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Title:New Zealand museums : present establishment and future policy
Author: Oliver, Walter Reginald Brook
Published: Dominion Museum, Wellington, N.Z., 1944
NEW ZEALAND MUSEUMS
PRESENT ESTABLISHMENT AND FUTURE POLICY
By W. R. B. OLIVER, D.Sc. Director Dominion Museum, Wellington
DOMINION MUSEUM
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND.
1944,
PRINTED BY THE T.P.R. PRINTING CO.. LIMITED. PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS, 33 WIGAN STREET, WELLINGTON, C2. N.Z.
Foreword
The object of the present report is to place before the public a brief statement of the purpose of museums, their work and aims. In addition, it gives an account of the present establishment of museums in New Zealand, with suggestions for future improvement, especially as regards buildings, staff and administration.
The Museum services in New Zealand never have had sufficient public support. They do not return a monetary profit, and their purpose has been much misunderstood. This is due mainly to the reputation that museums have as collections of curios and, at most, show places which, having been seen, need not again be visited. The present pamphlet is intended to be a contribution towards making better known the place of the museum in the community, and to point out that museums should take a much larger and more important part in the educational services of the nation. The future work of museums, by distributing human knowledge, is bound more and more to enter into the daily life of the people; but this can be done only by museums being as accessible as public libraries, of which they are complementary institutions, by having sufficient working and exhibition space and by having a properly qualified staff and sufficient income. To attain a position adequate to the need of the present day the Museums in New Zealand will require a very considerable forward movement, much more than local effort can give. On account of the educational work of museums which carry on the education begun in youth, the service should be recognised as of national importance, and consequently, in part at least, the responsibility of the Government.
In the preparation of this report I have received valuable suggestions from Mr. W. J. Phillipps and Mr. J. T. Salmon, of the staff of the Dominion Museum. Mr. Salmon’s advice has been specially helpful. The draft also was submitted to the directors of the principal museums in New Zealand in order that the descriptions of the different museums should be accurate, and to give an opportunity for further suggestions. In this way assistance was received from Dr. G. Archey, Auckland, Colonel C. B. Brereton, Nelson, Dr. R. A. Falla, Christchurch, Dr. H. D. Skinner, Dunedin, and Mr. J. H. Sorensen, Invercargill. To all of these, as well as to the members of the staff of the Dominion Museum, I offer my sincere thanks.
W. R. B. OLIVER.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
GENERAL.
Page
The Place of the Museum in the Community 5
Cultural Centre '
Dominion-wide Policy for Museums 8
Adult Education . 12
School Services ... 13
Displays of Exhibits 16
Reference Collections 17
Publications '
Situation 18
Buildings 19
Control 21
Staff 22
Finance 23
Libraries .... • 24
Research 2-t
Museums' Association 26
PART 11.
SITUATION, BUILDINGS, ADMINISTRATION AND EQUIPMENT OF NEW ZEALAND MUSEUMS.
Page
Situation 27
Buildings 29
Administration 31
, Income 33
School Services Equipment 34
Field Research 35
Collections 36
Photography 37
Libraries 3 '
Publication- 39
New Zealand Museums
PRESENT ESTABLISHMENT AND FUTURE POLICY
Part I. General
THE PLACE OF THE MUSEUM IN THE COMMUNITY.
The necessity for the wide distribution of scientificallybased knowledge cannot be over-stressed. One of the lessons to be learnt from the War is that the main mass of the people in all countries is under-educated. Technological education is, indeed, spreading since if manufacturers and traders are to run their businesses at a profit it is necessary for them to keep abreast of the latest information. But the spread of social, political, economic, and, especially, biological knowledge, is behind the times. In other words, the vast store of sound verifiable knowledge in these sciences that has been won by scientific methods has scarcely penetrated the public mind. In order to play an intelligent part in the community in which he lives, the citizen of today should have not only a general understanding of the problems of politics and economics but also of human social relations and of the general structure and functions of plants and animals, and, more especially, of the physiology and environmental relations of his own body. This information is the essential background for harmonious living within the nation and is equally important for amicable international relations.
The distributing agents for this information are the home, the school, libraries, museums, art galleries, the press, the radio, business and social intercourse and such institutions as the various societies, leagues, unions, guilds, clubs, and so on, which exist so that we may study and advance our knowledge in the subjects indicated by the names of the institutions.
Among the various organizations that disseminate knowledge, museums and art galleries stand in a class by
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themselves by reason of their general method of instruction through the public exhibition of selected objects. An art gallery is a special type of museum, so different in its requirements and the qualifications of those controlling it, that art galleries usually, and properly, are housed in different buildings and administered by different committees of control from those of museums as ordinarily understood. Though the present report deals only with museums, art galleries as public educational institutions deserve equal consideration ; and it is to be hoped that art gallery interests in New Zealand will prepare a report embracing a Dominionwide policy for art galleries in line with this report upon New Zealand museums.
The important function of a museum in the general life of the community is to demonstrate, by means of exhibits and illustrations various scientific, technical, and art subjects. By utilizing the results of scientific research the museum comes between the research officer and the public. It interprets his work and by many channels makes it available to the general public. Libraries, the press, the radio, and various societies distribute information, but only in a very small way can they supplement their work by the display of actual objects. The museum here stands supreme since it alone possesses the space required to house and show large exhibits and extensive collections. The museum thus affords the means whereby the great mass of the people may see the actual objects of their interest and at the same time receive the information necessary for their proper understanding. Also, when required to do so, the museum can direct those of an enquiring turn of mind to sources of more exhaustive information.
Every subject, from the stars to bacteria, that is demonstrable by specimens, models, diagrams, or pictures, comes within the scope of the museum. It embraces such subjects as astronomy, meteorology, geology, biology ethnology, ceramics and fine arts, technology!, industrial productions, history especially that of the country in which the museum is situated, health, nutrition, exploration, and war. On account of this wide range of subjects with which it has to deal the museum should be in a situation within its city that is as accessible as the public library. The museum is complementary to the'public library and can perform its functions fully and completely only if it is equally accessible. J
The average visitor to a museum probablv is unaware of the extent of its activities. Entering the" museum by
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the main door he mav tour the exhibition halls and come away with the impression that he has seen all that the museum has to show. Such an impression is far from the truth. The exhibition halls indeed constitute the museum s main effort to bring before the public its vast accumulation of material and knowledge. Behind the scenes, however, are collections often more extensive and, in certain departments, of very much greater value than are those on public view To attend to these, to study and augment them, and to prepare them for reference or exhibition purposes, there is a staff of specialists and assistants. This is the foundation for the important work of bringing directly to the people, and especially to school-children, the knowledge which museum officers are qualified to dispense. Finally, it mav be mentioned that much of the information accumulated by museums is crystallized in their publications and so takes a form suitable for distribution to the whole world.
The functions of the museum described in this report mav be summarized under the following four heads: —
1. Education is the main function of the museum. All other activities are subservient to the distribution of information.
2. Exhibition collections. The importance of the public display of exhibits may be gauged by the number and extent of the museum galleries open to the public.
3. Reference collections, that is, those amassed for study. In a large museum these may occupy as much floor space as the halls open to the public. The collecting of specimens is an essential part of a museum's activities.
4. Publications. This is the method by which the result of the museum's research work is distributed throughout the country in which the museum is situated and to the world at large.
CULTURAL CENTRE.
