The Goal Posts Have Moved: The Implications of New Paradigms for Professional Skills in Museums

Abstract

A number of current and future‐facing developments and challenges in museums (and in particular the ways in which museums interact with users and audiences) demand a new range of competencies and mind sets. This paper looks at some of those developments including the concept of shared authority in the participatory museum; the opening up of collections for playful and serendipitous interpretation and re‐imagining by non‐curators; and the huge potential that modern technologies have unleashed for self‐constructed curation and learning experiences—and describes the qualities and skills needed for the future in the context of a large regional museum service with strong and varied collections. These developments are underpinned by the overlapping and ever‐changing interconnectedness of the physical, the digital and the personal, and the formation and dissolution of communities of interest, learning and enjoyment. It goes on to argue that some aspects of existing museum practice contain within them characteristics needed to explore and exploit new paradigms in the consumption and production of culture and information, and that these characteristics need to be foregrounded in museum training and recruitment practices to ensure that museums can be agile and pro‐active in their relationships with these new paradigms and processes.

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Notes on contributors

Helen White

Helen White is currently Head of Museums (Gateshead, Newcastle University), Collections and Research at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums. Helen White originally came to TWAM as Keeper of Social History in 1993, following 11 years at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where she specialised in East Asian culture and collections management. She has also held a Lectureship in Museum Studies at Newcastle University. With experience of national, regional and local museums, she is interested in the way that cities express themselves through their museums; and how the people whose communities make up a city can have a greater voice in the cultural institutions that represent them. She is currently a board member of International Newcastle.