Commissioned from consultant Caroline Reed by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Special Initiative 'Our Museum: Communities and Museums as Active Partners', the Is Revisiting Collections working? report asks whether focusing on engaging people directly with collections has helped deliver active participation and change organisations. The Full Report draws extensively on the experiences of museum and archive staff who have used Revisiting Collections. It concludes that the methodology has made a valuable contribution to shaping and delivering active, collections-focused participation in museums and archives. While RC’s tools and online guidance could benefit from some updating and re-presentation, there is no evidence that the methodology has been superseded or overtaken either by major changes in professional practice or by technology. However, barriers to services using the methodology successfully still exist, and organisations and individual practitioners will continue to need support to overcome these as well as to find out about the methodology and its potential. The report makes e targeted recommendations to stakeholder organisations including Collections Trust, strategic sector lead bodies and funders so that:
• Services and individuals that might benefit from RC are encouraged and supported to consider and use the methodology
• New entrants and current practitioners in the heritage professions, grant applicants and services preparing to meet relevant sector wide standards (e.g. Accreditation) are informed about the methodology and can readily access the necessary tools, guidance, case studies and peer group support.
It also offers some practical guidance notes for services considering using the methodology.
For further information on ‘Our Museum’ see: www.ourmuseum.org.uk

Read more about the resource on this website (external link)

Bibliography

There’s a great appetite for ‘real life’ case studies that show how museums and archives are using Revisiting Collections to help explore collections with people from across our communities.

Collections Link is committed to showcasing Revisiting Collections case studies. These guidance notes will help you structure a description so that colleagues can understand and learn from your organisation’s experience. You may want to focus on a particular aspect of how Revisiting Collections has worked for you - or how it hasn’t!

Bibliography

Guidance notes, session plans and case studies to support: setting up group sessions; stimulating and capturing people’s responses to objects and records; using direct engagement with collections as the foundation for creativity and innovation. Developed by Collections Trust, The National Youth Agency, young people and partner organisations from across the London 2012 Stories of the World programme.

A toolkit for capturing and sharing multiple perspectives on
archive collections

Support document for the toolkit: an excel spreadsheet to help you capture Revisiting Museum Collections data

A toolkit for capturing and sharing multiple perspectives on museum and gallery collections.

A comprehensive guide to running a focus group using the Revisiting Collections methodology

Revisiting Collections supports museums and archives to open up their collections for scrutiny by community groups and external experts and to build and share a new understanding of the multi-layered meaning and significance of objects and records.
This document provides further details.

Bibliography