Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
LEICESTERSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
Museums Interpretation Strategy
April 2010
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Context
3. Objectives
4. Target audiences
5. Interpretation
6. Conclusions
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. The key role of Leicestershire Museums is preserving and enhancing the heritage and
providing physical and intellectual access to museum collections, resources and functions
throughout the county. However Leicestershire’s local authority-run museums have a remit that
includes but goes far beyond individual sites:
 Its collections resources centre is a distribution point for collections, enabling the rotating
of objects for display as well as a venue for audiences to see non-displayed collections.
 Its range of services available on a county-wide basis includes the innovative Open
Museum with its range of loans for schools and communities and the heritage,
archaeology and natural history networks which are essentially community networks.
 Individual site museums are about local identity and sense of place.
 Site museums provide meeting places for school and community groups, act as local
information hubs and provide exhibitions, events and activities that reflect local
populations.
2. Museums are already contributing to the CPA/LAA agendas around sustainable
communities, safer and stronger communities, healthier communities and older people.
There is a growing evidence base for their impacts on audiences and as influences in the local
community. There is ambition and considerable scope for an extension of this role and a much
higher profile for it.
3. Within this context, the Interpretation Strategy process explored issues for the museum
service, to provide a focus and way forward for all aspects of museum service provision. Its
recommendations are based on the ambition to educate and entertain, provoke debate, stimulate
thought about historic or contemporary issues and act as inspiration for all the communities of
Leicestershire and visitors to the County:
 Museums and collections need to be reflective of local populations
 Work towards workforce reflective of local populations
 Key need to raise the profile of Leicestershire Museums – insufficient recognition of its
cutting edge achievements – Open Museum, community archaeology, heritage and
networks and support for community museums; market as “museum without walls.”
 Key need to maintain professional standards and reputation via accreditation for all sites,
and, in due course, Accreditation Plus.
 Key need to build on knowledge of and analysis of our audiences
 Need to build on, further develop and evaluate formal learning programmes
 As refurbishment projects allow, need to re-evaluate of the role and life cycle of
permanent displays and the piloting of new ways to personalize content and tell stories
 As refurbishment projects allow, build on the established role of community museums
 Importance of Leicestershire Museums’ role in supporting local identity which also
supports tourism
 Tie-ins with local commerce as part of future refurbishments; contributing to local
economy through cultural regeneration by provision of infrastructure.
 Maintain strengths of the service: delivering externally-funded projects on time and to
budget; quality interpretation; community museum support, Open Museum
 Extend skills of the workforce: enhanced leadership skills, curatorial expertise;
interpretation expertise
 Review of Learning and how it fits with strategic themes and outcomes and production of
service-wide Learning Plan.
 Nurture partnerships, specifically with District Councils
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
1. Introduction
1.1 This document is the overview of the service-wide interpretation strategy for museums run by
LCC (LCC). A separate document for each of the site museums provides the interpretation
strategy for each site in more detail. The work is based on a series of workshops held at each
museum, at the Barrow Collections Resources Centre and at the County Record Office, attended
by a range of museum staff, other staff and representatives of stakeholder groups and led by
Graham Black of Nottingham Trent University.
1.2 Interpretation Planning is a process developed around a framework of:
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CONTEXT – factors, external and internal, influencing the interpretation, e.g. national and
local strategies; available budget; nature of proposed spaces; timetable.
WHAT it is wished to present - the nature, strengths and weaknesses of the site and
collections; specific site and resource issues; themes.
WHY – relevant aims and objectives of Leicestershire County Council; specific objectives
for the site; defined outcomes for visitors.
WHO - nature of target audiences; needs of audiences; expectations and perceptions of
audiences.
HOW it is intended to present a site. This is developed as the most appropriate response
to the answers to the questions WHAT/WHY/WHO and the context in which the
interpretation is taking place.
IMPACT of implementation and operation – priorities, capital and revenue implications,
timetable, effects on staff structure, effects on collecting policies, etc.
EVALUATION - embedding evaluation into the process and retaining the flexibility to
change and revise over time – both to introduce visitors to new aspects of the site and to
make adjustments when objectives are clearly not being met.
1.3 Using this framework, the workshops sought answers to the following questions:
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What does the service see as its primary objectives over the next ten years? Where does
it expect to have positioned itself by c2017?
What roles should a county museums service, without the major county town museums,
be seeking to play in the early 21st century?
What are the key roles of a local museum in the 21st century?
As a service for a predominantly rural county, to how significant an extent should the
service seek to reflect, and reflect on, rural life past and present?
What does the service see as its key collections – both those that must be displayed and
those with a fascinating story to share with audiences?
What are the priorities for structured education in the service?
What strategic approaches should the service be putting into play now to meet the needs
and expectations of the culturally diverse audiences of 2017?
2. Context
2.1 The Interpretation Strategy has been developed in the context of the visions already
established for the Service, specifically:
Service Vision - From the past, now and for the future. Together we shall preserve
Leicestershire’s heritage, care for our environment and encourage creativity, inspiration and
delight.
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Service Vision for Communities - Our mission is to play a significant role in the improvement of
local community well-being, to protect and enhance the county’s environment and heritage, and
to improve access to recreational and learning activities and resources, for the people of
Leicestershire, its visitors and for future generations.
Service Vision for Access - Our vision is rooted in diversity, creativity, innovation and
excellence, and we believe that access for everyone is the most important thing that we can work
to achieve. Everyone’s heritage, their environment and the arts are important and the role of
Heritage Services is to encourage people to explore and enjoy them.
2.2 Museums form part of Leicestershire County Council’s Environment and Heritage Service,
which is part of the Community Services Department:
 Large, site-based museums (Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre; Snibston Discovery
Park), entrance is charged
 Community museums (Melton Carnegie Museum, Melton Mowbray; Charnwood Museum,
Loughborough; Harborough Museum, Market Harborough); entrance free
 Historic house (Donington le Heath Manor House, Hugglescote, Coalville); entrance free
 “Museum without walls” comprising:
The Open Museum (Artworks; Resource Box; Moving Objects)
Community Archaeology network; Heritage Wardens; other networks
Support to independent community museums (Renaissance lead for region)
Collections Resources Centre at Barrow on Soar
Collections Online; websites; Access to Collections
Touring exhibitions
2.3. Larger museums
Snibston Discovery Park based on the former mine site in Coalville opened in 1992; it is set in
100 acres of landscaped grounds within the national forest and offers a complete day out with a
range of attractions. Entrance is charged.
The Museum incorporates:
 interactive science exhibits;
 play area and toyshop display targeted at younger users;
 displays exploring industry and technology;
 fashion gallery;
 guided tour of the historic pithead led by ex-miners;
 stretch of working railway;
 Century Theatre;
 Sheepy Magna wheelwright’s shop;
 playground based on scientific principles; and
 shop and café.
 long-established and active schools learning programme.
 temporary community exhibitions.
Bosworth Battlefield Country Park and Heritage Centre opened a café in a tithe barn in 2005
and in 2006 a heritage room which offers education sessions. A new heritage centre based
around the story of the Battle of Bosworth opened in 2007. All this is set within a country park
with walks available and links with the canal/canal trips. A 4 year archaeological project to
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
determine the actual site of the Battle has been underway for 3 years now and has identified the
site successfully. Information regarding this has been fed into the interpretation in part of the
heritage centre. There is an annual programme of events, re-enactments etc. and a government
indemnity standard temporary exhibition space, which will feature a new temporary exhibition
each year. Entrance is charged.
