Introduction

This chapter discusses effective ways to develop relationships between communities and museums around shared cultural agendas, practice and knowledge exchange. Through the lens of an eight-month pilot that emerged from the Pararchive project (http://www.pararchive. com) and was partnered by the National Media Museum (NMeM), Bradford, the chapter addresses what it means to access a dormant but invaluable national archive and associative collections from the position of differently situated community groups. The chapter not only highlights how the Pararchive-National Media Museum partnership (PNMeM) promoted opportunities for community groups to select, document and creatively exploit archival resources in ways in which conventional museological practice and use do not allow, but also outlines the key challenges encountered. In doing so, it draws on detailed notes generated through participant observation, on the study of relevant documents and artefacts, and on important insights gained from audio recordings of relevant project meetings and an evaluative end-of-project workshop.

Conventional museological practice and use

Museums have been described as arbiters of history and associated developments that chart the extent of human knowledge, achievement and expression in nearly every field of human endeavour including art, craft, science, agriculture, rural life, childhood, fisheries, antiquities and automobiles among many others (The National Museums, 1988; Vergo, 1989). As such, museums have historically been designated as institutions for education and research and for exhibition of collections to provide the widest public benefit. This understanding of museums as places of study and places of display (also increasingly as places of diversion) has engendered the sustenance of museum collections with the overarching intention to promote learning by informing thinking and by shaping attitudes and views of learners – scholarly and lay alike – as they make sense of their shared heritage (Vergo, 1989). Smith (1989: 8) helpfully outlines four principal features of museology: