University Museums and the Community conference

September 16, 2008 12:00 am

to

September 20, 2008 12:00 am

UMAC’s 8th International Conference, University of Manchester, UK (http://www.meeting.co.uk/confercare/umac2008)

The theme of the conference is ‘University Museums and the Community’.

INTRODUCTION

For much of their history, universities were elite learning environments, sheltered from the outside world by their ‘ivory towers’, and taking their model from the monastery. Since at least the 1960s, though, universities have been playing an increasingly important role in their local and regional communities. One of their early roles was to form extra-mural departments which offered courses to members of the public. More recently, universities have begun to recognize their cultural, economic and social role within their communities. Universities are often major employers; some historic universities play a major role in the tourist economy; and some make a significant contribution through spin-off companies formed as a way of bringing commercial applications to university research.

In addition, one of the major ways in which universities make a contribution to their communities is through their cultural provision. Many universities operate theatres, concert venues, parks, botanic gardens, and museums and galleries. Increasingly, university museums and galleries have become a vital link between universities and their communities. They are important sources of learning outside the classroom for schools and colleges, as well as places of informal learning for visitors of all kinds; they are vehicles for public engagement with academic research; and increasingly they are becoming places where the university can listen to the community and its views on the issues studied by academics.

The theme of UMAC’s 8th International Conference therefore focuses on one of the most pressing issues today for university museums across the globe, which is how they can best act as two-way bridges between the world of the university and the many and varied communities, outside the university, within it in the form of students and staff using the museums in their leisure time, and the global ‘virtual’ community of the Internet.

Published: 1.23.08 / 1am
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