Dear Tara,
In general, I think most museums would tend to regard the material they
use for handling sessions or for loans packs as being in some sense
disposable, and would not want to use irreplaceable objects for these
purposes. Including human remains in this context is therefore
problematic.
We would not consider loaning human material except for use in
undergraduate or post-graduate teaching, and even then would take
account of the nature of the material (condition, provenance etc) and
the nature of use and the facilities available in the host institution.
For example, we have a large collection of remains from one excavation
on loan to a UK university forensic archaeology unit: they use it for
teaching but are also researching the collection, and we are confident
in their ability to curate the collection to the same standards we would
apply here. For educational/public events run here we use archaeological
human remains for demonstration, but don't allow handling on the grounds
that even well-run sessions will, over time, lead to damage. We do have
a separate handling collection of (non-archaeological) human bones which
we use for teaching, but these are now almost irreplaceable and so again
we restrict handling use to students in further education or surgical
trainees. This is a policy that we've reached from experience: we have
tried handling sessions (and they have been well-received) but we
decided that we couldn't eliminate the risk of damage or loss
completely.
I'd be interested to hear of other museums' experiences.
Best wishes
Simon
------------------------------------------
Simon Chaplin
Director of Museums and Special Collections
The Royal College of Surgeons of England
35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields
London WC2A 3PE, UK
+44 (0)20 7869 6570
-----Original Message-----
From: List for discussion of issues in museum education in the UK.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tara Trewinnard-Boyle
Sent: 20 September 2007 13:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [GEM] Human Remains
We are hoping to be able to use some arhcaeological human remains in an
education loans resource and were wondering if anyone has any experience
of loaning humans remains or using them as part of a handling session.
Any advice on the challenges faced and how these were overcome would be
greatly appreciated.
Kind regards,
Tara
Tara Trewinnard-Boyle
Collections Access Assistant (artefact loans) Access Artefacts -
Nottingham City Museums Loans Service
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