It would be a great advantage if the chief cultural institutions of a city, or, at any rate, those that exist for the purpose of disseminating knowledge, could have their headquarters housed under one roof or at least located in the same vicinity. Such an arrangement would provide the participating institutions with good lecture halls and other facilities. Furthermore, the libraries of the scientific and kindred institutions could be housed in the same building,
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an arrangement that would greatly facilitate their use, not on y by members of the institutions sharing the cultural centre, but also, under certain conditions, by the general public, thus could be created what should be an objective in every populated area of considerable size, namely, a centre of learning. ’
The natural focal point of a cultural centre for the encouragement and diffusion of knowledge is the museum, the museum with its exhibits can help the work of many kinds of institutions; it can arrange special exhibitions for the benefit of cultural societies or make space and facilities available for exhibitions they themselves arrange. A modern museum must have extensive lecture rooms for its own use; consequently, no difficulty would present itself in planning a building so as to allow extra space for the meeting rooms, libraries, and offices of other societies and institutions ; in fact, such a course would appear to be the proper one to take because of the benefits that the museum and the other associated cultural institutions located in the same building would derive from one another. A cultural centre, to attain to its fullest development and usefulness ld - therefore, be a group of institutions in association tT Id’ the museurn ln a comm on building or group of
DOMINION-WIDE POLICY FOR MUSEUMS.
In New Zealand, as elsewhere, each Museum pursues its own course, endeavouring by all means in its power to frHn^ m ° r n ncr + ease its income and to obtain as manv articles or collections as it can. On account of this lack of general policy and the fact that Governments and Municipalities pay insufficient attention to museums, some have to exist on little or no income; and even some of the lanrer museums are quite inadequatelv financed
It would be to the advantage of the museums of New Zealand if some general Dominion-wide policy were agreed to, say, m the direction of maintaining different tvpes of museums disposed according to the distribution of the population and the geographical position of the towns New Zealand museums, for instance, might be classified under three mam types, namely:
Metropolitan museums in the four largest centres of population;
Provincial museums in the smaller centres; and Local museums in the smaller country towns,
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These different types are a natural reflection of the cultural activities of individuals in the different population centres. The largpst towns, on account of their Universities, Colleges, and scientific institutions, attract a disproportionate number of people interested in learning and cultural improvement. This is reflected in the greater demand for museums, art galleries, and various scientific and kindred societies. Hence a museum situated in a large centre receives more support proportionately to the population than does a museum situated in a small centre. The type of museum that a town maintains, is, in fact, a reflection of the cultural density of that locality. It is only in the metropolitan districts in New Zealand, therefore, that really large museums can be maintained. Smaller museums, of necessity, must be content with lessened scope. On these principles the scheme outlined in the following paragraphs is proposed as a basis for the maintenance of a certain grade of museum for each centre of population. Naturally, such a scheme seeks to raise the standard of all the museums now existing in New Zealand.
Instead of New Zealand having a single dominating centre of population as in the Australian States (except Tasmania, where there are two considerable towns) there are four large centres which we may term metropolitan. The populations of these centres are, in thousands—Auckland 224, Wellington 160, Christchurch 135, Uunedin 82. Each of these centres requires a museum of a national type, that is to say, a large building with one or more exhibition halls for each subject represented, together with ample space for large study collections and extensive facilities for educational work. Each of these metropolitan museums should endeavour to maintain collections as complete as possible of the fauna, flora, geology, ethnology, history, and productions of New Zealand, with general collections from other parts of the world. Such museums equipped with adequate collections, sufficient apparatus and qualified staffs would be the main distributing centres for the educational material required by schools. In fact, among them, these museums would serve the whole of the schools of New Zealand, including those of the smaller towns where museums are maintained. The museum districts would be approximately as follows:
Museum.
Provinces.
Auckland Auckland
Dominion Taranaki, Hawkes Bay, Marlborough, Nelson.'
Canterbury Canterbury, Westland.
Otago Otago, Southland
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Using the word provincial in the sense of distance from the metropolitan areas and not referring especially to the provincial districts of New Zealand, a second, type of museum may be termed Provincial Museums. These are moderate-sized museums, with or without art galleries in the same building. The following are the towns (with population in thousands) where museums of this type at present exist: Wanganui (26), Napier (19), New Plymouth (19), Nelson (14), Invercargill (26). Close by Napier is the town of Hastings, with a population of nearly the same size, so that the total population of the district served by the Napier Museum would be round about 40,000. These museums should concentrate on the ethnology, history, biology, and geology of the districts in which they are situated. They will require a small staff which need not necessarily include research officers such as are attached to the metropolitan museums. Probably a qualified Director, a preparator of specimens, and an attendant, would be sufficient. The Provincial museums should act as sub-centres for the distribution of school cases from the larger museums and could assist in their educational work by making for local schools such circulating exhibits as their material would allow.
The references in this report to the museum in Nelson refer to the Municipal Museum. Besides this there are collections belonging to the Cawthron Institute; and one room of the Cawthron building is devoted to a general museum with the exhibits excellently arranged. If a new building were provided for the Municipal Museum the Board of Trustees of the Cawthron Institute might be induced to transfer its collections of general museum specimens on condition that the Institute was represented on the Museum Board of Control.
Other centres where Provincial Museums might be established are: Hamilton (21), Gisborne (16), Palmerston North (26), and Timaru (19).
In a third class of museums, which might be designated Local Museums, would be included those in towns having a population, say, not exceeding 10,000. Such museums, like the Provincial Museums, should endeavour to represent the history, ethnology, fauna, flora, and geology of the district in which the museum is situated. In the Local Museums it probably would be convenient for art galleries to be associated with the museum in the same building.
In Whangarei (9) the Museum collection is housed in the Library building; but a town section has been reserved
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for a museum and art gallery. In Tauranga (4) a museum was opened in April, 1938. There is a small museum in Masterton, and another in Hokitika (3). Other towns in which small museums might be established are; Blenheim (5), Greymouth (8), Ashburton (7), and Oamaru (8). In the last-mentioned town there are a few exhibits in the Public Library building.
It should be a recognized practice for the large metropolitan museums to assist the smaller provincial and local museums within their range by transferring duplicate specimens, lending exhibits for short or long periods, occasionally lending the services of members of their staffs, delivering public lectures, or organizing educational film evenings, in fact, treating the smaller museums as though their interests were equally the interest of the larger museums.
In the above account of a general New Zealand-wide museum policy nothing has been said about technological museums. Every museum in New Zealand contains some technological exhibits; but there is in New Zealand no technological museum like that in Sydney; nor is there a large technological department as there is in the National Museum in Melbourne. Yet a technological museum is a very important institution in most countries. Not only does it exhibit the mineral, plant, and animal products of the country, but it carries out research work in technical problems affecting the community. For New Zealand conditions, with the Dominion's not very large centres of population, I would recommend that technological exhibits be treated as a department of the museum in the same way as ethnology, geology, or any other branch of knowledge is treated. This means that some degree of development along technological lines is required in New Zealand museums towards organized informative displays of the productive and industrial achievements of the country, of the evolution of transport, and the other branches of material culture. The general public always is thirsty for technical information concerning such things as railways, ships, aeroplanes, industrial machinery, plasties, timbers, rocks and minerals of economic importance, clocks, watches, photography, electricity, etc.
The popularity of three technological exhibits on display in the Dominion Museum—"Products of Coal," "Products from Petroleum," and "The Story of Iron"—is sufficient evidence to warrant the serious consideration of the future development of technological halls in all the NewZealand metropolitan museums.
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ADULT EDUCATION.
Through their exhibits, publications, and up-to-date lecture halls provided with lantern and cinema equipment, museums can be very effective instruments for furthering the cause of adult education. This indeed is the main reason why museums should be located in a central, readilyaccessible position. The kind of information distributed through the Museum services is not limited to a few subjects such as biology, ethnology, and geology, for, from their own resources, museums can and do give information on a very wide range of subjects. Those subjects not dealt with in the exhibition galleries can be covered very effectively and thoroughly by films shown during the regular educational screenings. By means of films and authoritative lectures, the Museum can extend its province to cover the entire range of human knowledge. By their various activities the principal museums in America and Europe reach an extremely large audience and often their subjects are selected with special reference to their economic or health interest. Museums draw from a wide range of scientific information and translate this into forms suited to the ability of the public to absorb.
