Pitt Rivers Museum - University of Oxford

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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. 16
The Museum now has one main site of operations—the original galleries and interconnected new extension—but still has an undesirable number of satellites where its study collections are held. The principal one is at Osney, but the textile collections remain stranded in inconvenient storage in Keble Road while the music and stone tool collections will be nearer at hand once refurbishment of space in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory adjacent to the Museum is complete. ANNEX B Donations to the Museum ACQUISITIONS Suzette Heald (a set of well-documented Gisu circumcision regalia collected by the donor during her fieldwork in the Mbale District of Uganda in the 1960s, along with a series of twenty drawings by Gisu children collected by Amelia Breedtt; 2006.93); the Vice- Chancellor, John Hood (an engraved ceremonial tankard and trowel presented to him at the topping-out ceremony for the Museum’s new extension on 9 February 2006; 2006.78); Douglas Johnson (four albums of photographs from Sudan compiled by district commissioner Percy Coriat in the 1920s; 2007.34); the Estate of the late Bent Juel-Jensen (a mixed collection of ethnographic objects, including a stringed instrument, a model canoe, and a harpoon; 2007.40); Chris Morton (six photographic prints from India collected by Margaret Ross in 2005; 2006.73); Brian Moser and Donald Tayler (9,000 photographs and slides, plus related films, compiled by the donors during the Anglo-Colombian Recording Expedition of 1960–61; 2007.68); Oxford City Council via M. Saunders (a pair of figure-skates and a pair of hockey-skates, from Oxford, for the new display in the lower gallery; 2006.77); Angela Rackham (a Hausa-made mat made of palm leaf, from Nigeria; 2006.92); Patricia Roberts (twenty-nine film negatives from Tibet, compiled in 1916 by Brigadier Michael Rookherst Roberts; 2006.88); Meredith Sassoon (ethnographic and archaeological objects from the personal collection of her late father Hamo Sassoon, mainly from West Africa, especially Nigeria; 2006.80); Mary Spear (five albums of photographs from Australia and Nigeria, dating from 1910 to 1920, compiled by William Henry Freer Hill; 2006.79); John Tyman (1,000 photographs relating to his fieldwork among the Inuit of Canada and Sawos of Torembi, Papua New Guinea, compiled by the donor between 1980 and 1990; 2007.47); Eleanor Waterhouse (a piece of barkcloth from Polynesia, thought to be previously owned by George Marsden Waterhouse; 2006.76). Donations to the Library At the end of the year the Balfour Library received a large bequest from the library of Hélène La Rue, which will be reported on in more detail in the next annual report. In addition the Library was grateful to receive donations from: Ross Bowden, Michael Byrne, the Computing Laboratory Library, Jeremy Coote, Elizabeth Cory-Pearce, A. B. Davidson, Mark Dickerson, the Geography and the Environment Library, Philip Grover, Robert Joost Willink, Jonathan King, Juha Komppa, Kiprop Lagat, Rosemary Lee, Ildiko Lehtinen, Peter Micklethwait, David Mills, Chris Morton, Leah Niederstadt, Veronica Passalacqua, Laura Peers, Alison Petch, Suzy Prior, Peter Rivière, the Sackler Library, Tsan- Huang Tsai, the Tylor Library, Kate White, Liz Yardley, and David Zeitlyn. 17
Page 2 and 3: © Pitt Rivers Museum, University o
Page 4 and 5: CONTENTS Director’s Introduction
Page 6 and 7: period of normal running. But I fel
Page 8 and 9: planned for the front of the OUMNH,
Page 10 and 11: goodwill towards the two museums am
Page 12 and 13: Special Exhibitions Treasured Texti
Page 14 and 15: that had been on loan to the Museum
Page 16 and 17: Research Projects Research continue
Page 18 and 19: PADMAC is a multi-disciplinary, geo
Page 22 and 23: ANNEX C STAFF (part-time staff are
Page 24 and 25: ANNEX D STAFF ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING
Page 26 and 27: Haas Ezzet continued to represent t
Page 28 and 29: Media, Culture and Sport’s Human
Page 30 and 31: Galleries Disability Association. I
Page 32 and 33: Clare Harris, ‘The Buddha Goes Gl
Page 34 and 35: Heather Richardson, ‘Not So Frien
Page 36 and 37: 9 March 2007: Bruce Bernstein (Smit

Pitt Rivers Museum - University of Oxford

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