Highlights and initiatives

Collections work is led by specialist collections staff, based around the region, who are able to offer practical advice and support to all sites and work with partner museums to help bring audiences and collections together. This training and advice has increased access to more collections and has enabled more museums to achieve nationally recognised standards of collections care, demonstrated by the use of collections management tools such as Benchmarks in Collections Care and SPECTRUM.

Collections access assistants and Strategic Collections Development
A team of 10 collections access assistants has been working with Renaissance East Midlands partner museums to deliver a number of collections access projects in conjunction with a strategic approach to collections development.

Collections access work has been varied, responding to identified needs, and based on consultation with audiences and potential audiences. Collections access assistants have helped to make collections fit for purpose and have ensured more audiences have access to the region’s diverse collections.  This includes:

• Working with community groups in Derby on the Linking Landscapes project coordinated by Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
• Leicestershire collections access assistants undertaking audience consultation for the ‘The Beautiful Game’ exhibition.
• Working with community groups in Lincoln to select and interpret objects for The Museum of Lincolnshire Life’s ‘Celebrating Collections’ exhibition.
• Engaging with young people in Northampton to develop the Street Life project including youth curated displays and a DVD exploring local history inspired by museum collections.
• Allowing open public access to m ore than 500 objects previously unseen or in-store.
• Undertaking contemporary collecting in collaboration with local residents at Charnwood Museum.
• Documenting and recording more than 87,000 objects across the region, some of which were lost or not even known about.
• Working to ensure that museums are constantly achieving and improving on nationally set collections care standards.
• Supporting exhibitions at a variety of locations including Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Brewhouse Yard, the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, Snibston Discovery Park and Charnwood Museum.
• Digitising collections and developing websites such as the Nottingham City Museums and Galleries collections pages and Derby City Council’s ‘Treasures of Derby’ pages.
• Assisting with the successful packing, preventative conservation, documentation and movement of collections to ensure better access for all.
• Working with non-partner museums such as The National Stone Centre and Castleton Museum to deliver training and offer practical collections advice.

Benchmarks in Collections Care
Renaissance East Midlands has supported the delivery of a ‘Benchmarks in Collections Care’ survey at 20 regional sites. This project has involved site visits from the Lincolnshire County Council collections team, who worked on the ‘Basic’ practice elements of the survey with site staff. An improvement plan was then developed enabling the site to identify what the actions required to achieve basic, good and/or best practice standards. The regional results helped Renaissance East Midlands to determine common care of collections trends and the findings will be used to define future collections activity including a regional improvement plan. 

Collections Mapping
Renaissance East Midlands supported two collections mapping projects which analysed the content of the region’s collections and identified strengths and weaknesses.

This included analysis of regional content on Cornucopia, an online database providing information about more than 6,000 collections in UK museums, galleries, archives and libraries including what they are and where they are. This will also collate consistent collections summary information including ‘Collections Level Descriptions’ and will determine what regional collections mapping work has already been done and should  be added to Cornucopia. This will ensure that collections data in the East Midlands is relevant, consistent and accessible.
 
A second mapping project focuses on the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site (DVMWHS) collections. Related collections will be reviewed and identified, gaps and duplication examined and information collated and added to Cornucopia. The result is a representative ‘map’ of where objects relating to the World Heritage Site are, what they are and their importance.