The subject of adult education is so important that it should be developed by museums in every possible way. If the museum is the central institution of a cultural centre its work of educating adults is thereby greatly facilitated as it comes into close contact with all those who are thoughtful enough to join cultural and scientific societies. Ample funds should be provided for exhibits, special exhibitions, publications, lectures, demonstrations, and films. Experience the world over has shown that the public very much appreciates regular screenings of educational sound films.
Two recent advances in adult education may be mentioned here. First, from the grant made by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1937 for the development of museum educational work in New Zealand, eight metal show-cases of uniform size and design were made and placed, one each, in the following museums: Auckland, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Napier, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin. (The New Plymouth case has since been transferred to Invercargill). Each of these museums thereupon prepared an exhibit and forwarded it by prearranged rotation to the other museums. By spacing the times of transfer at about six-weekly intervals each exhibit circulated through all the museums taking part in the scheme and returned to its point of origin at the end of one year.
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Under this scheme each museum was required to prepaie a new display once a year. Some very striking displays were made and the scheme worked well until the commence.ment of the present war. These exchange displays brought to each museum seven temporary exhibits in each year and included such items as phases of Maori culture; foreign and prehistoric ethnology; local industries such as tobacco, timber, and dyes; edible shellfish; insects; birds; New Zealand history; and minerals.
Secondly, the holding of regular film evenings by the Dominion Museum operating in both Wellington and Palmerston North. The lecture hall of the Dominion Museum will seat 344 persons, and is equipped with 35 mm. and 16 mm. sound projectors. The monthly screenings of educational films which were held in this hall attracted full houses, and on almost all occasions many people were unable to gain admission. The same overwhelming popularity greeted the introduction of educational film evenings to Palmerston North, where the largest audience ever to view screenings arranged by the Dominion Museum attended at the Opera House. These functions in Palmerston North afforded an excellent example of the way in which museum services can co-operate with local cultural institutions; for these screenings were held there in co-operation with the Palmerston North City Library. There is little doubt, however, that had the Dominion Museum lecture hall been double the size it would on most occasions have been filled to capacity. These experiments show that there is a real and extensive demand by the general public for films of an educational nature.
SCHOOL SERVICES.
Recent advances in education in primary and secondary schools have tended towards visual aids, more particularly cinema films and museum material. In the past few years primary schools, especially in the United States, England, and the British Commonwealth, have greatly extended their use of museum material for teaching. A notable advance was made after 1937 through the liberal grants made by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to museums in the British Commonwealth. This year (1944), in New Zealand, there has been introduced a compulsory course in general science throughout secondary schools which will cause a greatly increased demand for teaching material.
The requirements for teaching school-children demand an extensive range of objects and exhibits that can be seen
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and handled. Sound films are equally indispensable in dealing with living things, structure of the earth, health, industries, other peoples, and so on. The exigencies of population distribution necessitate a wide distribution of schools which cannot posibly keep for their own uses the range of objects and apparatus they require. Fortunately, the museum, if large enough and adequately endowed and equipped, is able to supply the schools of a whole district with their requirements in the way of Visual aids. The four principal museums in New Zealand each have permanently on their staffs two qualified teachers appointed by the Education Department. The present scheme was put into operation in 1937 on the appointment of the first four educational officers. During the first three years, a period of trial and construction, the salaries of the museum educational officers were paid in equal proportions by the New Zealand Education Department and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. When at the end of this period the agreement with the Carnegie Corporation came to an end, the Education Department provided the salaries of all of its officers transferred to the museums. The museum school service has proved to be a useful adjunct to teaching in primary schools and in the future is certain to be considerably enlarged.
The various phases of the work of educating school children are referred to in the following paragraphs.
Attendance of School Children.—ln the past, visits to New Zealand museums have always been made by classes of school children under the supervision of teachers, and regular courses have been arranged and lectures given by members of the museum staffs. So great, however, were the demands from schools for lectures that it was found impossible to cope with them. It became evident that if the teaching of visiting classes in museums was to be continued special teachers would have to be appointed. As indicated above, this was effected when the Carnegie Corporation of New York made its grant to assist in the establishment of an enlarged school teaching system in New Zealand museums. The Dominion Museum, before it was closed to the public for the duration of the war, may be taken as an example of the method of dealing with visiting school classes. The average attendance was 1200 weekly. On each visit the children were given a lecture in the lecture hall, usually illustrated by a film, followed by a lesson in the museum. For this lesson the children were divided into five or six groups, each under the charge of a student teacher from the Training College. These student teachers
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were stationed at the museum six at a time and each remained for a period of six weeks. Consequently, by this method, in the course of a year 48 teachers gain experience in the use of museum material.
As well as attending to the visiting school children, these student teachers while at the museum were themselves given tuition in all the principal departments of the museum by the members of the professional staff. In this way the value of the museum to the community was emphasised to the students, who left the institution with sufficient knowledge of its capabilities and functions to enable them to educate their future charges in the purposeful use of the public museums. The ultimate result of such a policy would be the evolution of a museum-minded and appreciative public.
Clubs.—The system of organizing the children into clubs has been adopted in the four metropolitan museums. By this means interest in a particular subject is maintained throughout the year. Research groups can be formed and field collecting trips made. Facilities are provided in the museum for keeping live fish, insects, or other animals. In the Dominion Museum the children are given the opportunity of joining one of the following clubs: Maori, Animal, Insect, Plant, Sun and Stars, and Life in Other Lands. The child comes to the Museum for five visits at fortnightly intervals and carries out work connected with his club on each visit. In addition, he is supplied with a manila folder in which he keeps leaflets and pictures he is given on each visit. In this way he builds up a booklet about the subject dealt with by his own club. The system has proved most popular with children and with teachers. In addition, a large number of portable displays has been prepared for teachers who wish to follow up the club work in their school teaching.
School Circulating Cases. —The museum material that is circulated to schools includes mounted specimens of birds and other animals either arranged as habitat groups or merely set in travelling cases, various arranged and labelled exhibits to illustrate phases of Maori life, insects, plants, animals, industries, and, in fact, any subject that can be covered by museum specimens, together with charts, maps, photographs, pictures, and books. The system works somewhat like a circulating library, but articles, not books, are the main lending material. The books circulated are used mainly by the teachers for instructing the children on the subjects of the exhibits.
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The system of circulating cases has been, developed extensively in America and in some museums in England. In the Auckland Museum, cases modelled after the American school cases were first circulated to local schools about 1929. On receipt of the grant of 50,000 dollars from the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1937, the scheme was introduced into the Dominion, Canterbury, and Otago Museums. As the work developed more cases were made and a larger field covered; for instance, cases from the Dominion Museum have been sent as far as Nelson and Blenheim in the South Island, and as far as Palmerston North and Hastings in the North Island. In Wellington and the Hutt Valley more comprehensive collections of material are circulated among the principal primary schools. The roster is so arranged that exhibits are continuously in the schools and are changed at fortnightly intervals. The school teachers themselves select the exhibits, apparatus, and material they require for the work in their own schools. Following this practice it has been found that some subjects are in much greater demand than are others.
