collections, and especially those involved with art works, often explore and critique themes of community concern through exhibition In so doing they:
In all of these, community function equates to political concern. University museums and collections are therefore an integral part of the democratic process. This involvement in examining such themes is so basic to the Australian way of life that it is hard not to see an ongoing role for university museums and collections in the next twenty years.
Indeed, since Australian university museums and collections already serve an important civilising, attitude-forming and liberal educative function, there is no reason to suppose that this will change in the future unless they are irresponsibly abandoned by the higher education sector.
In fact there is every reason to believe that with good resourcing the university museums and collections will play an increasingly important role in the social, cultural, economic and community functions of the higher education sector. To do so adequately, however, will require an understanding of the acquisition, conservation, exhibition, storage, equipment, research and staffing needs of university museums and collections by Commonwealth and State governments, as well as by the higher education sector generally.
What are the key social, economic and technological developments shaping the environment in which higher education institutions operate, and affecting the composition of the sector in areas such as private and public provision, globalisation and complementarities with the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector?
"Museums do not manage their collections for themselves but for the public... Exhibitions and displays form but one part of museums' work, and it is the full range of their relationship with the public which has to be considered in examining what they do. They exist for the public benefit, not commercial gain. Their collections are held in trust for the public, not as commercial assets. The profit motive exists only so far as earned income can support the museum's responsibilities to its collections and to its public." (Ambrose, 1993, pp 7-8)
Issues of access and equity, of social relevance and value, of expense and value for money are constantly being targetted to the higher education sector, and within it to the university museums and collections.
These museums are available freely to students and the wider general public, yet problems associated with all of these issues are highlighted because of the general lack of staff to care for the university museum sector. Reference to Cinderella Collections quickly shows the number of university museums and collections operating with fractional or volunteer staff.
Few staff mean that hours of opening are restricted. Frequently university museums and collections are closed in the evenings, with an obvious impact on evening undergraduate and postgraduate students. Without special arrangements to cater for this problem, the quality of learning for these students can be impaired, which for fee- paying students raises the issue of value for money.
University museums and collections are generally closed on weekends, again restricting the degree of interaction they can have with the working public wishing to use their leisure time constructively. Lack of adequate and flexible staffing means that the museums are under-utilised and that, in this area, the university sector fails to meet its public obligation.
In a national atmosphere emphasising financial stringency, the higher education sector has been hit with reduced operating budgets; as less funds devolve internally through the system, so university museums and collections, already "parlous", according to Cinderella Collections (p3) because of shrinking funds, are further financially eroded, perceived by many who do not understand their role, to be a low priority area.
This perception is patently false and the government needs to redress the imbalance in the funding of vital university resources, such as university museums and collections, by making available earmarked funds for the administration, growth and development of these collections.
In addition, there needs to be a system of national competitive grants available specifically to bolster the activities of the university museums and collections to allow them to fulfill their potential in regard to their specific areas of core business.In a fostered environment, university museums and collections can shine and be examples, in some cases, of world best practice. This is already evident in the case of the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University, which has developed a specialist Papyrus Research Room which is the envy of, and has achieved great praise from, a number of international papyrological scholars.
The key technological developments affecting the higher education sector in recent years are;
In the next 20 years or so this interest in, and a university-wide dependence on, such technologies will grow exponentially. It has the potential to change the face of the university as we have known it, with a currently- perceived notion that the lecture theatre will die, in favour of the electronic unit of work and the e-mail tutorial. This will change again as video-conferencing technology develops. Students in the future will not need to come to campus to attend a lecture or tutorial, or to use the library or the laboratory, but can learn from their own home or work environment.
Setting up a university's future technological infrastructure will be very expensive, but this will be costed against the savings made in maintaining the university in its current form, and seen as an economically-desirable way to go. In effect however, we are moving to create a virtual university that caters for students off campus, in some ways paralleling the comical situation of the perfect hospital of Yes Minister - the hospital that has no patients!
