Museums to open basements to public

Museums may have to allow the public into their basements to view objects kept in storage, and send some of those objects to other parts of the country so the wider public can see them.

Museums may have to allow the public into their basements to view objects kept in storage, and send some of those objects to other parts of the country so the wider public can see them.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, the Labour peer who heads the body overseeing the country's museums, said yesterday that 75 per cent of the nation's museum treasures were held in store.

He said he had been impressed by the initiative of the National Maritime Museum in London in taking some of its objects out of storage and sending them to parts of the country where they would be most relevant. A ship model has been sent to the Bray Head heritage centre in Scotland, a Marine Society bowl to the Merseyside Maritime Museum, and a chronomoter to the East Kent Maritime Trust.

Lord Evans also commended the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden for allowing the public into its stores to view objects. Lord Evans, chairman of publisher Faber & Faber, also chairs Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. He made a controversial start to his tenure earlier this year when he was reported as advocating that museums should exhibit objects in local pubs.

Yesterday, when he was launching Resource's manifesto, Lord Evans said: "I was suggesting that things like agricultural implements could go into local pubs rather than being hidden in warehouses. I wasn't suggesting that we have Canalettos in pubs."

He made another suggestion: "Seventy-five per cent of collections around the country are in store. The National Maritime Museum has given a lead in sending objects out. What's happened there is a really, really interesting model for other institutions."

Resource's chief executive, Neville Mackay, said: "The museums sector has a lot of sacred cows. We don't need to keep all those sacred cows."

A spokesman for the National Maritime Museum said: "We have embarked on a programme of lending objects that do not fit in with our current exhibition programme and would otherwise be in storage."

Lord Evans said regional museums needed to learn marketing skills from London's new Tate Modern gallery. "Look at the recent opening.The marketing started at least six weeks before and built up a big momentum. The marketing was absolutely brilliant. But apart from the Tate and one or two other places, marketing is a foreign concept to museums. I want those people in museums responsible for putting on exhibitions to be more aware of what the public wants."