2.4 Community Museums
LCC’s community museums respond to the needs of local communities and provide the following:
 Permanent displays based on the local area
 Temporary displays featuring local and other topics
 Identification and enquiry service
 Education sessions
 Events
 Activities
 Venue for meeting of friends or similar groups
 Opportunities for volunteering and work placements
Each of the three venues has a curator at the site, with deployment of the pool of subject and
other specialists (e.g. education), on the staff of the museums and arts & outreach sections of
Environment & Heritage.
Charnwood Museum, in Queens Park at Loughborough, is run as a partnership between LCC and
Charnwood Borough Council. The latter provide the building and front of house staff while LCC
provides the curator who is also the geology subject specialist. The permanent displays feature
the life and work of the Borough from prehistory to the present. Summer holiday activities and
other activities aimed at school holidays and half-terms are particularly popular. There are two
temporary display spaces; the museum normally hosts touring exhibition rather than generating
them. There is a café and a small shop run by the Borough. There is an active Friends group.
Melton Carnegie Museum in the former Carnegie Library (1905) is in Thorpe End, Melton some
way from the main shopping centre. This museum is entirely funded and run by LCC. It has a
small Friends group and a partnership with the Trustees of the Museum of Hunting. A
refurbishment of the museum took place in 200-. An under-50K HLF scheme recorded the impact
of the Act Against Hunting with Dogs (2004) including producing a website with resources for
classroom use, oral history interviews and some recording of fox hunting collections held by other
bodies.
Current displays feature fox hunting from all points of view, cheese- and pork pie manufacture,
other local trades and industries. There is a fox hunting library and archive. There is a temporary
events and exhibitions programme and a small shop. There is a temporary exhibitions gallery of
government indemnity standard. There is disabled access, visitor toilets and nappy changing
facilities; car parking nearby.
The museum submitted a successful application for Heritage Lottery funding for an extension to
include a community room and additions to the displays which will be around contemporary rural
issues. This is scheduled to be opened in the Summer of 2010.
Harborough Museum is in the centre of Harborough in Symington’s former corset factory. The
building (currently the Harborough District Council Offices) and front of house staff are provided
by Harborough District Council whilst the Keeper and curatorial support are provided by LCC.
The museum works in partnership with the District Council and Market Harborough Historical
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
Society. It has links with the Harborough Local History Group and the Leicestershire and Rutland
Family History Society. The museum celebrates Harborough’s long history as a centre of trade
and industry since its beginnings as a planned town between Leicester and Northampton in the
12th century. It has a small shop. Temporary exhibition and events programme. There are
considerable access problems and a lack of public toilets. There is car parking nearby. In 2009
Harborough Museum opened a new display, funded by the HLF, featuring the Hallaton Treasure
which comprises hoards of silver and gold coins and other finds including a Roman helmet.
These were deposited in a shrine in the late Iron Age and are rega4rded as one of the most
significant Iron Age finds in Britain.
2.5 Historic house
Donington le Heath Manor House Museum is a well-preserved medieval manor house with
displays about the house and how people lived in medieval, Tudor & Stuart times, period garden,
and barn licensed restaurant run as franchise. Entirely run by LCC. Active Friends group;
temporary exhibition and events programme, re-enactments, small shop, toilets and nappychanging and an associated car park. Recently Leicestershire purchased some adjacent land as
a country park.
2.6 Services not based at museum sites (“Museum without walls”)
In addition to lectures and talks and answering inquiries, there is a further range of services and
activities available to audiences beyond those who visit sites. represents a remarkable
contribution to the quality of life of the people of Leicestershire, and to academic understanding of
the county’s history and natural environment.
2.6.1 The Open Museum comprises three loan schemes and the provision of community projects
using special museum collections, together targeting the widest possible range of audiences in
Leicestershire, and providing a responsive and cost effective way to reach communities and small
towns where there is no Local Authority museum. Due to the way that objects, art and displays
can be combined and explained, Open Museum loans are able to contribute to changing
requirements on the part of users and to help a range of other service providers deliver their own
agenda. Open Museum loans add value to learning activities, and provide opportunities to
stimulate debate, learning, and personal development.
Artworks is a collection of over 900 paintings, sculptures, original prints and photographs by 20th
century and contemporary artists. It is rare for a collection of this calibre – with works by notable
artists with international reputations like Paula Rego, David Hockney, and Bridget Riley – to be
available to community organisations and schools for use in their own venues.
Moving Objects comprises small, complete displays that tour to non-museum locations,
including libraries and community venues, in Leicestershire’s towns and villages. The displays
address themes and topics that are of contemporary interest and they are presented in an
innovative and non-traditional way.
Resource Box contains a broad range of over 2000 boxes of real museum objects, natural
history specimens, models and replicas to enhance formal and informal learning. Resource Box
has an important role in supporting curriculum-based activities in schools as well as communitybased activities and projects. It has a substantial user base at Key Stages I and II within
Leicestershire schools. While the National Curriculum remains central to this, in recent years
teachers have been increasingly willing to take their focus away from the direct application of the
National Curriculum to experiment and do creative work with the collections.
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2.6.2 Community wildlife and archaeology networks
This includes:
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The Portable Antiquities Scheme
Archaeology wardens
Heritage wardens
Archaeology field walking, 400-strong overarching group plus independent groups
across the county supported by Service staff.
Environmental recording (a planning function), working with and training
community groups.
Outreach work through the Community Heritage Initiative.
Partnerships for Environmental Protection.
Responsibility for Natural History falls between the Museums and the History and Natural
Environment team, with the former responsible for collections and the latter for the recording
function and outreach, funded through the Community Heritage Initiative which ends in November
2008I. The bulk of the outreach work is geared to encouraging and training people to become
involved in environmental recording. Outreach therefore involves working with a wide range of
people, from beginners to specialists, including the development of new audiences. The Team
has made considerable use of the web as outreach, particularly as a means of sending in
records. It has also supported an online education pack – Wild About’ – created by volunteers.
2.6.3 Advisory service to local independent museums.
Leicestershire has a tradition of almost 30 year’s standing now, of providing a community
museums officer as liaison and support for independent museums in the county. This has been
organized via a Forum with training events and annual awards scheme. This track record was
recognized by allocation of funding from Renaissance East Midlands to roll the scheme out to
other counties in the region in 2006-2008 via museum development officers.
2.6.4 The Collections Resources Centre at Barrow on Soar holds most of the small and
medium-sited collections material where it is available to the public by appointment as well as
acting as a “hub” from which collections are deployed in the various museum venues. There is
parking and public transport access. Groups can arrange guided tours and some loans are
available.
2.6.5 Collections Online provides online access to selected objects in the museum collections
with general as well as more detailed and background information. Collections featured are coal
mining, toys, Auster aircraft, NEXT and designer fashion and the Symington corset collection. In
addition to museums information on the main LCC website there are two microsites representing
a Foxhunting HLF project and Bosworth Battlefield.
2.6.6 The Touring Exhibitions element is in its infancy. Exhibitions generated by Museums and
by the Record Office currently circulate within museums and, to an extent, libraries and other
venues. The County Record Office (run in partnerships with Leicester City and Rutland)
generates exhibitions, increasingly in partnership with museums.
2.7 Collections
2.7.1 The LCC collections include the following themes:
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
Natural Life Collections - include environmental information, species and site records, type and
voucher specimens, geological specimens, and other records of the county’s changing
environment. The geology collections include Leicestershire rocks and minerals and a handling
collection of fossils. Areas of excellence are British non-flowering plants (international);
Leicestershire rocks and minerals (national); Leicestershire insects (regional); Leicestershire birds
and mammals (local).
