tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16505569.post4910880176781205892..comments2024-01-05T05:02:20.353+00:00Comments on CRYPTOZOOLOGY ONLINE: Still on the Track: YOUNG PEOPLE NEED TO BE TAUGHT WHY MUSEUMS ARE IMPORTANTUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16505569.post-25037063242860793972009-07-14T06:39:18.883+01:002009-07-14T06:39:18.883+01:00I think the problem isn't so much with the chi...I think the problem isn't so much with the children as the way we are taught---I have an insatiable love for learning, always have, and now as I grow into my 25th year (coming in August) I have found that my friends aren't interested in the past, more in the future and how it will affect them. Being a lower-grade than them (I never graduated, for mental health reasons that I am rectifying now), I find it odd that I often know the answers to questions that they cannot fathom. <br /><br />Suggestions would be getting more young children interested in all type of museums, by possibly finding funding for more school field trips. :) And of course, addressing the lack of ambition and the ever present television issues. (Too many kids watch too much.)chimanderahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09445031989715566479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16505569.post-40404677728685200972009-07-14T00:26:40.135+01:002009-07-14T00:26:40.135+01:00It is a sad fact of life that a great many items d...It is a sad fact of life that a great many items donated to or bought by museums, never see the light of day.<br /><br />Many years ago, in the late 50's and early 60's my uncle worked as an attendant at the Wollaton Hall Natural History museum here in Nottingham. As part of his work, he had to spend some time every few weeks, cleaning exhibits and cases in the underground (rather damp) storage areas.<br /><br />Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan house, previously owned by the Willoughby Family. It was bought by the City of Nottingham in 1925. Several display cases remained in the store rooms, containing natural history exhibits which members of the family had brought back from assorted foreign expeditions over the previous centuries.<br /><br />To give some idea of how long some of these items had been there and not even been moved, let alone put on display, I have a copy of "The Nottingham Evening Post" dated May 1st. 1878 which uncle found, tightly folded behind one of these display cases. It had been used to level up the cabinet.<br /><br />It was also not unusual for him and other staff members, to find newspapers from the 1920's and 30's which had been used for the same purpose, indicating that those exhibits had most probably not been displayed to the public since the museum first opened.<br /><br />Moving off the natural history theme, but staying with museums. When a man my mother knew died in the late 1950's as I recall, he left his entire collection of New Guinea tribal artefacts to Nottingham Castle Museum. They have never been displayed. <br /><br />The gentleman in question, was actually the grandson of a New Guinea cannibal tribal chief and the collection, which he had displayed in his Nottingham home, included shields, spears, bows and arrows, blow pipes and poison darts, bark canoes, and at least 5 genuine 'shrunken' human heads (I remember them quite clearly sitting on his mantelpiece, as being a 7 or 8 year old boy at that time, I was fascinated by them each time we visited him). Plus there were many items of tribal jewellery and ornamentation, some of which were made of human bone and skin.<br /><br />During the early 1970's, mother enquired at the museum about this collection and was informed by the Curator that they had no such collection and no knowledge of the items being gifted to them. It so happens that mother was at the house when the items were collected by the museum staff.<br />So what happened to them and where did they go ?? Are they perhaps sitting uncared for in a dark, dust store room or did the Curator or some other council official of the day see them as a tasty addition to their pension fund.Sydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15633341353878192556noreply@blogger.com