DISPLAY OF EXHIBITS
This, of course, is the main function of a museum as regards those who for pleasure or profit pay it a visit. Not only the sightseer but also the more serious-minded student may satisfy his immediate quest by going no further than the exhibition halls. For most investigators, however, contad will need to be made with the museum staff. It is most important that museum exhibits should be attractively displayed and arranged in such a setting that they hold the interest of the visitor. At this point one touches on a psychological problem. For a visitor may enter the museum with no special object in view. This is an attitude that should be capable of being changed to one of active interest. First, the building itself must be imposing and impressive. Secondly, its interior architectural features must harmonize with the displays, a qualification which may demand different kinds of treatment for the various halls. The interior decora! ion must be pleasing and, above all, in a large museum there must be wholly or partly separated halls for each section of the museum so that the visitor is not confronted at the one time by a multiplicity of subjects. His mind can then be brought into a state of interest in and concentration on the objects that confront him. Everything—building, interior decoration, showcases, lighting, method of display, and labels—should conspire to focus
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the visitor’s attention on the story told by the objects shown. If proper attention be paid to such details a museum exhibit may not only hold the attention of the visitor, but he may gain from it much knowledge useful in his vocation or helpful in enlarging his intellectual outlook. Having benefited from a casual visit to his museum the average citizen will again visit it and advise others to do so. As the reputation of a museum as a source of reliable information grows within a community, so will the proportion of purposeful visits to its halls increase over and above those of a casual nature. In this way a progressive museum becomes the vital- centre of the intellectual and cultural life of the community in which it is situated.
REFERENCE COLLECTIONS.
No less important than the exhibition of objects of interest as a principal function of a museum is the amassing of collections for study by students of the sciences. Teachers, specialists, and students alike all draw upon the museum’s reference collections for the material basis of their investigations and publications, whether these be ■of a popular or a purely scientific nature.
It is imperative that the principal museums should build up large reference collections, not only to supply material for study and exhibition, but —and this is highly important—to preserve for the benefit of future generations objects of value and scientific interest that otherwise might be scattered amongst private collections, exported from the country, or destroyed. The reference collections are arranged and stored in systematic ofder, that is, classified into their natural groupings, within each department o f the museum, so that any object or specimen can be located when required with the minimum of trouble and delay.
PUBLICATIONS.
The contribution of New Zealand museum workers to scientific literature has been very considerable; and in actual museum publications it is abreast with museums of like size in other parts of the world. For instance, the New Zealand museums issue postcards, guide books, pamphlets, and scientific monographs; and at the present time are publishing regularly three scientific journals. But there is room for a great expansion in the output of literature issued by museums; and this can come about only by an increase in staffs and income. Naturally, each museum is
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interested principally in developing the knowledge of its own country. This is as it should be; for the productions of one’s own country are of first interest and, moreover, are the most accessible. Without publications the museum’s activities would be greatly restricted as it could reach only those persons who actually visited the museum or those school-children who attended the schools using museum exhibits. The museum’s publications are the museum’s organs of articulation. They enable information in the form of popular articles to be widely distributed and they place on record the results of the scientific investigations carried out by the staff of the museum. The larger museums in the United States and Europe issue series of publications ranging from postcards to large monographs. The following is a representative list:—
Postcards with pictures and information; guide books, i.e., general accounts of the exhibits on view in the museum; guide leaflets, i.e., articles on single exhibits: popular magazines, scientific journals, books, scientific monographs.
The amount of information distributed by such institutions as the British Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum of Natural History, is enormous; and its value could not be assessed on a monetary basis.
SITUATION.
The ideal situation for a museum is in a reserve or park within easy walking distance of the centre of the town; in fact, a museum should be just as accessible as a public library. They are institutions with similar aims, namely, the distribution of information among the people, but one functions by means of books, the other by means of exhibits, objects, and lectures. With a vastly increased interest in knowledge, an objective everyone hopes will materialize after the war, the' museum should become the centre of adult education, and, as such should be placed in a cultural centre in association with the Library, Art Gallery, and the meeting-rooms of scientific, technological and kindred institutions. Knowledge is the foundation of the nation’s morale. Consequently, every facility should be given to enable those who have little time to spare, and this includes most of us, to make full use of cultural institutions. Moreover, for those who wish to use the museum and are employed during the day, and for visitors with little time to
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spare in the city, nearness of the museum to the centre of the city's business activities is essential.
The advantage of a grassed area surrounding a museum is that there is less noise from street traffic and less dust. Museums in New Zealand ideally situated are those at Wanganui, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill. The Auckland and Dominion Museums, each situated on an elevation commanding a fine view of their surroundings, are further from the centre of the city, and, more especially in the case of the Dominion Museum, are not served by any convenient public transport system. This has the disadvantage, more noticeable in Wellington than in Auckland, of preventing the busy person from making regular use of the museum or even seeing it except by a special effort.
BUILDINGS.
A museum building should have an imposing front. In this regard the Auckland and Dominion Museums leave little to be desired. The facade of the Canterbury Museum, though it belongs to an earlier epoch, is most impressive and harmonises with the University buildings in the vicinity. Otago Museum's new Fels Wing is a modern version of the type of architecture used in the old building of the Victorian period to which it is attached.
But while the outside of the building is entirely the architect's concern, interior arrangements and decoration must conform with the various uses to which the museum is to be put. Each exhibition hall may need different architectural treatment to display to the best advantage the exhibits that it is designed to contain. Greek architecture, for instance, may be excellent for ceramics but would certainly clash with objects of-Maori art.
In addition to properly-designed exhibition halls all museums should possess adequate storage space furnished with the necessary shelves, cupboards, and cabinets required for the systematic housing of its reference collections. The entire building should be air-conditioned the whole year round.
To be really successful a museum building should be planned in such a way that there are separate halls for each department. A visitor entering a hall is thus surrounded by exhibits illustrating only one subject on which he can concentrate his attention. Moreover, the hall can be
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arranged as a unit, with pictures, diagrams, or flat exhibits on the walls to amplify the exhibits on the floor, the object being to tell in the best way the story of the exhibits. To take as an example the arrangement for a Hall of Birds, the visitor entering would come first upon introductory exhibits showing the structure of birds, their evolution and place in the animal kingdom, their adaptations, their distribution over the world, and other phases of the life of birds, with special reference to local species. Among the main exhibits should be some habitat groups; but all such displays, together with the introductory ones, need to be arranged in orderly sequence so that the visitor may gather the information he seeks in its proper perspective. The arrangements of the halls is in part a psychological problem: to have no defined halls at all; as in the Dominion Museum, means that a person entering one of the main wings of the museum sees at one view a confusing panorama of show-cases belonging to one side of the building and embracing exhibits that may cover such widelyseparated subjects as ethnology and zoology. Such an arrangement tends to be distracting, and is hardly conducive to the quiet study necessary if information is to be gained by a visit to the museum.
In the American Museum of Natural History in New York the most recent halls have each a definite object in view worked out according to a scheme in which each part of the hall and each exhibit bears a definite relation to the rest of the exhibits and the other parts of the hall. Even the ceiling, as in the Ocean Birds Hall, is utilized to represent a tropic sky with appropriate birds Hying overhead. It will be some time before halls of this type can be constructed in New Zealand museums, but at least separate halls can be provided for each main section of the museum. In the Auckland Museum the halls are well enough separated, but all are large, so that it is not possible to allocate a hall to each subject. In one hall such different exhibits as fishes and plants are shown. The exhibition space in the Dominion Museum being continuous round three sides of a large I'ght court is quite unsuited to a sectional arrangement of displays and makes a logical sequence very difficult to attain. Canterbury's old and unsuitable building has at least the redeeming feature that there are separate halls of different sizes. The new Fels Wing in the Otago Museum is excellent for the kind of exhibits it contains, namely, foreign and Maori ethnology.