Such a development would be disastrous if universities did not also maintain provision for real human contact and intellectual challenge, exchange and debate by actively seeking out students and the wider general public to attend on-campus facilities as well. To be attractive and relevant for such purposes, these facilities will need to be well maintained and resourced. University museums and collections are one such set of facilities with the ability to attract people to the campus for direct interaction with their objects and staff.
Having said that, the university museums and collections also lend themselves well to adaptation to the new technologies. This technology allows university museums:
University museums and collections have already made a remarkable start in this adaptation. The Physics Museum at the University of Queensland was the first to establish a home page; many others have followed suit. Management practice in these museums has also been revolutionised in recent years and e-mail has made for a very easy exchange of information and ideas among museological colleagues.The Antiquities Museum at the University of Queensland has an interactive multimedia (IMM) CD-Rom project to bring its resources to a wider community audience.
Following the publication of Cinderella Collections, basic details of all university museums and collections were put on-line on AUMIS - the Australian University Museums Information System - maintained at Macquarie University. This was set up to parallel developments on AMOL - Australian Museums On Line - funded by the Cultural Ministers’ Council and set up by the Heritage Collections Committee; it carries details of very few university museums or collections.
A new system, AUMOL - Australian University Museums On Line - is currently being established. A cooperative research project between the University of Sydney, Macquarie University, the University of New South Wales and the University of Queensland, it aims to put on the world wide web a detailed catalogue of a selected few museums from each of the participating institutions. Funded by an ARC (Equipment and Facilities) grant, the project already has data on 80,000 objects and 20,000 images. Its current progress has been so spectacular and cost-effective that a number of other universities have expressed an interest in having their university museums and collections included at a future date. It is thought that AUMOL will ultimately surplant AUMIS.
Many museums worldwide are also looking at using technology to create interactive multimedia (IMM) displays with touch screens as an integral part of their exhibition space. Some university museums are taking a similar approach as a way of either augmenting their displays, or of expanding their educative role.There are a number of problems with this approach and university museums and collections need to assess it carefully before committing scarce resources to this end.The problems include:
For universities encouraging their museums and collections to take this technological approach to their displays to encourage greater secondary or tertiary student participation, provision should be made for separate, fully-equipped IT laboratories in very close proximity to the museum to allow for groups of people to access the computers that carry such programs individually, and to explore the programs in their own time and way.Users should be able to sit at the machines, or have wheelchair access to them, and the machines should have flexible positioning so that those with disabilities involving limited movement capability can nevertheless see what is happening in order to enhance the learning potential of IMM.Students can then move into, and work closely with, the real material in the museums.
Universities will need to have funding for the provision and fit-out of such rooms if access and equity issues are to be addressed in regard to technology for university museums and collections. Provision for disabled students in such an environment has regulatory implications for universities in regard to EEO and OH&S.
University museums and collections should also approach the technology issue by other means, providing access to IMM and other programs via a server, so that users can gain access from outside points - university libraries, other IT laboratories, schools - before coming to the museums.
The issue of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in relation to university museums and collections is twofold. Insofar as we support the teaching and research components of our disciplines we aim to impart a broad liberal education. This provides for the acquisition of knowledge but also imparts a wide range of skills, attitudes and values.VET also carries a specific job focus and so narrows the educative process, targetting only the information and skills directly relevant to the marketplace.
One area of strength for Australia's university museums and collections is that they are able to account for both approaches, and in doing so, add an extra dimension to learning in a university environment.Those museums engaged primarily in supporting the core business of their disciplines add this extra dimension in that students can build on their knowledge and skills by working directly with the objects in the museum’s holdings. For those museums linked to Museums, Cultural or Heritage Studies programs, with a specific workplace focus, the museums are a training ground in themselves. The Museum of Early Childhood at Edith Cowan University is one such example.