The Home and Family Life Collections show the changing way in which county people have
built, decorated and managed their homes including domestic equipment, tools and fittings, lifecycle, recreation, faith, the public house, theatre, cinema, the vital impact of mass transport and
the popular holiday resort. Areas of excellence are toys (national); domestic ephemera (national).
The Working Life Collections reflect social changes in work patterns over time, related changes
in technology, communications and the distribution of goods. Areas of excellence: the
Leicestershire light aircraft industry (particularly Auster Aircraft) (international); Leicestershire
coalmining industry (national); railway construction (Newton photographs) (national);
Leicestershire extractive industries (regional); engineering industries (local), 18th century clockmaker’s workshop.
The Town and Country Life collecting theme reflect the qualities of working on the land and
earning a living from it as well as the villages and towns that sprang from these activities. The
development of market towns as centres of diverse population, trade and commerce, the
evolution of the retail trades and the crucial impact of effective transport systems, are also
important components of this theme. Wide-ranging collections of artefacts and archives will be
acquired to illustrate these popular subjects. Areas of excellence: Stilton cheese and pork pie
manufacture; Horse-drawn vehicles (regional); Leicestershire’s rural crafts and trades (local);
local authority, parish and estate archives (local).
Sporting Life - material, documentary and anecdotal evidence of all sporting activities in the
county. Fox hunting is a special case, having had a major impact on the landscape and society of
the Melton area in particular. In partnership with the Hunting Museum Trust, a special collection
of hunting artefacts, records, artworks and memorabilia. Areas of excellence: Collections relating
to hunting locally and nationally; (national); Leicestershire sporting art (national).
Creative Life - This area of collections will reflect the creative spirit of Leicestershire and the
many forms in which it manifests itself. Primarily there are the collections of local prints,
drawings, watercolours and easel paintings which are by local artists or depict Leicestershire
scenes and people; these fine art holdings will be developed as the opportunities to do so arise.
The collection will also recognise the role of local, national and international artists, designers and
crafts people in the enhancement of the cultural life of the county. The costume and fashion
collections are particularly important here, and we will strive to maintain their position as the
premier collection in the Midlands. The NEXT collection, now nationally important, demonstrating
one successful retailer’s approach to high street fashion and the retail business. Areas of
excellence: Symington foundation wear collection (international); NEXT collection (national);
Artworks collection (national); Travelling theatre and the performing arts (national); costume and
fashion collection (regional); travel posters (local).
The Archaeology collections cover all periods of time. They have been acquired from a range of
sources: organised fieldwalking (including metal detector work); single item or spot finds by
members of the public; the diligence of local archaeological wardens; and authorised field
investigation and excavation. Areas of excellence: Lower Palaeolithic stone tools (international);
collections from Leicestershire’s scheduled ancient monuments (national and regional); extensive
multi-period fieldwalking project collections (national and regional); exploitation and bridging of
the River Trent in the medieval period (national and regional); early Anglo-Saxon settlement and
burials (regional); middle-late Iron Age occupation evidence (regional and local). Recently the SE
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
Leicestershire Treasure, which comprises a number of important Iron Age/Roman coin hoards
and a high status Roman helmet.
2.8 Current audiences
The majority of visitors to Leicestershire Museums, with the exception of Snibston and Bosworth
Field, are white, British, aged over 45 and from a professional background. For such visitors, a
trip to a museum is a social outing. Expectations include:
 The visit will be enjoyable and interesting. There will be things to do together - visitors
want to be more than passive recipients of written information.
 There will be something for everyone
 The visit will provide an opportunity to learn something – preferably starting from familiar
concepts and moving to the unfamiliar.
 The site will cater for all ranges of prior knowledge, ability and age.
 The site will provide good quality facilities and a high standard of service.
Apart from Leicester and its environs, the vast majority of people living within the county describe
themselves as white. Charnwood has the largest BME population:
Local Authority
Total population
% white
Blaby
90,252
94.3%
Charnwood
153,462
91.7%
Harborough
76,559
97.9%
Hinckley & Bosworth
100,141
97.9%
Leicester City
279,921
63.9%
Melton
47,866
98.8%
N W Leicestershire
85,503
98.8%
Oadby & Wigston
55,795
84.0%
[Source: National Statistics website: www.statistics.gov.uk. Crown copyright material is
reproduced with permission of the Controller of HMSO]
2.9 Learning Provision
Leicestershire Museums is already committed to making life-long learning accessible to everyone,
regardless of their geographical location, social and economic circumstances, and to enhancing
provision for formal learners. Details of current learning provision can be found in Appendix One
of each site document.
In 2004 the Leicestershire Schools Survey looked at the education services provided at Snibston
Discovery Park and Bosworth Battlefield Country Park. The findings of the survey suggest the
barriers to schools visiting museums are risk assessments, ensuring the right key stage is
covered, the cost, whether there are hands on activities, eating facilities and suitability for
disabled pupils. The main reason for visiting museums was curriculum support.
By their very nature, permanent displays introducing a local area and occupying limited gallery
space cannot adequately support specific history study units in a way that would justify school
visits. As a result, structured educational usage of Leicestershire’s local museums tends to be
both limited to local schools and focused on organised activities independent of the displays. The
small size of the local museums also makes it impossible for them to cater for visits by whole year
groups of secondary school pupils (the preferred approach at KSIII).
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
3. Objectives
3.1 As a county service, Leicestershire’s local authority-run museums have a remit that goes far
beyond individual sites. Its collections resources centre is a distribution point for collections,
enabling the rotating of objects for display as well as a venue for audiences to see non-displayed
collections. Its range of services available on a county-wide basis includes the innovative Open
Museum with its range of loans for schools and communities and the heritage, archaeology and
natural history networks which are essentially community networks. Individual site museums are
about local identity and sense of place. They provide meeting places for school and community
groups, act as local information hubs and provide exhibitions, events and activities that reflect
local populations. All of this means that museums are already contributing to the CPA/LAA
agendas around sustainable communities, safer and stronger communities, healthier
communities and older people. There is a growing evidence base for their impacts on
audiences and as influences in the local community. There is also considerable scope for an
extension of this role and for a higher profile for it.
3.2 The Interpretation Strategy process aimed to explore a series of issues for the museum
service, to provide a focus and way forward for all aspects of museum service provision for our
audiences based on an Interpretive Vision. At the heart of the interpretive vision is an ambition to
provide physical and intellectual access to museum collections, resources and functions
throughout Leicestershire and opportunities, for all whom so desire, to participate actively in the
work of the Service. The ambition is to educate and entertain, provoke debate, stimulate thought
about historic or contemporary issues and act as inspiration for all the communities of
Leicestershire and visitors to the County.
3.3 A token date of 2017 was agreed as part of the process in developing the Plan. In the
workshops, the question ‘What do you want Leicestershire museums to be like in 2017’ was
posed and the answers have been used to establish a clear framework for how the vision can be
achieved. Against this, priorities are defined.
3.4 For a county-wide Service to achieve these ambitions, there is a need to examine both what
can best be achieved within traditional building-based museums and to build on Leicestershire’s
already long-standing and pioneering break-away from the traditional building-oriented focus of
museums (e.g. the Open Museum; Community Archaeology) to become truly a ‘Museum without
Walls’. In this context it will examine how to maximize the quality and depth of service offered to
users across the county who may not be close to a museum site.