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The method of lighting museums is of prime importance. Good light is essential for showing exhibits to their best advantage. Natural daylight has certain disadvantages: it varies in its intensity, is controllable with difficulty and then only within limits, and, most important of all, it is destructive to certain kinds of objects. In time, feathers and hair are bleached to grey or white, and the colours of textiles fade. The objects are thus rendered useless and tit only to be discarded. For this reason artificial light is being used in modern museums to a larger extent than formerly. In the United States whole museums have been built without any windows. In other cases, for instance, the new halls in the Amercan Museum of Natural History and in all halls of habitat groups, artificial light only has been ussd.. Besides being a safe and satisfactory method for lighting exhibits, windows are eliminated, and thus more wall space is available for exhibits. In addition to being harmless to natural history specimens, artificial lighting has another advantage. It can be placed where it is best suited to illuminate the exhibits and instead of being as is daylight an outside inconstant and uncontrollable factor it becomes an integral part of the exhibit completely under control. Furthermore, by placing the lights within the cases all reflections are eliminated.
CONTROL.
For a museum to run smoothly and efficiently and to make continuous progress, not only must the staff be highly qualified but the members of the board of control must take an active interest in the institution and be thoroughly sympathetic with its aims. The only means of attaining this end is for each museum to have its own controlling board.
A second point is the selection of representatives by the various nominating bodies. Such bodies should be confined to those having a direct interest in the museum in one of the following ways:—
[nterested on account of supplying the main source of income—the Government or the Municipality.
Interested as controlling authorities in the town in which the museum is situated—the City Council; Harbour Board.
Interested on account of the education services of the museum—the University: secondary schools; Education Department..
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Interested on account of similar aims Royal Society and its Branches; Polynesian Society; Botanical Societies, Geographical Society.
Interested on account of the cultural value of the museum to the community—Societies specially organized to help the museum, such as the Friends of the Museum which has been of such great assistance to the Otago Museum.
As a museum is a public institution representation on its bpard of control should come from as wide a field as possible. In this connection consideration might be given to the idea that the Government or Municipality could with advantage be represented by some prominent and interested citizen instead of, or as well as. by a civil servant or member of the City Council.
Similarly, nominating societies could with advantage extend their nominations to embrace persons not necessarily their own members instead of nominating members of their own councils as though such appointments to the museum boards were merely routine matters. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that individual representatives should be chosen because of their very definite interest in and sympathy with the objects of the museum over which it will be their public privilege to share the control.
The museum board should have full power to manage the institution within the limits of its income, including the power to appoint the staff. Its activities should be sufficiently well safeguarded by the institutions that nominate its members and by the Auditor-General. Furthermore, it is desirable that the museum board of control, once appointed, should be consulted by the nominating bodies when vacancies occur, and have sole power to confirm the appointments.
STAFF.
One of the chief responsibilities of the museum board of control is the appointment of the staff; for unless the members of the staff are properly qualified and interested persons the museum cannot perform its true functions. To obtain qualified persons adequate salaries must be paid, salaries comparable with those paid to persons of like qualifications elsewhere in the community.
Furthermore, every facility should be given to improve the knowledge and experience of the staff, especially by visiting or working in other museums. This can be done in
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several ways; for instance, working with the staff of another museum either as a visitor or by exchange of officers, or by travel to museums in other countries. The travel grants distributed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York were extremely beneficial in that they enabled the directors pf the principal New Zealand museums to gain experience in the principal museums in America and Europe and to meet members of the staffs and controlling committees of the museums visited. Such visits abroad should be extended to other members of the museum staffs if museum work in New Zealand is to progress. It cannot be too strongly stressed that the members of the staff of a museum need to have the very highest qualifications for the duties they will be called upon to perform.
This section cannot be concluded without commenting upon the inadequate staffing of New Zealand museums as compared with museums abroad, and without drawing attention to the inadequate financial reward paid to the members of existing museum staffs in New Zealand as compared with that paid to Australian museum officers or museum staffs of the United States and England. Many New Zealand museum officers have attained to the highest eminence in professional qualifications, and their scientific work is held in the highest regard throughout the world.
FINANCE.
It is a truism to say that a museum requires to be adequately, if not liberally, financed in order that it may perform its proper functions. It is a truism, too, to say that the foundation for a progressive and prosperous community is knowledge. Consequently, any institution devoted to the spread of knowledge should not be hampered by scarcity of funds. A few of the remarks made in other parts of this report will bear repetition here in order to emphasise the important place the museum should take in the community and consequently its claims for a liberal income. The museum is a collector and distributor of human knowledge. It brings to the people in an understandable and attractive form knowledge gathered from every source. It is just as important as a public library and should be just as accessible and just as liberally endowed.
.Museums serve the whole community. By various methods—travelling exhibits, radio, correspondence, publications—everyone in the country can benefit from the activities of museums. They carry on the education
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begun in youth; and education for everyone of u.s, in some form, should continue throughout life. Consequently, the income for museums should be raised from the population as a whole, that is, from Government and Local Body taxation. If the Government and Municipal grants can be supplemented from other sources such as donations and bequests, so much the better.
LIBRARIES.
A library must be considered to be an essential part of a museum. It is used for reference on the very wide range of subjects that arise in the course of the normal activities of the museum. It is indispensable for research work, for information on the methods and activities of other museums, for the preparation of exhibits and labels, to answer the extraordinary variety of questions that are put to museum officers by the general public—in fact, it is just as necessary for a museum worker to have books on hand as it is to have tools, instruments, and preserving materials. Certain classes of books such a technical books and systematic works on the flora and fauna of New Zealand are in such constant use that they very aptly may be designated “tool” books. A museum must be kept up-to-date with scientific and general information, so that a liberal annual ekpenditure on books and periodicals is not only a necessity but a paying proposition.
RESEARCH.
An important function of a museum is research, that is to say, bringing to light new information. Naturally, this is based primarily on the museum’s study collections; but as these in large measure are incomplete, efforts have to be made to fill the gaps and to extend the series by discovering hitherto unknown species or native artifacts. Hence arises the necessity of field exploration. This has been carried on spasmodically within New Zealand, more often to investigate discoveries of moa-bone deposits or Maori camps that have been reported by someone not on the staff of a museum. The equipping of expeditions with the object of exploring generally a more or less unknown district has seldom happened except in the case of botanical expeditions.
The scientific work carried out by museum officers in New Zealand is admirable both in quantity and quality. In fact, a very considerable proportion, perhaps half, of the
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scientific research that has been undertaken in New Zealand has been carried out in museums. We may instance most of the work published by Hector, Hutton, Haast, Parker, Forbes, Waite, Best, Hamilton, Thomson, McKay, and Cheeseman, not to mention living museum authorities. All of those mentioned are famous in their own sphere and have laid firm foundations for the work of the future.
The volumes of the Transactions of the Neiv Zealand Institute abound with contributions from the earlier museum workers in New Zealand and there is a steady output from present-day museum staffs, appearing in the Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, as well as in the museums’ own Records and other channels of publication. Scientific papers, the results of museum research work, have appeared in overseas scientific journals and a creditable number of scientific books have been published privately by past and present members of New Zealand museum staffs.
Very much still remains to be done in investigating the ethnology, botany, zoology, geology, and history of New Zealand and in exploring the island territories in the Pacific. All,of these should be systematically explored from New Zealand. While New Zealand museums have not sent a single expedition to any of these islands, some of them already have been thoroughly explored by the Bishop Museum at Honolulu. The neglect of this field by New Zealand museums is due entirely to the lack of funds. The area that comes within the Dominion’s administrative boundaries should be treated by the New Zealand museums as their own special field for study. Other island groups in the South Pacific, especially those near to New Zealand’s dependencies, could with advantage be included in the exploration work of these museums. After the War the Pacific peoples will be Europeanized much more rapidly than hitherto, and their own peculiar types of culture will tend to disappear. In the immediate future, social, economic, and political relations between Europeans and Pacific races must become much more intimate; and herein will arise important and complex racial problems that might well be solved by museum ethnologists. This is by no means all, for the flora and fauna of the Pacific Islands needs surveying before the impact of western civilization, with its attendant weed and animal introductions, radically alters their composition and perhaps elminates scientifically interesting or even economically valuable species.
