MUSEUM EXCHANGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 305, 26 December 1936, Page 2

MUSEUM EXCHANGES

Museums, as an essential part, of intellectual life in all communities which are prepared to finance them, are at last coming into their own. Some cities have long recognised their responsibilities in the matter, and have provided for their museums fine buildings and adequate staffs. Others, realising, under the pressure of pre-sent-day unemployment, the need of provision for the occupation of leisure time, are now making gallery provision which has long been overdue. Recognising that in the matter of public educaion museums and art galleries are on the same footing as public libraries, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has made available funds which will enable selected members of museum staffs to travel in order to gain museum experience. Further, it has constituted a New Zealand committee, at whose disposal it has placed £lO,OOO to be used in the development of the museum movement as a whole.

Under the auspices of the New Zealand Advisory Committee of the Carnegie Corporation an exchange of loan collections is now being carried out between the New Zealand museums which have received the corporation’s recognition. Recognition has gone to those which have the

support of their respective communities to the extent of having their collections housed in separate galleries and under the care of a salaried official or staff. The museums thus officially recognised are those of the four main cities and Wanganui, and the Napier Museum, the Taranaki Museum at New Plymouth, and the Nelson Museum—five in the North Island and three in the South. It is probable that two or three further museums will join these as their respective communities rise to recognition of their civic responsibilities. Each of these institutions has been given a fine metal-framed plate-glass exhibition case, and each museum has ! undertaken to lend to its fellows a collection to be shown by each in turn for a month or so, finally returning to its permanent home at the end of a year. Thereafter a series of new exhibits will be despatched. In this way the museums of New Zealand will become much more closely linked than has been possible in the past, and will be able not only to exchange ideas about colections, but also—and this is more important —to gather new ideas about methods of display and exhibition. It is hoped that other and more extensive collections quite outside the series just described, like the splendid Chinese loan collection secured in England by Captain Humphrey-Davies, will circulate from time to time; but these will require large and fireproof galeries for their display, and will not, in consequence, be available for towns which lack accommodation. The Chinese exhibition will open in Auckland shortly and will be seen in Wanganui, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin in the course ■of- 1937. The smaller loan collections will commence their regular round in J J.uary. The possibilities of the new movement will be viewed with much interest.