Litza
Sheffield City Museums - then operated by Sheffield City Council - took over two mobile museums (long exhibition trailers) from the former South Yorkshire County Council in 1986. They were managed by one of the first museum community outreach workers in the UK, Annie Robinson, who engaged local communities in community curated exhibitions in the mobile museums and at events at the main museum sites. Her work was featured in the Museums Journal around 1987/8. Sheffield City Council, under the leadership of David Blunkett before he became an MP, was highly innovative in the 1980s. Unfortunately, this was the time of deep Thatcherite cuts, and the innovative community engagement work Annie was doing was not sustainable with minimal operating budgets. Aspirations within communities were raised, assumptions within the museum service were challenged, and this pioneering work set the stage for the main growth in community involvement a decade later.
Sheffield City Museums was certainly not the only service dipping its toe in these waters in the mid 1980s, as I am sure others will inform.
Tim Caulton
Principal, Museum Intelligence
www.museumintelligence.com
(formerly Keeper of Extension Services, Sheffield City Museums)
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