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MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION.
There is an Art Galleries and Museums Association for Australia and New Zealand, with Chairman and Secretary resident in Australia. Here we have two rather different interests and two widely-separated geographical areas. It is not unnatural, then, that only two general meetings of the Association have been held, and those in part were financed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This Association, however, may serve a useful purpose; but what is wanted to further the interests of New Zealand museums is an association representative of all the museums in the Dominion. This would provide the opportunity for museum officers to meet and discuss problems common to all. It also would enable the museums the better to approach the Government on matters of national interest or when Government assistance was required by any or all of the museums.
Once a year there should be a general meeting or conference of representatives of all the museums in New Zealand. The museum education officers realized the necessity and usefulness of annual conferences which they have held regularly since they were appointed.
Part 11.
Situation, Buildings, Administration, and Equipment, of New Zealand Museums.
SITUATION.
The Auckland Museum is magnificently situated in the Domain, and from its portico is to be obtained a very fine view of the city and harbour. The Museum is one-'and-a-half tram sections from Queen Street, and from the nearest tram stop £ short walk amidst pleasant surroundings brings one to the building. The museum is thus ideally situated and there is ample room for extension. In one respect only could the situation of the Auckland Museum be criticized and that is for a cultural centre where various societies could hold their meetings and house their libraries. For this it is too distant from Queen Street. Furthermore, it is too far from the business part of the city for anyone working in town to visit it during lunch hour, as also it is for visitors to the city having only an hour or two to spare.
The New Plymouth Museum is housed in the same building as the Public Library, near the railway station. It would be far better for it to be in a new building designed for the Museum and an Art Gallery, in or near Pukekura Park.
In Napier the Museum is situated in a town block among commercial buildings. While the building lacks a park-like setting it is in an excellent position for its main function, that is, to be a cultural institution readily accessible.
The Wanganui Museum is ideally situated in a park adjacent to the city's main thoroughfare. With the Public Library and Art Gallery each in a separate building it forms a kind of cultural centre, without, however, any facilities for public meetings or accommodation for the libraries of cultural societies that may be formed in the city.
The Dominion Museum is situated on a rise and commands a fine view of the city and harbour with the Tararua Range in the background. The nearest tram stop is one-and-a-half sections from the Railway Station and from it to the museum the distance is a little greater than from the nearest tram stop to the Auckland Museum; but in Wellington a steep hill or ninety-nine steps must be climbed,
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The surroundings are not quite so pleasant as in Auckland, the Dominion Museum being situated near a manufacturing area with slum conditions in some directions. The Dominion Museum is thus not so accessible as is the Auckland Museum and is open to greater disadvantages as regards being the nucleus of a cultural centre. It cannot be visited by business people during their lunch hour nor by those who have only a few hours to spare in Wellington.
In the next section it will be shown that a museum of adequate size for the city of Wellington needs about three times the floor space now available in the Dominion Museum. In view of the important part that museums are destined to take in Cultural developments it is important that, at the first opportunity, a new and much larger building, providing space for the museum as well as for the libraries and meeting rooms of other kindred institutions, should be constructed on a site near the centre of the city. The reasons for placing a public library near the centre of the city apply equally to a museum.
The Nelson Museum, housed in the same building as the Public Library, is situated quite close to the business area. One proposal is to build a new museum in Queen’s Gardens. This is an excellent idea because the distance from the centre of the town is not much greater than that of the present site. In the Queen’s Gardens the Museum would be close to the Art Gallery and the Cawthron Institute, and these, together with a lecture hall and rooms for meetings and for the libraries of "other cultural institutions, would form a centre of learning for the city.
The situation of the Canterbury Museum is, perhaps, the best in the Dominion. It is near the centre of the city, on a wide avenue lined with trees, and adjacent to the University and Art Gallery with secondary schools and a good residential area nearby. A better position for a cultural centre could not be desired.
The Otago Museum is within the University area and only one block away from George Street at a point a little more than a tram section from High Street. This distance cannot be considered too great to prevent the Otago Museum from becoming a centre of cultural development including the meeting places of kindred institutions.
The Southland Museum is situated in a park not far from the centre of the city, a very suitable locality for an institution of this kind.
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BUILDINGS.
The Auckland Museum is a fine spacious building with the main exhibition halls on the ground and first floors. On the second floor is the library and lecture hall, and an exhibition hall for war material. The exhibition halls are sufficiently separate but all are large so they cannot be allocated each to a different section of the Museum. Thus, while there are halls separately devoted to New Zealand birds, geology, and Maori ethnology, botany and fishes occupy the same hall; and mammals, foreign birds, and minerals occupy another hall. Such a disposition of the specimens shows the advantages of having halls of different sizes so that each department of the museum could have a hall to itself. This should be taken into consideration when the building is being extended.
The Auckland Museum needs extensions for exhibition halls, for working space and reserve collections, and for educational work, including a lecture hall with cinema equipment. Probably in the not very distant future the Museum will need to be doubled in size.
New Plymouth needs a new building for its very valuable collection of Maori articles and historical material and for illustrating the natural history of Taranaki.
The Napier Museum is not completed according to the architects’ plan, there having been built, so far, only the central portion and the south wing. There is a vacant section where in future the north wing will be added. The central area contains museum exhibits and the south wing art exhibits. Beneath there is a basement used partly for exhibits and partly for work and store rooms. The use of part of the basement for exhibits is a temporary expedient pending the Museum’s being completed, a measure which is now urgent.
The ground floor of the Wanganui Museum is a single court containing Maori and foreign ethnological exhibits. Above this is a gallery accommodating the remaining collections. Beneath the ground floor is a basement used for working and storage. The Museum is overcrowded and needs extending for exhibition space, work-rooms, and a lecture hall.
The Dominion Museum building is a three-storied structure of which the ground floor is occupied mainly by the museum for offices, work-rooms, lecture hall, and reference collections. The first floor consists of museum exhi-
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bition galleries, and the top floor is occupied by the National Art Gallery and the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts.
In the museum the exhibition halls are not properly separated; they are defined by the exhibits rather than by the structure of the building and consequently it is difficult to group the displays to the best advantage. The present arrangement is as follows:
Maori hall and north-east gallery—Maori ethnology.
East gallery—Ceramics.
South-east gallery—Foreign ethnology.
South gallery—Mammals and birds; insects.
South-west gallery—Fishes, molluscs, reptiles and birds.
West gallery—Kauri gum.
North-west gallery—Botany, geology.
A museum of adequate size to serve the city of Wellington and its vicinity should contain at least the following exhibition halls: New Zealand history, Maori (4 halls), foreign ethnology (2), ceramics, technology (4), mankind, mammals, birds (2), fishes molluscs, insects. botany, geology. Total 21 halls. This would require a trebling of the exhibition space in the Dominion Museum, while the space for reserve collections, educationl work, lecture hall, and so on, would require expansion on a similar scale. There is no objection to a four- or five-storied building should the location demand it.
Nelson needs a new building for the museum and another for the art gallery. Not till then will it be possible adequately to serve the cultural needs of the city and district. At present there is no safe repository for the museum treasures in public and private hands, so that a modern building for a museum is an urgent necessity.
The Canterbury Museum building is now quite out-of-date and quite unsuitable; also it is not nearly large enough for a museum that is to serve the city and district. It has no proper facilities for working, for housing the reference collections, or for educational activities, and it has no lecture hall. Furthermore, there are no rooms available for the meetings or libraries of institutions which go to make up a cultural centre. All these disadvantages must be taken into account when a new building is being planned.
