Industrial Museum, History and Education: Some Random Thoughts

Abstract

The Museum profession is a small one, in which everybody seems to know everyone else. Owing to the relatively small number of staff at most museums, and the fact that many senior staff stay put for a good number of years, Museums do absorb some of the personality of their curators. Almost inevitably some of this is transmitted to the visitors: in most cases this is not at all a bad thing.

Museums education is a much smaller, though growing, profession. Education Services, having even fewer staff than their parent museums, reflect the personalities of the people involved even more. Again, diversity of approach to a subject is no bad thing. Thus I feel no compunction in putting forward my own views on museum education, although my colleagues may well dissociate themselves wholly from those views!