Instrumental museum and gallery policy: issues and opportunities

英国的博物馆和美术馆政策可以被描述为本质上的工具。自20世纪80年代以来，博物馆和画廊与一般的艺术部门一样，一直被英国政府用作工具，试图实现社会政策领域的目标，例如解决社会排斥问题。在现代背景下，这种方法起源于“新公共管理”的引入，这是对财政压力的回应，是政府试图通过采用源自私营部门的原则和做法来管理公共部门。工具性政策的一个有趣方面是，越来越需要证据来证明在实现政策目标方面取得了成功。对展示影响的需求的政策回应一直是开发可供博物馆和画廊从业人员采用的模型，以衡量影响，例如学习。从业者很难实施与这些模型相关的方法论，因为一些悬而未决的问题，如定义博物馆或画廊中的学习是什么。尽管实践者和政策制定者认识到这种政策方法带来的困难，但尚未确定实际的解决方案。还有一场关于如何描述价值的辩论，增加“公共价值”的概念正在成为人们理解与用户对话和接触如何指导政策制定的一种方式。拟议的研讨会将把政策制定者、从业人员和学术研究人员聚集在一起，以解决这些问题。这在任何程度上以前都没有发生过，因为每个部门都有自己的工作方法，并在特定的政治环境中运作。这意味着，联合工作对所有各方的潜在好处尚未得到探索。例如，博物馆、图书馆和档案馆理事会越来越多地认识到这种方法可能带来的好处，该机构负责就英国博物馆和画廊政策的发展提供建议并加以实施。讲习班还将借鉴美利坚合众国的经验，那里的博物馆和画廊政策在很大程度上也是有益的。这些讲习班将导致博物馆和画廊从业人员、政策制定者和学术研究人员之间开展新的合作，以发展新的伙伴关系并分享最佳做法。他们将探索基于证据的工具性博物馆和画廊政策对实践的影响，并开发可能的博物馆和画廊政策的新方法。他们还将计划未来的合作研究，这将涉及各方。讲习班的成果将通过出版物、会议文件和网上资源传播。该小组一旦成立，将在未来解决围绕博物馆和画廊政策的一系列其他问题。

UK museum and art gallery policy can be described as being instrumental in nature. Since the 1980s museums and galleries, in common with the arts sector generally, have been used instrumentally by the UK government to attempt to attain objectives in social policy areas, such as resolving problems of social exclusion. This approach in the modern context has its origins in the introduction of the 'New Public Management' which was a response to fiscal pressures and an attempt by Government to manage the public sector by adopting principles and practices derived from the private sector. An interesting aspect of instrumental policy is that increasingly evidence is needed to demonstrate success in achieving policy objectives. The policy response to the need to demonstrate impact has been the development of models that can be adopted by museum and gallery practitioners to measure impact, such as learning. The methodologies associated with these models have been difficult to implement, by practitioners, because of unresolved issues such as defining what learning is in a museum or gallery. While practitioners and policy makers recognise the difficulties associated with such an approach to policy practical solutions have yet to be identified. There is also a debate over how value can be described and increasing the concept of 'public value' is coming to the fore as a way of understanding how dialogue and engagement with users can guide policy construction. The proposed workshops will bring together policy makers, practitioners and academic researchers to address these issues. This has not happened before, to any extent, as each of these sectors has their own methods of working and operates within a particular political environment. This means that the potential benefits of joint working, to all parties, have not been explored. Increasingly the possible benefits of such an approach are being recognised by, for example, the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council, the body that advises on and implements the development of museum and gallery policy in England. The workshops will also draw on the experience of the United States of America where museum and gallery policy is also largely instrumental in nature. The workshops will result in a new collaboration between museum and gallery practitioners, policy makers and academic researchers to develop new partnerships and to share best practice. They will explore the impact of instrumental 'evidence-based' museum and gallery policy upon practice and develop possible new approaches to museum and gallery policy. They will also plan for future collaborative research that would involve all parties. The results of the workshops will be disseminated through publication, conference papers and a web-based resource. The group, once established, would address a range of other issues surrounding museum and gallery policy in the future.