UCL MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS: OUR SERVICES
UCL Museums and Collections runs three public museums: the Petrie Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology, the Grant Museum of Zoology and the UCL Art
Collections. We employ museum staff and manage the spaces and budgets for
these museums.
We also collaborate with departments managing teaching and research
collections – including Archaeology, Ethnography, Geology, Medical and
Scientific collections. Here responsibility for policy, care and access is shared
with the department. We employ staff who can assist with collections
management, documentation and learning and access, and can provide some
project funding, but the department maintains curatorial responsibility and
manages spaces and budgets.
For those museums we run, UCL Museums and Collections staff
 Initiate research proposals involving objects and collections, undertake
collections-based research, promote the collections as research resources
and support collections-based research by others
 Use objects and collections in teaching, develop and promote collectionsbased teaching resources, and support colleagues teaching with the
collections
 Promote the collections to the public, create displays, exhibitions and run
public events, offer schools and outreach programmes
 Care for the collections on display and in store, manage the museum and
storage spaces and organise conservation and documentation programmes
 Provide professional and personal development and training for museums
and collections staff
 Manage the museums and collections budgets, and raise internal and
external funding from research councils, charitable and other sources, to
support this work
 Support three membership, or ‘Friends’ organisations.
For those collections managed by departments, UCL Museums and Collections
can
 Collaborate in research proposals involving objects and collections
 Work together with departments to care for, document, conserve, display and
promote their collections, and use them in outreach where appropriate
 Advise and support academic staff who wish to use objects and collections in
teaching
 Advise on policy development relating to the care of objects and collections:
eg acquisition and disposal; collections management, museum registration
 Advise on aspects of collections care and access: eg security, environmental
conditions, documentation, conservation, display, exhibition, outreach and
promotion
 Advise on sources of funding for collections care and management, and
provide small amounts of project funding
 Provide some curatorial training for departmental staff involved in caring for
objects and collections