3.5 It emerged during the Interpretation Strategy workshops that much of this work has already
started or is already being done. The challenges within the Interpretation Strategy are therefore
to introduce additional elements where relevant, to suggest ways to enhance existing provision
and to seek a more ‘joined-up’ provision, to more effectively meet the needs of Leicestershire’s
communities and visitors. The conclusions of the Interpretation Strategy work therefore comprise
a general statement of principles with specific proposals for each site in separate documents.
Ultimately a series of outcome-driven service changes and refurbishments will be derived from
this process as reflected in each of the site documents as well as in the service-wide conclusions
below. These will be local community-driven and audience focused:
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To ensure the museums service is seen as an active component of life in Leicestershire.
To actively encourage and sustain as wide an audience as possible to enjoy and explore
the facilities and opportunities the museums service provides – to see the museums and
archives as active centres for participatory use by all communities – and for learning.
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
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To engender a ‘sense of Leicestershire’ and of the local, including a reflection of the
predominantly rural nature of the county.
To achieve a quality countywide service, but also retain the individual identities of the
sites.
To place collections at the heart of the interpretation – in the widest sense of not just
objects but archives, images, film, oral history, etc.
To establish robust mechanisms to ensure these collections are further developed, to
reflect the diversity and interests of Leicestershire communities.
To develop inspiring and accessible learning environments.
To develop strategic partnerships for long-term benefit.
To increase levels of general usage of the service – including through the ‘virtual museum’
– and to sustain this by encouraging visitors to change from one-off to repeat and regular
users.
To strategically target excluded groups – issue of balancing new targets against sustained
involvement and the quality of the experiences engendered.
To seek to expand schools usage of the service, but not necessarily at every site.
To establish a robust programme of workforce development to support the ambitions of
the service.
To extend volunteer and community participation in the work of the service.
To embed consistent information collection and evaluation into all relevant aspects of
service provision.
3.6 Site specific objectives
To extend the concept of the ‘virtual museum’ to ensure ease of access to audiences
across the County and emphasise this increasingly important dimension for museums
away from the traditional building oriented focus:
o Moving Objects displays
o Artworks/Resource Box (the Open Museum)
o Community archaeology/heritage/natural life
o Partnerships with libraries
o Other outreach
o Online access to collections and associated learning opportunities – linking with
archives and local studies.
o To support on-line Community Archives.
To focus heavy levels of visitor usage, in terms of either overall numbers or larger groups,
on sites that can sustain them:
o To take a holistic approach to the on-going development of Snibston as a major visitor
destination.
o To build on the current works at Bosworth Battlefield to further develop its role as a
visitor destination and major learning resource.
To redefine the role of the ‘local museum’, taking into account individual circumstances:
o Can museum and library come together to create a new cultural institution, for
example at Harborough (and, if the model works, perhaps later at others)? This could
make a tremendous HLF bid, but only if a vision of a single institution, not simply a
shared space or a dominant library function.
o A partial exemplar for Donington-le-Heath and Melton might be Woodchurch Village
Museum, Kent (www.woodchurchmuseum.com) – upstairs local studies room with a
full range of surrogate materials from the county archives relevant to the village –
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
o
volunteer staff trained by KCC archives and local studies staff. Model for local access
to local material where originals held in county archive. I would link content to the KSII
local study unit.
Is the temporary exhibition programme at Charnwood sustainable? Change is
essential in a local museum to develop repeat and regular visitors. However, would
Charnwood be better with a smaller permanent display and a larger temporary
exhibition space, but with each exhibition lasting much longer – and with clear target
audiences. The smaller exhibition space, given its strong community links seems
sustainable.
To explore further ways of extending usage of local studies and archives, including an
evaluation of the impact of digitisation projects nationally.
4. Target audiences
4.1 Building on current provision
The ambitions of the Service towards audiences are:
 To retain and build an enduring relationship with existing audiences.
 To attract currently under-represented audiences and, in so doing, broaden the
audience base.
 To support local initiatives on social and community regeneration/cohesion.
 To further develop educational usage.
 To play a role as tourist destinations as well as amenities for local communities.
 To substantially improve the experience for all visitors.
 To generate increased income from visitors
 To expand corporate usage.
 Overall, to build a loyal, committed audience for the future, enabling the Service to
substantially increase current visits by 2025.
Key audiences for the museums in general are:
 Informal visitors
 Families
 Schools
 BME visitors
 Visitors with disabilities
 Repeat visitors.
Research suggests a high proportion of visitors to the Service’s museums have been before (46%
to Harborough Museum, for example). This suggests they enjoy their visits. A commitment to
repeat visitors will involve:



A high standard of welcome and service when they are there.
A changing programme of exhibitions, events and activities so that there is ‘always
something new’ happening.
Opportunities and encouragement to participate, to meet staff and to explore in more
depth.
4.2 BME audiences
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
Research on developing greater use by BME populations provides a segmented picture with a
mix of motivations and attitudes. Consultation in Birmingham suggests more culturally relevant
displays and events, and more child-friendly exhibits could have an impact but will only have
limited impact. The rapid growth in black and minority ethnic communities is amongst young,
British born people with brand conscious attitudes more likely to be attracted to design, fashion
etc. However there is also substantial evidence of BME usage following the same pattern as
white usage – for example increasing with representation of life experiences, and families seeking
high-quality learning experiences for their children.
Museums seek to define and overcome barriers that are physical, intellectual, social, cultural and
economic. It should be noted, however, that there is evidence from a range of sources that the
two main reasons why people do not visit museums and galleries are:
 They say they are not interested.
 They say that they do not have enough time.
Wider reasons given are reflected in the DCMS national Taking Part survey:
%
35.5
29.2
10.4
9.8
9.5
8.1
4.5
4.4
3.3
2.0
1.2
1.1
5.0
Not really interested
It's difficult to find the time
Lack of transport/I can't easily get to it
Never occurred to me
Health isn't good enough
No need to go
I wouldn't enjoy it
It costs too much
Not enough information on what is available
Have been in past/no need to go again
Not child friendly/children too young
I have no one to go with
Other reasons
Source: DCMS Taking Part survey 2005-2006
4.3 Building on current schools provision
There are real opportunities to further develop schools provision:
 Further coordinating the work with schools of the Open Museum and the Service’s
museums.
 Developing on-line education resource materials.
 Building partnerships with the new library development officers, who will visit each school
in their catchments each year.
 A core opportunity is to increase usage of the Resource Box by secondary schools,
particularly at Key Stage III level.
This is substantially a management and learning issue rather than part of the Interpretation Plan,
but there is always overlap between learning and interpretation functions. The central
recommendation would be that the potential for interpretation is taken into account as schools
provision is further developed.
5. Interpretation
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
5.1 The palette of interpretational approached outlined below will not necessarily be present at
each site or other form of provision, but should be seen as overall guidelines:
In order to maximise access and inclusivity, interpretation within Leicestershire Museums and
Heritage Service will:





incorporate a wide range of approaches
allow for contrasting learning styles
build on pre-existing experience and knowledge levels of the visitor
provide a palette of different interpretive approaches
provide ‘layering’ of material, meeting individual needs in terms of entry and exit points
and ensuring the availability of different levels of information.
It will seek to:
 Ensure the environment of the museum is welcoming and supportive.
 Develop museum experiences that impact on the emotions and senses as well as on the
intellect.
 Encourage participation, social interaction, discussion and involvement.
 Ensuring audiences enjoy themselves.
 Ensure that visitors feel ‘represented’ in the displays, and that these are very peoplefocused, with personal stories to the fore.
