Education Despite having one of the largest collections of artefacts that are tremendously useful to teach young people about the heritage of the Region as well as the two world wars, the Museum has no dedicated Education space at all.
This will be remedied through the development of a new library and study centre which will be contained within a wing that has recently been leased to the Museum by the Ministry of Defence. In addition, new educational resources will be created to link our collection as closely as possible with the national school curriculum.
Interpretation Since the museum opened it has benefited from a huge amount of public goodwill and has received a large number of donated items. These items have almost entirely been put on display for the benefit of visitors, and due to the limited amount of storage space available to the museum. The sheer number of exhibits has meant that it has been increasingly difficult to have adequate interpretation in the space available.
This is addressed in the museum development plans to create new storage facilities. The majority of the collection will remain on display but it will be rotated to ensure that there is something new to see for visitors who come often. The Development plan incorporates new Information Technology infrastructure which will allow interactive displays to be installed for the first time. This will allow our visitors to gain a deeper understanding of the warrior heritage of the Region, and place the Regiments’ part in Great Britain’s wars and campaigns around the world up to the present day into better context. Care Many of the exhibits have begun to deteriorate as it is difficult to control the environmental conditions in the museum building. This particularly affects textiles, of which there is a large collection, with some dating back to the battle of Waterloo. Harmful gas has built up within the display cases due to the materials that were used in their construction, and by the natural products released by some of the exhibits. This has led to some of the metal exhibits becoming corroded and to the textiles breaking down. This will be remedied by the installation of a new air conditioning system and new glass display cases. The layout of the display rooms will be changed so that the key displays are on the ground and first floors only. The collection will be reorganised to ensure that those that could damage one another are separated. Some of the key exhibits will be professionally restored. Access Like many buildings of their time, the museum has virtually no access for people with disabilities. The museum is split over 3 floors and wheelchair access is only available to the ground and first floors. This access is by a labour intensive series of stair lifts which can be used by people with some independent mobility, but is not suitable for wheel chair users. Crucially, the Museum is not independently accessible to our disabled visitors. This will be addressed by installing a new lift to allow people with disabilities to access all public spaces within the Museum. In addition, there will be a new “virtual tour” installed on the ground floor of the building and will also appear on our website. |
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