Pitt Rivers Museum - University of Oxford

Association and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. It offers part-time training
over two years to people from minority ethnic communities who are under-represented in the
museum workforce. It is hoped that through this training programme the national museum
workforce can come to better represent the diverse audience that museums serve. Nicola
spent her first year working in a number of different sections of the Museum, learning how
they function and receiving introductory training. Alongside this training programme Nicola
is studying for a Masters in Museum Studies through Leicester University.
Museum Shop and other Trading Activities
The Museum Shop reported a 55% increase in income compared with the previous year.
Although it still operated at a loss, this was a significant improvement, due largely to the
rationalization of staffing levels, increased input from other members of the administration
team, and an improvement in the turnover of stock. Unfortunately, due to space limitations
the shop is still unable to capitalize on increased visitor numbers. Plans for the closure and
subsequent relocation and refurbishment of the shop as part of the larger remodelling project
for the Museum’s entrance will be implemented during 2008.
A concentrated effort to sell the vast bulk of the Museum’s publications stock was
successfully implemented this year, raising £5,837, whilst the sale of photographic images
and reproduction fees continued to provide a steady income (£6,800) that supported a small
proportion of the salary for the post of assistant photographer. Unfortunately there is little
opportunity to increase the revenue from this activity in the near future, as it places a heavy
demand on hard-pressed collections and photographic staff.
Once the new extension was fully functioning, it was possible once again to offer the
Museum for hire as a venue for external events from January 2007. This year, external hiring
provided an income of £520. Income through the collecting box increased a little from £5,493
in 2005–6 to £6,933. These very welcome donations were used to support the salary of an
education officer.
ANNEX A
OVERVIEW OF THE MUSEUM
The Pitt Rivers Museum is an ethnographic and archaeological museum of international
importance with approximately 200,000 visitors a year. Entered through the Oxford
University Museum of Natural History in Parks Road, it is acknowledged to be a cultural
artefact in its own right, distinguished for the density of its displays and for their arrangement
by artefact category and function rather than by cultural area. It is open to the public from
10.00 a.m to 4.30 p.m. from Tuesdays until Sundays, and from noon until 4.30 on Mondays.
The Museum is also a noted centre of research with a strong role in the University’s teaching
of anthropology and archaeology. It has some fifty staff.
The Museum takes its name from General Pitt Rivers, who in 1884 donated a large
ethnographic and archaeological collection, numbering some 20,000 artefacts, to the
University of Oxford. The collection has since been extensively added to and today numbers
some 445,000 artefacts (295,000 objects, 150,000 historical photographs), making its
holdings in its field second in size only to those of the British Museum. The Museum also
holds some sixty collections of manuscripts. The Museum’s Balfour Library specializes in
cultural anthropology and museology.
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