Reading.

Here is a brief extract from Hooper-Greenhill, E., 1991, Museum and Gallery Education, Leics UP.

This book is available from the library and would be a useful resource if you intend to create a heritage site with a strong educational dimension - many aspects would be useful anyway.

"All historic artefacts and many of the natural specimens that are to be found in museums have complex histories of movement from one place to another, have often suffered damage and repair, may have been witness to momentous events, and may have had particular significance which may have shifted over time. Museum catalogues can sometimes be very useful in describing these matters, which can require a great deal of original re- search. In some cases, and at some levels, the original research could be carried out by students, although this is particularly appropriate for con- temporary articles, and for non-museum objects. Some things, and perhaps particularly art objects, can tell a story, put a point of view, record or explore a response to a phenomenon. They have a deliberately communicative and expressive function. This is obvious for paintings, say, but can also apply to a building, a piece of furniture or costume, in varying degrees. .... The examination of the intentional messages of objects can be fascinating, particularly where the messages are no longer topical and are therefore more or less invisible.

Objects can also be read for their unintended messages. All artefacts are the product of their time and place, and in their material, shape, decora- tion and so on will reveal technological possibilities and cultural values. An analysis of the Forth rail bridge in Scotland shows how the availability of new materials and processes from Germany, examples of bridges from Tibet, and nineteenth-century English attitudes to style and taste were all factors in the eventual design. A large seventeenth- century bed with heavy hangings that offered the occupants both warmth and privacy tells us something about both the construction of houses and also the way in which people lived in them. And what do the mounted antlered heads of moose and deer tell us about attitudes to animals at the time that the mounts were made?

Interpretations of objects are rarely constant, varying according to the time, place, background, opinions and degree of knowledge of the inter- preter. The eighteenth-century portrait by Gainsborough, 'Mr. and Mrs Andrews', shows Mr Andrews standing with a dog and gun next to a bench upon which his wife is seated, wearing a fashionable dress. The couple have chosen to be portrayed in a landscape with stooks of corn, which is in fact their country estate. This painting represents contemporary upper-class attitudes to men, women, and property to one viewer, and the relationship between man and nature to another.

All artefacts and many natural specimens have a range of possible interpretations, and, in the learning process, this is one of their strengths. An individual response to an artefact, or to a specimen, is a personal expression, and as such has value in its own right. For some children and some adults, any interpretation, or response, expressed through words, drawing, feelings or music, however small, is a major acheivement. For others, complex inter- pretations can be experienced and communicated by all kinds of methods, and the initial personal response can be informed and developed through further analysis. In educational terms, the 'accuracy' of the interpretation is sometimes secondary to the value of the response to the interpreter.

The meaning of objects is fluid. Museums and galleries tend to classify artefacts and specimens to suit their own internal systems of departmental division and management of collections. Thus objects can be observed with accession numbers on them, and are often displayed along with other objects of their type which are cared for by the same museum department. However, objects can look different and mean different things when they are presented or grouped with a different collection of companions."