Did you know we have twice as many museums per head of population as Canada or the UK, and five times as many as France or Sweden? New Zealand has over 500 museums, galleries and related organisations – approximately one for every 8,000 New Zealanders.

 That means there’s plenty of opportunities to check out your local museum or gallery to celebrate International Museum Day - 18 May.

Here’s a sample of what’s available:

• Howick Historical Village has organised a Live Day on Sunday 20 May
• Canterbury Museum has organised behind-the-scenes tours
• Auckland Museum is taking bookings for visiting hidden collections in the botany, conservation and land vertebrates collections
• MOTAT in Auckland is celebrating the newly refurbished Cropper House.

It’s also timely to remind ourselves of the societal benefits - both economic and cultural - that the museum sector delivers. A recent survey by Museums Aotearoa shows that culture and heritage is a growing part of our identity and our economy. A few of our museums have been around for more than 100 years, but over a third have been established in the past 50 years, with more than one in 10 less than five years old.

The total number of museum visits is now estimated to be over 9 million. Although over half of small museums operate on less than $20,000, the combined operating expenditure for the sector is likely to be over $200 million a year. The survey calculates that museums and galleries employ over 3,000 staff and 7-10,000 volunteers.

In the press release announcing International Museum Day, Phillipa Tocker, Museums Aotearoa Executive Director, says:

As well as providing jobs and contributing to the economy, museums are important to their communities and to the country as a whole. Local, regional and national museums and art galleries are public assets which enrich our lives. As kaitiaki of local and national cultural heritage, they ensure that richness is shared and preserved for future generations.

In other museum news, National Services Te Paerangi (Te Papa) has announced the development of a new resource: museum in a box. They will be gradually collating museum resources including templates, links to online resources and case studies from the internet and the museum sector. Useful stuff for museum professionals.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Your stories, Professional development, National identity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.