 Engage visitors directly with collections
 Introduce displays which are ‘paced’, with changes of mood and of types of visitor
interaction – and also rest points - to retain interest and concentration.
 Displays in which there is ‘always something new’ going on – kept alive by a programme
of activities, including object-handling sessions, and by a dynamic and relevant temporary
exhibition programme.
 Displays where relevant structured educational projects have been ‘built in’ to ensure they
meet curriculum needs.
 An environment that encourages visitors to connect with each other.
 An environment that is safe for young children.
 Clarity of vision in what it seeks to do
 Themed displays, conveying ideas and meanings, not just facts.
 Care in the interpretive detail of the displays as well as in the ‘big picture’.
5.2 The Service has a legal responsibility under the Disability Discrimination Act to take every
reasonable step to meet the needs of visitors with disabilities. The Service is committed to
identifying and overcoming physical, intellectual, organizational and attitudinal barriers to disability
access. The Service is also committed to working in partnership with disabled people and groups
to enhance their experience and provide improved opportunities to involvement. In the initial
years in which the Interpretation Plan applies, there will be a specific focus on adults and children
with learning difficulties.

Using the activities and events programme to ensure there is ‘always something new’
happening. Creating spaces (‘dwell points’) within displays where small scale activities
can take place on a regular basis. Training gallery assistants and volunteers to run the
activities – so they can become part of daily/weekly routine.
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010




Continuing to build relationships with local schools and teachers. Developing schools
resource materials that can be accessed freely through the internet – and recognizing use
of the website as the equivalent of a site visit.
Enabling local people to engage with and participate in their histories, including supporting
community groups in the development and presentation of community archives.
Where relevant, developing community spaces that can be used by community groups
and schools, including for non-museum related activities.
Embracing the internet and treating the website as a core part of the museum service –
both as an extension of each local museum and as a part of the Service’s ‘museum
without walls’.
5.3 The Interpretation Plan must sit alongside:
 A Service-wide Learning Plan, to enhance learning opportunities, both formal and
informal.
 Completion of the suite of site-specific audience development plans. A Service-wide and
element-specific Audience Development Plan to challenge the traditional barriers to
museum access which include ‘social class, poverty, education disadvantage, ethnic and
cultural background, disability and an individual’s own attitudes’.
5.4 To ensure best use of resources and expertise, it must be recognized that the Service cannot
work alone. A key task must be to establish areas for co-operation and partnership with other
County Council service providers and with outside agencies, and outline how these can be
achieved.











o
o
o
o
o
To enhance access to museum collections and expertise.
To enhance visitor enjoyment, understanding and participation.
To improve the quality of experience of existing audiences to ensure a loyal committed
audience for the future.
To broaden the Service’s audience base by attracting and retaining currently underrepresented groups.
To support the Service in its role as a major resource for informal learning.
To develop enhanced facilities and support for formal learners.
To provide opportunities and support/encouragement for more people to become directly
involved with their heritage, including opportunities for voluntary work and work
experience.
To build on existing outreach and project work, to further involve and work with local
communities and societies, and to be even more receptive to their needs and aspirations.
To enable users of the Service to ‘meet the experts’ and discover the work they do.
To provide up-to-date accounts of research carried out by or for the Service.
To provide links to relevant local and national groups and societies.
Recognise that the days of mass communication are over – instead we must be able to
respond to the needs of a range of audiences who seek to personalise their experiences;
Ensure good physical and conceptual orientation, so visitors can choose what they want
to do and readily understand what the displays are about;
Develop themed displays, conveying ideas and meanings, not just facts;
Define clear hierarchies in presentation to ensure a readily understandable display
structure for visitors;
Create displays that are inclusive of the whole local community;
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
o
o
o
o
o
o
Create displays in which visitors feel represented, with personal stories to the fore with
which visitors feel they can associate;
Create an environment that encourages visitors to connect what they see, do and feel with
what they already know – and to also provoke memories and encourage the sharing and
recording of these.;
Create an environment that encourages visitors to connect with each other;
Create an environment that incorporates a limited number of ‘dwell-points’ for activities for
the general public and school groups, including limited object-handling, for deeper study
and for rest, reflection and conversation;
Develop displays that recognise and reflect different points of view, and allow visitors to
construct meanings for themselves;
Develop displays that have a ‘layering’ of content, so that users can enter at a level
appropriate to them.
5.5 Temporary exhibition programmes
A temporary exhibition programme:
 Represents the ‘changing face’ of the museum, encouraging regular visits;
 Allows the museum to explore local themes not looked at (or not explored in depth) in the
permanent displays and to bring rarely seen objects out of the reserve store;
 Allows the museum to target different audiences over time and at different times of the
year;
 Can provide an opportunity for community groups to mount displays;
 Allows the museum to ‘bring the world’ to the local community through displays of high
quality material from outside the locality, and from other countries and cultures; and
 Can, if desired, enable the museum to focus for part of the year on material directly
relevant to a specific KSII history study unit.
To achieve these ambitions, the spaces and display facilities for temporary exhibitions should
meet environmental and security requirements that would enable them to be used not just for
displays of local material but also, as part of the yearly programme, to ‘bring the world’ to local
people.
The role, number, nature and scale of temporary exhibitions currently provided by Leicestershire
museums to a degree reflect the distinctiveness of the individual museums and the demands
made on them. However, temporary exhibition programmes frequently tend to appeal more to
regular users rather than engendering new or repeat visits from within a wider audience. With little
means of marketing exhibitions and activities, only regulars get to know about them. There is a
huge difference between visits and visitors. A seemingly large number of visits can be the result
of a much smaller number of regular visitors.
It must also be recognised that temporary exhibitions represent a substantial commitment in staff
time, which could alternatively be spent on other tasks. There is no ‘right’ amount. A basic
principle would be that over a period of time the exhibitions should be aimed across the target
audiences for the museum but that each exhibition should be given a long enough period to allow
word-of-mouth to act as a key marketing tool and that each should be supported by a programme
of activities that will encourage involvement by both regular and new users.
o Define a balance between the spaces given over to permanent and temporary exhibitions;
o Ensure the spaces and display facilities for temporary exhibitions meet appropriate
environmental and security requirements;
o See temporary exhibitions as an opportunity to make full use of reserve collections;
17
Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
o
See temporary exhibitions as an opportunity to pilot proposed changes to the permanent
displays;
o Use the temporary exhibition programme over time to engage new audiences;
o Provide opportunities for community groups, young people, etc. to be involved in
developing exhibitions;
o Define a timespan for temporary exhibitions that will allow word-of-mouth to attract as
wide an audience as possible;
o Support each exhibition with a programme of activities targeted at different audiences;
o Consider whether one exhibition a year should relate closely to a KSII history study unit
(with local relevance);
o Consider whether at least some of the exhibitions should be created centrally within the
Service and toured to the various museums, to share expertise and save time; and
Ensure that at least one exhibition a year ‘brings the world’ to the local community – supported by
displays of any local links and by a programme of activities.
5.6 Activities and Events programmes
A vibrant activities and events programme is essential in attracting both regular and repeat
visitors. I make a distinction between ‘activities’ and ‘events’. I define activities as a ‘normal’ part
of the museum visit, run by gallery assistants or volunteers on a timed programme through the
day or week. Events are on a larger scale and planned as ‘one-offs’, perhaps as an individual
occasion or as part of a monthly programme as at Donington-le-Heath.
