| Topic: | museum storage - Court House or disused chapel? | |
| Posted by: | Valerie Bott | |
| Date/Time: | 19/01/07 18:08:00 |
| I think that Cllr Grimston will find (if he listens to the advice of his professional curatorial staff) that storage in disused chapels is unlikely to be suitable for any of the museum collections, especially if there are no staff left to look after them. Some of the objects I rescued in the mid 1980s when we were setting up the Museum had been stored in unheated cellars and cupboards under stairs in libraries and were in very poor condition. Over time the Museum has obtained grants to conserve them and bring "wreckage" back to life. Preserving objects is an active process - they fall apart in the wrong environment and Wandsworth Council spent wisely on getting a degree of environmental control into the Court House - more wasted money, now, I suppose. I fear that the suggestion of a library there is designed to divert the opposition, but I understand the Court House was assessed for library use not so long ago and was firmly rejected. I do not know why it should be suitable now. It is a complex building with different levels - the Museum has made a virtue of the various spaces but a library needs something rather different. |