University museums and collections also provide work experience and volunteer programs for high school and TAFE students, and for members of the general public. It brings to these workers a sense of involvement in, and contribution to, the museum, exposes them to a multiskilled industry and can give them a valuable sense of achievement for the efforts they make. From an industry perspective they also have an insight into the practical and theoretical complexities of working with museums.
These volunteers also represent extra staff for university museums that are badly understaffed across the nation. They contribute much to the growth and development of museums in the higher education sector. They also bring to this sector a new network of people in the outside community. For the university museum, and indeed for the institution as a whole, such programs can develop in these volunteers a sense of identity, goodwill and loyalty to both, which can manifest itself in any number of ways, not least of which can be bequests or donations.
It is therefore important that host universities encourage such programs in their university museums and make provision for the training of volunteers to the mutual benefit of the person involved and the university and museum. Universities should also take steps to recognise their contribution by providing some certification or award as a matter of policy.
What attributes will higher education graduates need to operate effectively in their personal and professional lives in this emerging environment?
In a society that is rapidly changing in terms of its social, cultural, economic, community and political foci, it is going to be increasingly important for graduates to have a broad knowledge and a wide, transferable skills-base in order to cope with, and adapt to, such societal changes. They will then be able to fit into the workplace and modify their focus as and will be able to manage better their personal lives and leisure time.Implicit in both of these is a lifelong need to learn. Such ongoing education is the concern of universities, through their open learning and holiday extension programs.
University museums and collections should also be a part of this process, offering leisure and appreciation courses that in their design add to the participants' knowledge and skills. Again this will build on those synergies, already mentioned above in relation to work experience and volunteers, between these ongoing learners, the museums and the university.
What role should government play in ensuring the higher education sector makes the best contribution to Australia's society, culture and economy?
In relation to the university museums and collections, government should provide the universities with adequate additional resources to enable them, in turn, to provide the infrastructure for the work of the museums to proceed; in this way the good work of the past few years will not be lost to the nation.
Consequently, university museums and collections need access to earmarked funding for their capital works, and for their ongoing development and maintenance. The latter is especially relevant in the areas of acquisition, staffing, conservation, exhibition, security, supply of vital technology, other equipment and facilities for teaching, learning, research and community programs and projects, and outsourcing of work. In all of these areas university museums and collections have an enormous backlog of which needs special provision to be made to bring them to parity with other sectors of the university world.
Australian universities are as large and as populated as many country towns or small cities. Regional universities, however, do not always have access to the facilties and funds they need, as they might if they were located in a capital city. Government policies that impact on regional universities also impact on the regions in which the universities are inextricably linked. The government needs to review its policy on regionalisation and reassess the impact of these policies on those regions and the universities found within them.
Current government funding cutbacks to universities have been internally devolved to the level of university museums and collections where the impact is creating enormous difficulties. In some cases these are threatening the ongoing existence of the university museums and collections in question. Both the University of Queensland’s Geology Museum and its Anthropology Museum are under threat, as is the Australian House Museum at Deakin University. It is imperative that government be aware of the outcomes of funding cutbacks to such national resources, and make urgent provision to redress the situation.
What factors are likely to influence the demand for higher education places over this period? For example: demographic and labour market trends regional differences; the globalisation of the higher education market; and changes to the structure of industry.
Australia is advanced in the techniques of museology and our near neighbours generally are not. They will be seeking a range of museum expertise - courses, work experience, exhibition exposure and consultancy - to develop their skills so that their museums and collections serve their proper function. Our university museums and collections can be of great importance in tapping into this new market by helping regional neighbours to develop their own tourist, heritage and cultural industries, worth many billions of dollars to local economies.It also engenders an ongoing good relationship between nations and promotes cultural understanding and regional harmony. In 1996 the University Gallery at the Launceston campus of the University of Tasmania, as part of a cultural exchange, staged an exhibition of contemporary jewellery entitled Pins & Needles at Silpakorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. This then toured other Thai universities. In return staff from the Silpakorn Gallery travelled to Tasmania to undertake an intensive training course in gallery management. Such initiatives are beneficial to the individuals, museums, institutions and the nations involved.