While special events can be planned independently of individual displays, it is essential that
space for a regular programme of activities should be seen as part of individual gallery
interpretation from the planning stage. These should be a mainstay in terms of providing
opportunities for visitors to participate and for encouraging repeat visits as there is ‘always
something new’ happening. Individual events, or planned annual programmes, can bring the
subject matter of the museum’s displays to life or introduce visitors to a completely new world.
Their scale means they can be targeted to meet the needs of different audiences, including those
hard to reach teenagers, giving ample opportunities for participation and experiential learning.
The problem with events programming, like temporary exhibitions, is the substantial commitment
in staff time and/or finance involved. My concern is that visitor numbers to events can hide a lack
of visitors to the museum at other times. Would the staff time/finance involved be better used
running a regular activities programme so that, whenever you visited, the quality and participative
nature of the visit was ensured? – Or, given the nature of visitor patterns to the museums, would
there simply not be enough visitors at any one time to justify running activities? There is no right
answer – the issue is one of establishing an acceptable balance.
o
o
o
o
o
Create spaces (‘dwell points’) within displays where small scale activities can take place
on a regular basis. Provide cupboard space here for ease of access to handling
collections and other relevant material;
Develop activities directly relating to the displays adjacent to the dwell points;
Train gallery assistants and volunteers to run the activities – so they can become part of
daily/weekly routine;
Clarify spatial and other requirements for any events programme; and
Define new target audiences that can be reached through events.
6. Conclusions
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
6.1 Future role of Community Museums
Community Museums have a considerable role to play in “the Place Agenda”. Many people,
whatever their age, have a special relationship with the place where they live. This is of immense
importance, especially in the face of rapid change. Beyond the individual, local communities have
a collective ‘sense of place’ and ‘sense of history’. These are inextricably intertwined and are
central to who the community is and to its pride in and sense of belonging to the places it cares
about. A community that has together recognised the value of its home will be more socially
cohesive and better able to control its destiny. Curators of community museums specialize in
local knowledge and are plugged into networks of locally influential people.
The future role of LCC’s community museums is therefore:
 Continuing development of relevant collections to support the museum’s role as living
repository and communicator of community memory, representing all elements of the local
community.
 Acting as object treasure house that acts as a collective memory for local communities, a
guardian of those collections, and responsible for the on-going documentation of changing
times (including through the continuing development of collections).
 Starting point for discovery of the local area, leading people to look with fresh, more
informed and tolerant eyes at the richness of the present urban and natural environment
and to imagine beyond it to past and possible future histories.
 Hub from which users are encouraged to go out to explore the original contexts of the
artefacts, documents, images, archive film and oral histories in the collections. Through
exploring the locality, people can enhance their sense of place and sense of the past.
 Working with the Record Office and local studies libraries to establish the museums as
local study centres.
 A communicator of local distinctiveness and identity, tasked with helping local
communities and visitors alike make sense of a place and of its history.
 Proactive in supporting neighbourhood and community renewal, through engendering a
sense of pride within localities.
 Relevant to the whole community, with local people and communities actively involved in
content development and delivery, and with a core purpose of improving people’s lives.
 A centre of knowledge/expertise, research and innovation that is integral to the learning
community and an important resource for structured educational use.
 A community meeting place.
 Accessible to all - intellectually, physically, socially, culturally, economically.
 A promoter of social inclusion and cohesion.
 Proactive in developing new audiences.
 Proactive in developing, working with and managing pan-agency projects.
 A tourist attraction.
 An income generator.
 Encouraging and supporting young people in an exploration of their own connectedness,
using new ways of particular appeal to them.
6.2 Challenges for community museums
Intellectually, permanent displays can seem to ‘freeze time’ – the permanence of the displays
fixes the memories represented, organized in a static space, and provides limited access to the
multiple stories objects contain. Also, in a local environment people, having viewed them once or
twice, and then perhaps returned again when visitors came to stay, do not come back.
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
Experience would suggest a life cycle for local use of permanent displays of no more than five
years – unacceptably short, given the capital costs in their development, let alone the staff time
involved.
A key challenge for any museum is to sustain and preferably to grow its audiences. This involves
achieving a balance between new visitors, repeat visitors and regular users. This is close to
impossible to achieve if museum content remains static; there is an absolute necessity for regular
refreshment. Nationally, the means sought to achieve this tends to focus on the provision of
temporary exhibitions and programmes of holiday activities. But. In addition, ‘permanent’ displays
should be designed for flexibility and ease (and cheapness) of change, without any deterioration
in quality. With a regular programme of associated activities, there should be ‘always something
new’ happening.
Most traditional permanent museum displays still tend to follow a didactic approach – one based
on an anonymous, authoritarian voice dispensing an orthodox single-faceted account of the past.
Despite the introduction of new media, they continue to provide little opportunity for visitors to
engage directly with the material, or to re-assess it from a more personal point of view. It is
important when developing a new interpretation plan to seek instead an approach that permits
once silent voices to be heard and their contributions acknowledged – the poor, women, ethnic
minority groups, those with disabilities, and others. If visitors are to make meaning of their
community’s past, it must have direct relevance to them. Leicestershire Museums are already
some way down this route but, as always, there is more to be done – particularly in terms of
researching the hidden stories and developing collections (including oral histories, images, etc.)
to support them. Such an approach will dramatically affect how museum displays are created and
what they contain, particularly leading to multi-layered approaches to content.
Linked to this, wider research in museum interpretation suggests an increasing unwillingness of
heritage visitors, amongst both younger and older audiences, to accept a purely passive
experience. People want to play a more active role in uncovering, interpreting and recounting
their pasts.
For older audiences, ‘active’ can mean the act of remembering. Local museums are a location
where history and memory can meet – the history represented or encountered in the museum
stimulating the memories of the visitor. Memories are reflected in the records that museums hold
about their objects and are represented in the oral histories museums (and other public history
bodies) gather. Permanent displays in local museums must also provide opportunities for people
to add their memories. From the exhibits encountered, and the memories evoked and shared,
new meanings are made. In our museums, remembering can become something the community
does together. Collective memories will fade over time given that successive generations will not
attach the same meanings and significance to past events. Our local museums have a
responsibility to maintain those memories.
Given the limited space available for permanent displays within local museums, it is very difficult
to adequately meet the needs of different audience types. While the existing displays suit many
amongst the over 35 years old, well educated audience which makes up such a high percentage
of users, there tends to be inadequate provision for family audiences and young people. The
spaces have to be made to work harder so that these audiences both find an initial visit
stimulating and enjoyable, but also to encourage repeat use. Dwell-points, activity backpacks and
regular programmes of activities can make a huge difference to family use. Finally, a commitment
to being ‘a centre of knowledge/expertise, research and innovation that is integral to the learning
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
community’ places an obligation on the museum to support informal visitors in a deeper
exploration of their community’s past if they so desire, and to meet the differing needs of learners.
Local museums, as defined by the roles outlined above, are by their very nature community
spaces – relevant to and inclusive of the whole community, engendering local pride, welcoming
local people in, and committed to community involvement.
6.3 Provision of community space
One issue for local museums in Leicestershire is whether being recognised as a community
space requires, literally, the availability of a space or room within the museum for community use.
This could be for activities or events related to the museum. It could also be for wider community
use, both during museum opening hours and in the evenings.
At best, a community room:
 Provides a dedicated space for school and other museum activities, and for joint
programmes with libraries and other bodies;
 May bring in audiences who may not otherwise come to the museum and give them the
confidence to use the museum itself
 Provides flexibility – it could, for example, host an exhibition for part of the year.
