Robbin Murphy enquires about the new Te Papa Tongarewa, National Museum of
New Zealand in Wellington, NZ.
 
>I seem to remember posts here from New Zealand, maybe someone from that
>project could give us the skinny ...
 
Don't use that here. I can't give the nitty-gritty about exhibit
development, being only an interested observer in the same town but here
are a couple of recent newspaper morsels that might be of interest. The
museum opens February 1998 and the structure is currently at early
foundations stage on its waterfront site. (Last year a sizeable hotel of
several thousand tons was jacked up, lowered on railway bogies and trundled
off the site sideways and then at right-angles across the road!) The museum
foundations, on massive lead & rubber isolators, are expected to allow the
building to survive a once-every-2000-years quake of 8.5 Richter.
 
"In preparation for the move to the new museum, a new wide area network and
collections management system has just been installed at the existing site
and is to go live on March 1." [Includes an *internet* connection]
"The museum's new collection management system, Te Kahui [the assemblage,
cluster], is unique" [!]
 
"Two overseas museum directors are on a panel selected by the Museum of New
Zealand to review its science and research functions" -- Sir Neil Cossons,
director of London Science Museum, and Alan Emery, director of the Canadian
Museum of Nature.
 
Geoff Read <[log in to unmask]>