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WHAT IS A STORE?
The fashion amongst UK museum directors and
politicians, to make all storage spaces and stored
collections accessible, is based on the idea that an
off-site store is just another display with a different
name and at a different location. However, it is actually
worth keeping a distinction between storage
and display.
Things last longer in store. At least they should do,
because you can keep the temperature and light levels
lower, and give many individual objects their
personal microclimate e.g. cardboard box (acid
free, of course).
And anyway you can’t have everything on display
all the time. Modern displays tend to use fewer objects,
if only because more room is needed for the
computer interactives and the costumed interpreters.
Light sensitive material can only be displayed
for limited periods.
Not everything is destined for display. That’s what
archives are all about.
Most importantly, if you can maintain a strong distinction
between the museum display area and the
museum store it is easier to limit access. People will
tolerate being told that the store is only open every
other Thursday, but are less pleased if the museum
declares such limited opening hours.
Storage areas also have an administrative purpose
that is incompatible with the demands of display.
Objects use stores like waiting rooms; either the
doctor’s waiting room, or the waiting room at a railway
station. Objects wait for more or less time until
they can be: mended, cleaned, rehoused, sent to the
regions, or sent on a world tour. They wait to be
studied by scholars, given to little children to maul
with their sticky fingers or, on rare occasions, to be
thrown on the scrap heap (de-acquisitioned). The
requirements of a waiting room are not the same as
those for an educational exhibition.
But there can never be perfection, only compromise.
This is because there is an asymmetric relationship
between access, preservation and cost
(Figure 5). If you increase access you compromise
preservation. Of you give priority to preservation
you inhibit access. Whatever you choose it always
costs more and takes longer than you planned. The
point of compromise between these three factors is
usually determined by who shouts loudest, and at
the moment money talks and access seems essential
to ensuring the money.
Fig 5
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Fig 6
THE COMPROMISE
A mixed collection, typical of what the V&A would
have owned if it had not given all the interesting
stuff to the Science Museum at the beginning of the
20 th century, is shown in Figure 6. Obviously, not
all the items are to the same scale. What is required
is a compromise solution to its storage which has
positive attractions that will keep the public interested,
enough access to keep the government happy
and enough preservation to satisfy conservators and
future generations of interested groups.
One solution came to me while I was thinking about
the different meanings of the word ‘store’ and the
different words for’ store’ in various European languages.
I remember attending a lecture in Norway
about a new museum development. On the plans
were lots of areas marked ‘magasin’. I thought it typical
of the way museums are going that more space
was being given to shopping than to the object display.
I have since learned that, just as the English
word ‘magazine’ can mean a place to store things eg
gunpowder or bullets, so ‘magasin’ can mean both
a store and a shop (as well as the sort of magazine
that you read).
So why not put all your duplicate objects in a shop?
And also use the shop as swap shop for objects that
the public brings in, a sort of E-bay for historic
objects. This will keep enthusiasts interested in the
store. Then pick a few objects with a common theme
and have these as a temporary exhibition. The
costs can be kept low by having no catalogues, no
special lighting and no computer interactives. This
will provide a changing reason to keep coming to
the store. Finally you can have a large store where
access is severely limited so that a fair environment
can be maintained without too much trouble or money.
This solution is shown in Figure 7 , the dotted
lines enclose groups of objects with good access,
the solid line surrounds a group of objects to which
access is more limited.