6.4 Opportunities for a local study centres
Leicestershire’s local museums are already centres of local knowledge and expertise and object
treasure-houses that act as collective memories for local communities, as guardians of those
collections, and responsible for the on-going documentation of changing times (including through
the continuing development of collections). They are also committed to enhancing access to
those collections and that expertise. There is considerable overlap with local studies libraries and,
to a lesser degree, records offices in the role of a centre for local expertise. This brings enormous
potential for partnerships that both create major local study resources and respond to national
strategic frameworks. Local studies libraries contain extensive collections of local secondary
sources (often overlapping with material held by local museums). Digitisation means much local
material held by records offices can be made widely available. It is increasingly rare, however, for
library services to have specialist local studies librarians beyond the central library while archives
staff are focused in county records offices.
There is a real opportunity for collaborative ventures that bring together published sources,
digitised records, images, oral histories and archive film with accessible museum reserve
collections (including, for example, the photograph collection held at Harborough or the hunting
material at Melton) with the expertise held by the staff in the local museum (supported perhaps by
volunteers) to create a first rate local study centre which could command widespread use by local
groups, schools, family researchers who want to know more about local context, etc. There are
precedents for this. On the first floor of Woodchurch Museum in Essex is a Study Centre, where
the museum’s extensive collection of artefacts, documents, records and photographs can be
researched. These include copies of material provided by the Essex Records Office, who also
provided training for the volunteers involved in staffing the centre. Computing, Internet access
and copying facilities are also available.

Acknowledge the financial and community service benefits of a single local study centre
supported by staff expertise and explore how this can best become an effective crossdepartmental venture with shared funding;
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010





Design in a space with accessible stores and a ‘shared search room area’;
Look to digitisation as a key means of accessing material – work with the Record Office to
establish a programme for delivery;
Look at ways to share staff and staff training;
Develop schools local study project work to encourage use of the study centre by younger
visitors.
Include internet access and a photocopier in the space.
6.5 Role of websites in community museums










Seeing the website as a destination in its own right as well as an entry point to other
elements of the Service.
Seeing and treating users of the website in the same light as those who physically visit
museums.
Continuing to keep people informed of the Service and its activities.
Working in partnership with the Records Office and local studies sections within libraries.
Using the website to substantially widen access to the collections and local expertise of
the Service for all, including those with disabilities.
Developing ‘virtual’ exhibitions.
Working with young people to create personalised downloads to support exploration of
museum displays and of the county as a whole.
Constructing a major educational resource.
Working with local communities in the collecting, recording, writing and communication of
their own histories through community archives.
Enabling users to feed back to museum staff.
6.6 Outreach and other external programmes






Evening lectures to outside groups;
Joint ventures with local tourism organisations, churches and chambers of commerce (e.g.
for the Victorian Christmas in Harborough and Melton;
Joint projects with local libraries (e.g. with the Polish community in Melton);
Taking exhibitions into the community (e.g. the Melton display at the Game fair);
Enabling people from within local communities to mount exhibitions (e.g. in Charnwood);
Field-walking;
6.7 New permanent displays
6.7.1 Leicestershire is predominantly a rural county, yet there is no major natural history display
within the Service’s museums. There are limited displays at the Carnegie Melton Museum and at
Charnwood Museum. There is also an active loans service, with display trays and associated
interpretation, in high demand amongst libraries and community venues. Yet the impact of global
climate change is constantly in the news and is reflected in Leicestershire County Council
policies, and there are real issues locally around, for example, environmental protection, wildlife
survival and the extractive industries. Permanent displays supported by an outreach programme
of temporary exhibitions would ensure local people were well informed, would encourage debate
on the issues, would support County policies and would help local people for example in
developing wildlife gardens or through providing training for field recording. The natural history
collections held by the Service are substantial and include large numbers of items that are
scientifically important, but the bulk of the collection consists of small items that are fragile and do
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
not like light. We propose three new permanent displays at Snibston, reflecting its re-branding as
the ‘Museum in the Park’. There would be:



A natural history interactive area targeted at children under 7 years old and directly related
to the country park. This would be based on new collecting. specifically for display.
A hands-on ‘microscope gallery’, modelled on the Buxton Micrarium, with associated
large-scale projection and a natural history discovery room.
A display focusing on the Leicestershire landscape, which will look at the impact of local
geology on the landscape and farming, on the built heritage, on extractive industries and
on the provision of raw materials for artefacts – and what all of this has meant for the
people of Leicestershire, past and present. There is major scope here also to relate
landscape to early settlement, incorporating archaeological evidence from across the
county.
We would also recommend collaboration with the Open Museum team to develop temporary
exhibitions for community venues and libraries looking, for example, at wildlife gardens or
butterflies, and with the Local Records Centre and the Wildlife Information Service to provide
discovery trays as training tools for local communities to support field recording.
6.7.2 The focus for archaeological display in Leicestershire is Jewry Wall Museum in Leicester,
and there is no need for the Service to replicate this. But this does not mean that archaeology
should not be represented in displays across the county. Archaeological evidence points to the
origins and early history of our communities and is crucial to our understanding of who we are
and how we came to be here. These include a hands-on archaeological centre focused on the
late medieval and Tudor period at Donington-le-Heath manor house, interactive displays
exploring the archaeological research into Battle of Bosworth Field, 1485. The most appropriate
location for the learning space would be the barn, currently occupied by the tea room. This
substantial space is part of the fabric of the site and could incorporate both a learning space and
the interactive archaeological displays. A purpose-built tea room could be constructed beyond
the garden. There is also potential for an overview of early settlement in the county which could
be achieved through incorporation into a wider display on the Leicestershire landscape, to be
located at Snibston.
6.7.3 At Harborough the year 2008 will see the 25th anniversary of Harborough Museum, while
2009 will witness the installation of the new Treasure display. 2009 will provide a good
opportunity to re-display the museum and re-launch it with its local communities. Eventual
relocation of its administrative offices remarkable opportunity to make this the cultural hub of the
District housing a new partnership of library, museum and art gallery. The library/museum/gallery
could be a holistic, dynamic creative provision for both the people of Harborough and visitors, and
a centre for learning and discovery. The remainder of the space in the building could be leased
commercially to companies working in the creative industries. A feasibility study is recommended
for this specific proposal. Build on ADP after launch of Treasure exhibition.
6.7.4 If the Melton Carnegie Museum HLF application is successful, 2008/9 will see a good deal
of the learning and community recommendations fulfilled as part of a redisplay which builds on
existing good points. Uniquely, Melton Museum will focus on contemporary rural issues and there
will be an opportunity to re-launch it with its local communities. There will be ongoing community
research that will feed into the website. The longer term vision will be to consider how to put in
place recommendations in the site document (q.v.) but not achievable as part of the bid.
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Museums Interpretation Strategy, 2010
6.7.5 At Charnwood Museum the partners are currently working to determine the priorities for the
2008 improvement project, possibly based on further grant applications (e.g. under 50K HLF),
local business sponsorship and limited match funding available from LCC and CBC. Possibilities
for a larger HLF application, led by Charnwood Borough, within the context of Queen’s Park have
been discussed but no firm plans exist. This would be with LCC and other partners. The
potential is that Loughborough has important Olympic credentials, but to take advantage of this
would need to develop a project deliverable in 2012 and the time in which to achieve this is fast
vanishing.