Christchurch requires a new museum building about four times as large as the present one. It should be erected on the sili' of the present museum. If it is desired to retain
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the present external style of architecture so as to be in keeping with the University and College buildings in the vicinity this could be done; but the whole of the interior, of course, must be designed on the lines of a modern museum,
The Otago Museum consists of the original building with an extension on the north side and a much more modern structure, the Fels Wing, on the south side. The Fels Wing contains two large, well-lighted, and well-fur-nished halls containing the Maori and foreign ethnological exhibits and a basement below used for work-rooms and reference collections.
An extension from the Fels Wing to Cumberland Street is an immediate requirement. The old building with the entrance to King Street needs completely remodelling inside and additions are required for educational work, lecture hall, and storage space.
Invercargill's new museum, the Southland Museum, opened in 1942, consists of two stories. Originally, it was intended that the lower one should be for working space and reference collections while the upper one was for exhibition galleries; but the building is so overcrowded as to necessitate the use of a large storeroom for exhibits. A large collection is being held in store in various parts of the city awaiting transference to the museum. The present urgent requirements are two additional wings with accompanying storerooms beneath, and a lecture hall.
Finally, new buildings are required for museums and art galleries for those other towns where collections already have been made or are contemplated. These places include (population in thousands) New Plymouth, (19) ; Palmerston North, (26); Hamilton, (21); Timaru, (19) and Gisborne (16), and at least the following smaller centres:— Whangarei, (7) ; Tauranga, (4) ; Masterton, (9) ; Blenheim, (5) ; Hokitika, (3) ; Greymouth, (8) ; Ashburton, (7) : and Oamaru, (8).
The provision of museums and art galleries on the scale outlined above should lead to a great increase in the interest taken in science, art, and culture generally throughout New Zealand.
ADMINISTRATION.
The Auckland Museum is controlled by the Council of the Auckland Institute with the following representation: President, three Vice-Presidents, and twelve members of
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the Council elected by the members of. the Institute at the Annual Meeting. Five representatives of the Auckland City Council. Three representatives of Local Bodies. The Director of the Museum is Secretary to the Institute.
The Wanganui Museum is under the control of a Board of Trustees of the following composition: President, two Vice-Presidents, seven members, and two Associated Members of the Maori Race, elected by the Members of the Museum (of which there are 110) at their Annual Meeting. Two members appointed by the Wanganui City Council. The Secretary appointed by the Board is not a member of the museum staff.
The Hawkes Bay Art Gallery and Museum is controlled by a Management Committee consisting of 7 members appointed by the Hawkes Bay Art Society, 4 by the Hawkes Bay Branch of the Royal Society, 1 each by the Hawkes Bay Education Board, Napier Borough Council and Hastings Borough Council. The Secretary of the Committee is Director of the Museum.
The Dominion Museum is controlled by the Museum Management Committee which itself is under the control of the Board of Trustees of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum constituted by Act of Parliament.
The Board of Trustees consists of the Chairman (Prime Minister), 2 Deputy Chairmen (Mayor of Wellington and Minister of Internal Affairs), 3 Members appointed by the Government, the Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs, 2 Members nominated by the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2 by the Wellington Harbour Hoard, 2 by the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, 1 by the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, 1 by the Wellington City Council, 1 representing Local Bodies, and the Chairman of the Wellington War Memorial Carillon Society. The Secretary is not a member of the museum staff.
The Museum Management Committee consists of nine members of which two are appointed by the Board of Trustees and seven nominated by the Royal Society of New Zealand and appointed by the Board. The Secretary of the Committee is the Director of the Museum.
The Nelson Museum is controlled by the Library Committee of the Nelson Institute.
The Canterbury Museum is under the control of the Board of Governors of Canterbury University College.
The Otago Museum is controlled by the Museum Committee which consists of the following members: 7 repre-
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seining Otago University, 3 representing the City of Dunedin, 3 representing the Association of Friends of the -Museum, 2 representing the Otago Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1 representing the New Zealand Government. The Secretary of the Committee is the Registrar of Otago University. The Southland Museum is controlled by the Southland Museum Trust Board (Inc.), with the following representation: The Mayor of Invercargill and one representative each of the High Schools Board, Southland County Council, Invercargill City Council, Bluff Harbour Board, Southland Branch of the Royal Society (2 members), Teachers' Institute, Education Board, Technical College Board, and one co-opted member. The Secretary of the Board is the Director of the Museum.
INCOME.
The following table shows approximately the amount and sources of the annual income of the New Zealand museums:— .
Provincial
Local Council Other
Museum. Govt Bodies. Reserves. Sources. Total.
Auckland 5700 1900 7600
Wanganui 200 400 600
Hawkes Bay 250 25 275
Dominion 5500- 2000* 200* 7700
Canterbury 500 1700 400 2600
Otago 825 2200 3025
Southland 300 100 400
5500 9775 1700 5225 22200
-Estimated proportion of income of Museum and Art Gallery. The Auckland and Otago Museums receive considerable sums from rents and interest on investments.
The total annual income necessary for the Museum services in New Zealand on the scale contemplated in this report would be about £53,000, made up as follows:
£
Auckland 14,000
Dominion 14,000
Canterbury 8,000
Otago 8,000
Wanganui, Invercargill, Nelson,
New Plymouth, Palmerston North
and Napier, each £l,OOO 6,000
Other museums to be built 3,000
£53,000
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Regarding the museums as educational institutions with organized departments for the instruction of both school children and adults, the total annual income suggested as necessary after the bui dmg outlmed above has been completed, namely, is3 ’°?°; ° e if a than one per cent, of the annual expenditure m New Zea land for the various Government educational services.
SCHOOL SERVICES: EQUIPMENT.
Auckland Museum (from Report for 1942-43). The number of children who visited the Museum in classes was 12 575 The subjects available to these classes included 15 lesSns on the races of mankind, 8 on natural history and 2on world products. The number of schooll ease*| avadable for circulation, is 58. These were sent to 35 citj and 66 country schools. Educational films were shown to both prinwf and secondary school children There jre-jow two education officers who are members of the Education ue partment, employed at the museum, while «»« College students attend for 6-weekly periods Aadrtioja activities are the competitions held annually for the ( neese man Memorial prizes and the spring flower displays.
Wanganui Museum. School work is developing satisfactorily Children from 15 schools visited the museum in 1943. . , , _,.,.,_„.
Dominion Museum. Attendances of f hool-eh ldi en during 1941 were over 34,000. The subjects taught (1940) re How Animals Live. A Day in the Life of the Maori Maori Question Game, A Trip to the Stars The Worldl of the Plant, Animals of the Past, The World of Insects The equipment available for circulation includes school cases, pictures, books and charts.
In 1940 120 cases circulated to country schools ana a large number to local schools. Educational films _ were shown regularly to the visiting classes of school children These are taught in six classes each under the charge of a Training College student teacher. In this way 48 teachers each have annually six weeks' experience in teaching in the museum The children are given the opportunity of joining one of the following clubs: Maori, animal, insect, plant, birds, sun and stars, life in other lands.
The museum lecture hall is provided with 344 seats and is equipped with 35 mm. and 16 mm. sound projectors and lantern slide equipment to show both standard Siin. x SJin. and miniature 2in. x 2in. lantern slides.
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Canterbury Museum: In 1942 the attendances in organized groups numbered 23,948 children and 966 teachers. Full use was made of educational films and loan material was circulated in town schools and on country circuits.
Otago Museum; About 16,000 visits by school-children were made to Otago Museum in 1942. Eighteen public schools and 4 private schools attended regularly, representing 50 classes. The number of school cases in circulation is 80, and there are as well 80 sets of pictures and 40 mounted birds. The Museum possesses a 16 mm. sound projector with which films are shown in one of the lecture rooms.
FIELD RESEARCH.