Students who attend a university away from their home locality, and especially those who come from overseas, frequently identify with and develop a cultural understanding of, attachment for and loyalty to their new region. This builds long-term relationships for the university with their alumni well after these students have returned home.The Material Cultures Unit at James Cook University in Townsville, along with its Museum of Tropical Anthropology, have long built such relationships with students from Pacific Rim countries and S.E. Asia. Links such as these, made through the cultural ties available in university museums and collections, are simething that needs to be officially encouraged and supported.
Providing relevant study programs, with well-resourced university facilities such as the university museums and collections, in the safe environment of campuses throughout Australia, works to attract full-fee paying overseas students and gives a significant boost to the national economy.
What scope is there to improve the flexibility and responsiveness of higher education providers through systemic, organisational and technological changes? What is required to ensure that Australian institutions are well placed to compete with their overseas counterparts on the basis of cost, quality and contribution to community goals?
The recommendations documented in Cinderella Collections, if implemented, create in a most cost-effective way within the higher education system, a set of university museums and collections of first-class world standing. These contribute both directly and indirectly to the achievement of community expectations in respect of universities, that they provide for teaching and learning, research and community outreach. By providing for these facilities, with due care to detail, the university museums and collections will themselves be stimulated to foster greater flexibility and responsiveness within the higher education sector. They have already proven to be innovative, keeping up with, or in some cases, setting, current trends and standards in display and exhibition (the Mawson exhibition developed by the Mawson Museum, University of Adelaide is an example in mind), educative programs and community involvement, museological experimentation (when the resources allow), and forming cooperative links among themselves, across different campuses and internationally. In such dynamic undertakings, universities are able to continue to provide leadership and direction for their regions and communities which in itself adds to their attractiveness and international competitiveness.
How effective are existing accountability and reporting requirements in ensuring that higher education institutions effectively respond to the policy goals underlying public investment in them? What alternatives are there? How should considerations concerning institutional autonomy and flexibility in adapting to change be balanced with monitoring performance in relation to the broad goals of government?
University museums and collections need to be more centralised within the university administrative and regulatory framework, both that they might be better served in terms of available resources and that they also receive a greater regard from the higher education sector itself for the work they do, the contribution which they make and the potential which they hold as guardians of a significant amount of the Distributed National Collection.
As budget areas within the university sector they are already subject to statutory accountability provisions and are subject to the requirements of the Auditor-General to provide valuations within a five-year frame.
In common with other museums outside the higher education sector, there is concern that the auditing of objects, which tend to increase in value year by year, does not enhance or increase their value or use as educational resources. The time spent determining value and the cost involved in carrying out a valuation for accrual accounting, insurance, replacement or sale purposes, is often viewed by many in the university museums and collections as wasted. The process detracts from the more valuable time spent performing outreach and research duties in general. This is especially so when many university museums and collections have one, or less than one, member of staff to run them.
The auditing process is a burden and can raise insurmountable problems. How, for example, does one value an insect collection? Who are the specialist or registered valuers, do they factor in to the valuation the original expedition costs when collecting the insects in the field, or do they take into account current costs for modern expeditions should part or all of a collection of material be lost or damaged? Should the costs of salaries, mounting, storage and conservation be factored into the valuation process, or should the whole process be reduced to a guesstimate with an agreed annual percentage increase or decrease? The fact that the requirements for valuation are mandatory does not reduce the burden on university museums and collections staff who operate without clear or definitive guidelines on such matters. We are also faced by absurd situations where an insect may be valued at $10, or if it is a type specimen, $50, but a photograph of this same insect may be $250! Knowing the monetary value of an object or an insect does not change the educational, research or scientific value of the piece or the collection. It is for accounting purposes only and bears no link to its intrinsic social, scientific, cultural, educational or historical value.