6.8 Future of “Museum without Walls”
6.8.1 Because of the disparate and dispersed nature of the services and activities provided
beyond the walls of the Museum and Heritage Service, it is likely that very few people have a real
awareness of their extent and the benefits they bring to local communities in Leicestershire. The
most urgent need is to raise their profile, so more people are aware of them and how to access
them. The recommendation is to bring the different activities together under one heading so far
as its public profile is concerned. This is not a proposal for a management re-structure, more an
understanding of the need for a united public front to raise the profile of the work being done. The
Open Museum is already involved in outreach work, with an increasingly wide range of partners
including other services within Leicestershire County Council. With resources limited, and this
situation unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, partnership is a crucial way of sharing tasks,
costs, expertise and training. Examples to date include training carers working with SEN adults,
partnering the people’s forum for mental health service users, and working schools in N.W.
Leicestershire alongside Creative Partnerships.
6.8.2 The recommendation is that the Service should look strategically at potential partnerships;
certainly it must build on its existing partnerships with Harborough District and Charnwood
Borough Councils and develop one with Melton Borough Council. It should also look not least at
internal partnerships especially with libraries, and build these slowly, reflecting available
resources and ensuring quality of output. There is already a good working relationship with the
libraries service and this can only improve as museums service staff become more aware of what
libraries want and as libraries increasingly run their own programmes, for example on literacy. A
key target is to develop close relationships with the library service staff that are responsible for
co-ordinating work with communities, who can be responsible for 5 – 6 libraries each, and with
the new appointments of library development workers. There is also potential to add to events at
country parks.
6.8.3 The Community Heritage Initiative, archaeology team, some Renaissance funded staff and
some other curatorial staff are all also engaged in outreach work of various types, with very
positive results within communities. There is a need to improve co-ordination in outreach delivery
between the different parts of the Service, working more closely together and with the collections.
Outreach, by its very nature, tends to be invisible to the wider community because it is not
associated with specific buildings. A further recommendation is to bring the various outreach
activities together strategically but loosely – perhaps through quarterly co-ordination meetings –
and again to raise the profile by presenting the public with a single face about outreach. Linked to
this should be an ambition to encourage communities to make greater use of the Service’s
museums – bringing outreach and inreach together.
6.8.4 The Open Museum has a large, uncatalogued ‘reserve collection’ which could be developed
as a handling resource within the Service’s museums and in outreach activities. The
recommendation is that this collection should be evaluated by the Open Museum team and
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curators working together to assess its potential, and its contents prioritized for documentation
and re-storage.
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Enhanced access to reserve collections through digitization
The continuing development and enhanced interpretation of Resource Box.
Enhanced provision of touring displays, often to non-museum venues, through the Moving
Objects project:
Further development of the Artworks scheme, in association with the art collections held
by the Service, to incorporate small touring exhibitions.
Access to curatorial expertise both centrally and in communities’ own venues.
Continuing support and advice for independent museums across the county.
Continuing the Local Records Centre and the Wildlife Information Service, including work
with local communities and local recorders.
Continuing the Leicestershire and Rutland Archaeological Network and Community
Archaeology programme.
Central role for the website.
Central role for Collections Resource Centre
Access to the reserve collections held by the Service has been improved immeasurably
since the creation of the Collections Resource Centre:
Curatorial access to collections for research and for the development of new displays.
Access by specialist researchers and students (both individual researchers and groups).
Access by special interest groups.
To a lesser extent, access by people with a general interest.
To a very limited extent, access by school groups.
6.9 The Collections Resources Centre: A Hub for the Service
(part of the museum without walls)
6.9.1 The Collections Resources Centre has become a dynamic hub for the service with a clear
emphasis on its crucial role in enhancing access to the collections:
 Because it maintains the majority of the Service’s collections, it is a key resource that the
rest of the Service draws on: for temporary exhibition content; for storage of collections
and display materials; and for sharing curatorial expertise.
 It ensures good curatorial access to collections for research, for the development of new
displays and for the digitisation of collection records. Digitisation in turn is central to
enhancing public access to their heritage and the encouragement of greater involvement.
 It also enables access by specialist researchers and students (both individual researchers
and groups), and by special interest groups. Evening visits by groups include local history
societies, the Women’s Institute and the U3A, reflecting diverse audiences and a wide
range of interests.
 To a lesser extent it permits access by people with a general interest and, to a limited
extent, access by school and student groups – particularly through curatorial talks and
arranged visits.
 Its existence brings credibility to the Service, both from relevant national bodies and from
potential donors. It provides proof that reserve collections are both cared for professionally
and securely and made regular use of.
6.9.2 The key recommendation is to maintain the role of the Collections Resource Centre as a
dynamic Service centre, rather than confusing its role with the functions of a museum. In these
terms, the key priorities are:
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To further develop its role as a resource to be drawn on for display, both permanent and
temporary. There are collections, particularly of natural history and archaeology, which
would reward permanent display. There also needs to be a more integrated approach to
the development of touring exhibition programmes bringing together the Resource Centre,
the Service’s local museums, the Open Museum, local communities and not least
libraries.
To explore the potential of creating a ‘Search Room’ attached to the Centre, for use by inhouse staff, visiting researchers and groups (but recognizing the latter must always be
limited in number because of other staff commitments).
To support on-going documentation and digitization of the collections as the most effective
way of widening access to them. To relate this to an expanded development of the
Service’s website (see below).
To examine future storage needs and examine how these can best be accommodated.
6.9.3 Future role of learning
Visitors contribute substantially to the construction of their own learning. Leicestershire needs to
set out to provide opportunities for open-ended experiences which support this, which visitors will
find easy to use and which will reflect their differing learning styles. In the process, we will hope to
help visitors to transform themselves from passive receivers into active participants – and to
develop the skills to discover for themselves and enthuse in this achievement. Learning takes
place in different ways for different individuals. We will seek to develop a variety of activities and
learning opportunities for all our visitors aimed at different learning styles, related to generic
learning outcomes and serving the needs of individuals or groups. A commitment to inclusive
access and learning ensures the Interpretation Plan will seek to engage both new and core
audiences. Central to inclusivity is a sense of welcome for all - welcoming, imaginative, warm,
‘comfortable’, and both child and adult friendly. We also recognise that people want museums to
be a source of trustworthy knowledge.
Across the Service as a whole, we aim to provide learning opportunities for formal education
groups including schools, colleges, universities, U3A, WEA, young offenders’ teams, ESOL
groups and Basic Skills groups. Provision is defined on a site-by-site basis.
Where possible, learning objectives will be built into design and interpretation to provide
opportunities to support educational visits and the National Curriculum.
Schools are a key audience. School visits are an essential means of introducing children to
museum visiting, particularly those from families with no tradition of visiting museums. The
service is actively seeking to further develop links with local schools. Equally, as centres of local
knowledge/expertise, local museums have huge potential to actively engage children with their
local area – to provide a link between their world of textbook and classroom and the ‘real’ world of
the local community. But this does not necessarily have to be achieved exclusively through site
visits.
6.9.4 The potential for the development of schools resources on the web is vast. There is a real
need to define the roles of school visits and of web-based resources and to pilot the latter.
 Continue to build relationships with local schools and teachers;
 Work with advisory groups of local teachers to explore how the museum can best support
schools’ use;
 Develop schools resource materials that can be accessed freely through the internet;
 Look to ways in which schools can use the museum as a local study centre (see below);
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Look at the potential for one temporary exhibition a year focused on a KSII history study
unit (see Temporary Exhibitions);
Build some ‘dwell points’ into the permanent displays that can be used by small groups of
pupils
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