Sunday 30 September 2012

UK Museum Objects to Come Onto Market

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Collectors are always complaining about museums that store artefacts that could be sold on the open market for them to collect. They argue that countries with museums full of artefacts should slim their collections down and share items with private collectors. Already the UK has made great concessions to artefact collectors, it now seems this "partnership" is about to enter a new stage. In order to provide "heritage for all", the London Borough of Barnet for example is closing down two museums and next months plans to hold a jumbo jumble sale of the exhibits to spread them more widely in the community. Now, if you are a collector, you will approve this move. If however you belong to the other 99.7% of society (and particularly if you live in North London), you might wish to read the Heritage Action post on the topic and add your name to the petition to protest the Council's Philistinism.

 Heritage Action, 'Museum Closure: three approaches – good, fair and dreadful' 30/09/2012.

 You can make your views known by signing the Petition here (warning, for some reason they collect postal addresses in addition to email address)

3 comments:

kyri said...

its a disgrace but sadly a sign of the times.i live just down the road from barnet and i know that all the boroughs around hear,barnet,enfield and harringey are having to cope with huge cutbacks.i know the people at bruce castle museum and enfield museum and they are very dedicated professionals who do a hard job for very little money.last year i made a donation of a collection of 100 roman coins to a museum,[though not one in barnet] so the museum could have coins to display and for the kids to handle[this museum won an award in 2010 for its work with school children] i know i would be furious if 10 years down the line they decided to sell them off.

Paul Barford said...

I think we all would in such a situation. I hope people will sign the petition, not necessarily because they care about the Lost Borough of Barnet, but to show their opposition to this kind of thing happening in general. I do not expect to see too many ACCG members on the list though.

kyri said...

the funny thing is barnet is a very affluent area,the average house price is probably upwards of £400k[$650k].one museum curator,i wont mention who,was bemoaning the fact that it is museums,librarys that take the first and biggest hit.
kyri

 
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