On the issue of recognition, while university museums and collections contain a considerable proportion of the Distributed National Collection, many are struggling to be properly recognised by their universities, or identified as an integral part of the national museum industry. While university museums and collections need to reflect the aims of their institutions, universities also need to recognise that their university museums and collections must also reflect the aims of the Australian museums industry as a whole.
Universities must put in place institutional policies that officially recognise the role of their university museums and collections as well as taking the responsibility for planning their continued growth and development by putting in place proper resources for their effective management.
Cinderella Collections itself represents the positive and welcome outcome of cooperative initiatives taken by DEETYA and DCA for the betterment of university museums and collections and of the higher education sector itself. To build on this, there needs to be effective discussion between DEETYA and DCA to ensure that professional recognition and resourcing of these takes place.
How should the quality of higher education courses and teaching be assured, having regard to: rapid changes in the knowledge base of disciplines; the diversity and expansion of institutions within the sector; students and employer demands concerning the content and delivery of higher education; the need to avoid undue restrictions on innovation and competition within the sector; and the growing globalisation of education.
To assure greater flexibility of subject approach and to maintain quality in the face of the rapid changes in knowledge more interdiscipilinary and thematic approaches to the teaching and learning are needed; within such a framework greater use can then be made of university resources, including its university museums and collections. Research carried out in or generally involving university museums and collections naturally leads to an interdiscplinary approach; for example when dealing with classical archaeological material, cooperative research may be carried out by biologists, earth scientists, ceramicists, physicists, art and ancient historians, linguists as well as archaeologists. Such an holistic approach can lead to greater insights into knowledge and aspects of the past as well as into the varying approaches and methodologies of the different disciplines. This multidisciplinary approach to research and teaching can lead to further cooperation and innovation, allowing for the development of a diverse range of future course offerings.
What processes and mechanisms should be in place to ensure that there are effective interfaces between the higher education, vocational education and training, and secondary school sectors?
This is an issue of access to university resourcesand greater interaction between the education sectors. For far too many students, their admission as an undergraduate is their first step on to their chosen campus. Universities need to change this and develop long-term relationships with potential future students by presenting themselves as friendly venues for the primary and secondary sector, encouraging their students to use university facilities and grounds for long- term learning and leisure activities.
In this regard university museums and collections are in a unique position to offer themselves as a first point of contact between the tertiary and the primary and secondary sectors, through the variety of programs they offer. They are often venues for school excursions to attend education programs or special lectures relevant to the school syllabi,
or their students are participants in museum work experience or volunteer programs. In this way secondary students, in particular, become familiar with the facilites, and confident about the workings, of the university, while providing them with a service. A long-standing relationship can be developed which engenders a sense of identity with, and loyalty for, that institution which in turn can lead to a new enrolment.
Such strategies are cost effective and highly productive in turning student focus to a particular university.This first-point-of-contact approach through the university museums and collections can then be further supported by other programs in the university - careers advisors' days, teachers' conferences and seminars, study days for senior high school students, Open Days for the university as a whole, or alternatively for the university museums and collections, heritage walks, public lectures and open forums.
At the same time, universities should be developing resources specifically with the secondary syllabi in mind - units of work, Internet learning sites, CD Rom packages, teaching kits, slide sets, videos - which provide useful learning material to students but also focus these students on the institution. Raising the awareness in secondary students of the strengths and innovations of a university is one very sure way of attracting them as new enrolments.
Many of these initiatives require tertiary staff to have the incentive and encouragement, as well as available time, to plan and develop such strategies and resources. They also need access to proper funding to carry out such proposals. Equally there is no reason why the tertiary sector could not approach the various Departments of Education across the nation and develop cooperative ventures with them. This may involve the formation of resource development teams comprising innovative tertiary and secondary staff, to the mutual benefit of all. Quality resources linked to a particular university, or university museum, are developed, the staff involved are extended to the betterment of their careers (so long as the tertiary sector recognises their staff’s contribution and gives them credit in relation to their career path) and good links are formed between the tertiary and secondary sectors.
