Hello all

Could members of the list please provide some advice re your experiences in
merging interests and collections.

The City of Melville's Heritage and Museum Services area  in Perth - Western
Australia is a local government authority that :
* runs a Telecommunications Museum,
* is developing a Municipal Museum to open in January 2000
* advises on heritage issues
* and is beginning to plan  for a museum which will be situated within a
heritage precinct of a former mental health hospital.

Our brief at this early stage for this last project is to interpret the site
(including former uses before being a hospital) and its use as a hospital.

A volunteer run and poorly funded Mental Health Museum in the same
metropolitan area has been advised that their existence within the site of
an active  hospital is to be terminated.

Discussions have shown that they are keen to be involved in our project.
They initially asked to be allocated a building on site. Their brief is
wider and incorporates the history of mental health  generally, not just at
one site.

Their collection includes a significant number of objects relating to the
site I will be involved in developing and others that are indicative of
those used in this area for the same purposes.

Key people in the group have excellent knowledge of the subject of mental
health and the site the City of Melville is developing.

We can mutually benefit from an arrangement that shares their collection,
experience and knowledge with our funding,  professional training and
management  to combine interests to produce an excellent facility that will
interpret the site using this collection with future ability to curate
exhibitions related to the subject more broadly  which will use their
collection.   On the other hand it is possible to secure a collection
without entering into this arrangement , although I feel the benefits far
outweigh the difficulties.

 We must also use this site  for temporary exhibitions and so part of the
space will allocated for this function.

Do list members have experience in merging interests like this??? How did
you deal contractually with this?

 I feel that we would have to ask this group to vest their collection in the
City of Melville to secure this relationship.  This new relationship will be
long term, demographically the groups members are in their senior years and
the refit of this building will require a significant investment of funds
and staff from the City.

Thanks  for your opinions and advice!!!


Caroline Crundall
Heritage and Museum Services Officer, City of Melville.