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    The UK museum boom: continuity and change 1960-2019

    Candlin, Fiona and Ballatore, A. and Larkin, J. and Poulovassilis, A. and Katerinchuk, V. and Liebenrood, M. (2023) The UK museum boom: continuity and change 1960-2019. Cultural Trends , ISSN 0954-8963. (Submitted)

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    Abstract

    During the late-twentieth century there was a significant increase in the number of museums in the UK. Apart from the polemic heritage debates of the 1980s and 1990s, the boom in museums was not much investigated: there has been no overview of how it changed the sector or what has happened since. Our project ‘Mapping Museums’ collected and analysed data on over 4,000 UK museums that were open in the period from 1960-2019. Here we present our findings. We show that the number of museums increased for 55 years, up until 2016, but that the rate of growth and closure varied significantly depending on the museums’ size, governance, subject matter, and location. Small and medium museums proliferated, as did independent museums; growth in the South of England far out-paced that in the North; local history museums multiplied and new subjects came on stream. The museum boom re-shaped the sector.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Heritage debates, governance, museum size, museum subject matter, closed museums, data collection, grassroots museums
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
    Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Fiona Candlin
    Date Deposited: 24 Jan 2023 15:31
    Last Modified: 09 Aug 2023 12:54
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/50501

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