new church life: march/april 2017
museum is sharing its mission with the broader community
4. Preserving the Past and Looking to the Future: How the museum is
preserving its collections and the building; next steps for Glencairn and
the Historic District
Brian noted that museums in the United States are a $698 billion industry;
they spend more than $2 billion a year on educational activities; preserve and
protect more than 1 billion objects; and are visited by 850 million people a
year – more than all major league sporting events and theme parks combined.
He asked Retreat attendees how many had visited a museum in the past
year and to reflect on: What experience had the most impact? How were you
enriched by your visit? And are museums still important and relevant in our
culture today?
A primary use, of course, is education: bringing to life what is taught in
the classroom and developing appreciation and empathy for other people
and cultures. Research has shown that children who visit a museum during
kindergarten have higher achievement scores in reading, mathematics and
science in third grade than children who did not.
What museums do is tell stories. They use artifacts to tell about people and
history, about their lives and values, and promote better understanding of our
collective heritage.
Brian offered several testimonials from experts in the field:
• “Access to museums . . . allows everybody to enter another world, think
of another world, see the world from somewhere else, reimagine their
own world, reimagine themselves. . . . The point of the museum is to
allow the citizen to be a better citizen.” Neil MacGregory, Director of
the British Museum
• “In every museum there is a little bit of you, whether it’s a recognition
that history does mean something to you – and that maybe you should
have listened harder at school – or finding that one object that makes
your heart sing.” Tamsin Loveless, National Maritime Museum,
Cornwall
• “Museums are magical places. They are treasure troves of interesting
stuff that make us think and see the world and our place in it differently.
They have the power to make us stop and wonder and be curious, to
challenge our views, and ask new questions.” Miriam Bader, New York
Tenement Museum
“These are just a few of the reasons why museum professionals and
researchers believe that museums are important today,” Brian said, “but why
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