It would take too much space to list the published work of museum officers which, as already pointed out, forms a very considerable proportion of the scientific output of the Dominion. We may pass on, therefore, to a brief statement of the field research of, say, the past 20 years. From the Auckland Museum expeditions have been made for the purpose of collecting moa bones and excavating Maori camp sites in the Auckland Province, while botanical and zoological expeditions have been made as far distant as Stewart Island and the Chathams. A notable expedition arranged by the Auckland Museum and in which representatives from the Auckland and Dominion Museums participated was the visit to the Three Kings Islands in 1934. A month’s expedition to Cape Maria van Diemen and the North Cape area was made in 1931.
From the Dominion Museum ethnological expeditions were made to the Wanganui and East Coast areas, from which was gained much valuable informaton that later was used by the members of the party (Elsdon Best, J. C. Andersen, P. Buck) in their published books. Many hundreds of photographs were taken, the negatives of which are now preserved in the Dominion Museum. Other expeditions have investigated localities ranging from Spirits Bay in the far north, to Stewart Island. These have been mainly for bptanical and entomological exploration and the collecting of moa bones. In 1927 the Southern Islands were visited by a member of the staff.
The Canterbury Museum is investigating a remarkable deposit of moa bones in North Canterbury and a Maori camp site of the moa-hunter culture in Marlborough. Field work was carried out at the Chatham Islands in 1924,
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Some important investigations of ancient Maori camp sites in Otago have been made by the Otago Museum.
COLLECTIONS.
All of the metropolitan museums possess extensive collections though they are not equally balanced as regards subjects. The collection of Maori and foreign ethnological material in the Auckland Museum is extensive and of high quality. There also is a fine series illustrating ceramics and the fine arts. Geology is well represented, especially by mineral collections. The botanical collection includes as a nucleus the Cheeseman herbarium. Considerable additions have been made to it since the death of Mr. Cheesman about 20 years ago. In zoology, birds, including moa skeletons, fishes, and mollusca deserve special mention.
In the Taranaki Museum there is an interesting collection of Maori articles and a good collection of historical documents relating to the province.
The Wanganui Museum has a valuable collection of Maori work. It contains the Suter collection of Mollusca, many moa bones, a series of interesting historical records, and useful collections of birds and fishes.
The Dominon Museum possesses a very fine collection of Maori articles including those accumulated by Buller, Turnbull, Hammond, and Bollons. Its foreign ethnological collection is not extensive. The herbarium contains the collections of T. Kirk, Aston, Cockayne, Petrie, and others, and the Peat Collection of kauri gum. In zoology there is a good series of whales’ skeletons, birds, including moa bones, fishes, mollusca, and brachiopods. The insect collections are the most extensive in the Dominion. There are many valuable historical documents and articles and a fairly representative collection of rocks and minerals.
The Nelson Museum has considerable Maori and local history collections. It contains also the Hochstetter collection of minerals.
The Canterbury Museum has not so large a collection of Maori articles as have the other metropolitan museums; but it has some valuable Chatham Island specimens and the recently-acquired moa hunter material from Wairau Estuary. Its foreign ethnological material is very good, and so is its china and glassware. The geological collections are extensive and valuable.
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The Herbarium contains the collections made by Carse, Wall, and the early explorers of Canterbury. In zoology the collection of mammals, birds, including very fine moa skeletons from Pyramid Valley, fishes and insects, are notable. Early colonist material includes some important manuscript and diaries.
There is a fine and extensive collection of Maori and Pacific Islands material in the Otago Museum. It is especially rich in articles found in Otago. The foreign ethnological collections also are very fine and extensive. They include an exceedingly fine Polynesian display. The Hocken collection of New Zealand historical material is one of the most valuable in existence. The zoological collections are notable for their birds, including moa bones, fishes, and invertebrates of all kinds. Its herbarium is small but is expanding. Its geological department contains little beyond the Ulrich mineral collection.
PHOTOGRAPHY.
Photographic apparatus of some kind, including a darkroom, is provided in the larger museums, but except for that in the Dominion Museum, needs no special description. In the Dominion Museum, however, is a well-equipped photographic department comprising studio, developing, printing, and record room. The studio is equipped with modern photographic appliances; and the department is capable of tackling any photographic problem likely to be encountered in museum work, including the production of microfilms. A very fine 16 mm. cine cfimera is included in the equipment and some educational films dealing with Maori culture have been produced. There are about 22,000 negatives in the collection, including about 12,000 taken by Burton Bros, in all parts of New Zealand over a period of 50 years beginning at about 1860.
The Auckland Museum contains a large series of negatives and lantern slides, particularly relating to Auckland city and marine history.
LIBRARIES.
The Auckland Museum has an extensive library due largely to the fact that it is the property of the Auckland Institute, which throughout its long history of over seventy years has pursued a policy of purchasing books for its
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members. At times the Institute has received some valuable additions through donations and bequests. A donation worthy of special mention is that of a set of Gould’s Birds and Mammals of Australia. Some long and valuable series of scientific periodicals are included in the library of the Auckland Institute, for instance, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society are complete from the first issue, 1833. There is an important series of early voyages and the history of New Zealand, including many pamphlets.
The Dominion Museum has a fairly large library with many periodicals received in exchange for its publications. As its books are purchased for their museum value, this library does not cover such a wide range of subjects as is found in the Auckland Museum; but the Dominion Museum houses the Carter Library of New Zealand historical books, owned jointly by the Dominion Museum and Royal Society of New Zealand, and the library of the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society, a library which includes several scientific periodicals going back a long time, in one case, the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for more than one hundred years.
Canterbury Museum. There is here a good reference library, ncluding some rare and valuable systematic books on birds, with coloured illustrations. There are also complete sets of a number of scientific periodicals.
The Otago Museum contains a very fine zoological and ethnological library, including a number of useful scientific periodicals. It is incorporated with the library of the Otago University about one third of a mile from the Museum. The inconvenience of this arrangement no doubt will increase as the museum staff becomes enlarged and the activities of the institution increase. The extensive and valuable Hocken Library of New Zealand literature forms part of the Otago Museum Library. It is housed in the museum.
In the museums at Neyv Plymouth, Napier, Wanganui, Nelson, and Invercargill there are only small and unimportant libraries, though it may be mentioned that in the case of New Plymouth and Nelson the public library is housed in the same building as the museum.
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PUBLICATIONS.
The following are the principal current publications of the museums of New Zealand:—
Auckland Museum:
Annual Report.
Bulletins of the Auckland Museum (2 issued).
Records of the Auckland Museum (in 3rd volume).
South Sea Folk (Guide to Ethnological Collections)
Guides to Special Exhibitions Chinese Art
(1933), Antique Silver, Wedgwood Pottery,
Chinese Art (1935)
Wanganui Museum:
Annual Report
Dominion Museum:
Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the
National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum. (Parliamentary Paper).
Bulletins of the Dominion Museum (14 issued).
Records of the Dominion Museum (1 vol. issued).
Monographs of the Dominion Museum (7 issued).
Guide to Special Exhibition—English Chinaware (1940).
Canterbury Museum:
Annual Report of Canterbury University College, containing Annual Report of the Museum.
Guide to Canterbury Museum (in sth Edition).
Records of the Canterbury Museum (in sth vol.)
Otago Museum:
Annual Report.
The Hei Tiki (Guide to collection of Hei Tiki).
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Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1944-9917502383502836-New-Zealand-museums---present-es
Bibliographic details
APA: Oliver, Walter Reginald Brook. (1944). New Zealand museums : present establishment and future policy. Dominion Museum.
Chicago: Oliver, Walter Reginald Brook. New Zealand museums : present establishment and future policy. Wellington, N.Z.: Dominion Museum, 1944.
MLA: Oliver, Walter Reginald Brook. New Zealand museums : present establishment and future policy. Dominion Museum, 1944.
Word Count
13,308
New Zealand museums : present establishment and future policy Oliver, Walter Reginald Brook, Dominion Museum, Wellington, N.Z., 1944
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