Museums: Impact and value

Abstract

The role of museums and their place within society is no longer one which we can take for granted. Eschewing the notion of funding based on ‘public good’, successive iterations of public sector reform have progressively required museums to prove that they are worthy of public support. Notions of ‘worth’ have increasingly been tied to the achievement of government policy and enforced through making attainment of key policy directions a condition of funding agreements. Current government policy aimed at ‘building social capital’ in both the Britain and Australia expects museums to prove that they ‘make a difference’ in terms of long-term social impact. However, unease over the imbalance created by what many perceive to be an overly ‘instrumental’ approach to assessing the role of museums has generated growing criticism and a parallel conversation about ‘intrinsic value’. Impact and value—the twin peaks of current discourse about the role of museums in contemporary society—are the subject of a recent study carried out in Australia, which is described here.