As resource centres within universities, the university museums and collections have never been in strong positions to receive credits in financial terms for the contributions they make to teaching, research, publication and community outreach. This needs to be strongly redressed.
In teaching, museums are not in positions to receive credits under the EFTSU system since many act in supporting roles to their various disciplines. Little recognition is paid to their contribution to this teaching at School or discipline level because no account of it is taken by universities in devolved funding formulae.
Many university museums and collections also run education programs for the secondary sector, but again no financial credit is given by the higher education sector for this contribution. Perhaps an EFTSU-type approach could be taken when determining financial support by government to the higher education sector to allow for community outreach programs. Nationally funding of this type could be competitively awarded on the basis of merit for participation in, and delivery of, quality community outreach programs.
To support the growth and development of all educative programs separate funding needs to be provided for ongoing acquisitions.This may take the form of special funds for the purchase of individual items or important collections of material to help fill recognised gaps in university museums, or it could be for funding meritorious research projects. In classical archaeology this may take the form of funded excavation overseas. Currently such funds are available from the ARC where excavation is linked to individual researchers, but is not so readily available when the work is directly related to a museum. Funds directed to university museums and collections for such work are in fact well placed because of the multiplier effects - staff and students gain experience, have access to new research and are able to develop new publications, and are able to foster a significant degree of international goodwill (which may in turn have positive outcomes for the nation in diplomatic and trade terms). Where countries allow excavated material to leave legally as part of the negotiated excavation agreement, it provides the university museums with a source of provenanced material useful for ongoing teaching and learning, for further research and for enhancing community interest and community involvement.
The Taxation Incentives for the Arts Scheme currently allows individuals who are giving important works to the nation to be given a tax credit for the value of the object. While there are some practical difficulties with this scheme, it generally serves its purpose well. Perhaps a similar system could be developed whereby individuals or companies investing in university research can be given considerable tax concessions for their support. For some, this may mean a negotiated return for their investment, in addition to the tax concessions, but it could also encourage investment in areas, such as the Arts, where there is no direct additional gain. This would be one way of promoting the arts and humanities.
In relation to publications, the move to a four-point model (based on the Composite Index of Research Publications) in order to gain funding values for the works produced, causes some difficulties for university museums and collections. While museum staff can produce works that fit into current categories, they also publish works that are not easily covered by the guidelines and so may not attract funding credits. Publications (catalogues) developed in concert with exhibitions are one such example, as also are those that are developed electronically and distributed over the Internet. Administrative guidelines need to be formulated to take these into account.
University museums and collections are a valuable resource for universities who are charged with their care and maintenance for the greater good of the nation. Some such as the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney have a long history in themselves.Others such as the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne, the Nursing Museum at NTU and the Australian Special Reserve Collection at the Australian Defence Force Academy are unique. Frequently university museums and collections are poorly housed, under-developed, under-utilised and poorly staffed, with little access to funding in order to bring themselves up to minimum standard and condition. Yet they all work to serve their universities and the general public in the best way that they are able.
The issues that affect university museums and collections need to be examined and addressed as a matter of national importance by government departments and committees of review, if they are not to be lost to the nation.
It is our hope that this committee will take due regard and consideration of some of these issues, and address them as they relate to the higher education sector.
Ambrose, T. (1993) Managing New Museums, Scottish Museums Council.
McMichael, D. et al (1996) Cinderella Collections: University Museums and Collections in Australia 1996, Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, Canberra.
Carnegie, G.D. and Wolnizer, P.W. (1995) The Financial Value of Cultural, Heritage and Scientific Collections: An Accounting Fiction, Keynote address to the International Conference on the Value and Valuation of Natural Science Collections, University of Manchester, UK, 19-21 April, 1995.
Karl Van Dyke Contact details:
Vice President Museum of Ancient Cultures
CAUMAC Macquarie University,
N.S.W., 2109
ph. 02.9850.9263.
fax. 02.9850.8892