Geology collection under threat

Bristol City Museum’s world class geology collection is under threat and your support is urgently needed.
Currently there is now only one person actively employed across both the Geology and Biology departments at Bristol City Museum's Galleries and Archives. This situation has been created by the reluctance of senior management to replace curatorial staff. This is a highly unsustainable and unacceptable situation considering the large size (over 1 million specimens in total) and national importance (designated status of the geology collections) of these collections.
Requests for access to material by researchers have been met with some degree of reluctance and consequently researchers should not expect to be able to visit the collections or loan material easily. Potential donors may also find the museum reluctant to accept material.
This situation is to be further compounded by a proposed staff restructuring and a “shift in focus to the Visual Arts”. Senior management want a reduction in museum visitor opening hours with further reductions in front of house, curatorial and conservation staffing. The latter will result in the loss of 9 out of 26 curatorial and conservation posts as well as the merger of the remaining conservation and curation posts. The resultant savings are to be channelled towards public engagement and completion of the faltering Museum of Bristol project (See MA Journal Issue 109/01, p6, January 2009).
Although no official word on the detail of the new structure has been released and staff are apparently unable to comment, it is thought likely that the biology and geology departments will be combined to create a “Natural History Department” that will be staffed by a Senior Curator and a Curator, one with a biology background and the other with geology. This will entail a 60% reduction in staff with natural history backgrounds and provide no specialist conservation cover. The reason why this complex and confusing approach has been adopted is to reduce staffing resources whilst attempting to maintain designated status for the geology collections and thereby avoid compromising the service’s registered status. Instead of improving the service, management are opting for tokenistic curatorial care with essentially non-existent conservation cover. These proposals will reduce staffing to a skeleton level that will clearly compromise basic accessibility and collections care.
These problems are further exacerbated by a proposed “shift in focus towards the visual arts”, which, given the above, can only lead to the City Museum and Art Gallery primarily becoming an Art gallery. The management suggests in public documents that the intention is to retain an ‘encyclopaedic’ museum. However, the staffing proposals and the shift in emphasis toward visual arts suggest that this will be merely a token gesture. This amounts to neglect of public accessibility to a fundamental part of their heritage. It is also a stunning abrogation of the management’s and/or council’s responsibilities to a world class and UK designated collection.
Currently senior management is involved in discussions with union representatives (contact between management and staff has been inconsistent, disparate and vague) to discuss changes.
Bristol City Council has set up a select committee of councillors to oversee the changes. However, this group to date has only rubber-stamped the new staffing restructure on January 14th without even consulting staff or unions. A question signed by c.80 members of staff has been submitted to the select committee due to meet on 23rd March, asking that they reconsider their position and talk to staff.
This committee has invited statements and questions regarding the staffing structure in Bristol and the potential impacts this will have on existing collections. The more questions to the select committee the better so I hope that readers will duly oblige and send their statements and questions to this forum.
Questions and statements could focus on requesting reassurances that the geology collections will not only be adequately cared for but also continue to be developed and used for the public benefit.
Please send letters or e-mails to the councillors listed.
As internal negotiations are still taking place, the process of implementation has not yet started but if readers are concerned now is the time to act if there is to be any chance to influence the situation.