Fed: National museum hints at expansion plans

AAP General News (Australia)
04-17-2007
Fed: National museum hints at expansion plans

By David Crawshaw

CANBERRA, April 17 AAP - The National Museum of Australia says it is running out of
exhibition space, just six years after opening to the public.

Museum director Craddock Morton said the popular tourist attraction would seek funding
for new buildings to alleviate space constraints.

While an application for funding was some way off, Mr Morton said he envisaged building
additional wings to the strikingly designed museum, which occupies a prominent site on
Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin.

The new buildings would allow the museum to better present elements of Australia's
development such as environmental history and the nation's place in the region.

"I believe that there are a number of stories which ... we can't address in the amount
of physical space that we have currently," Mr Morton said.

"But being a recently funded institution, it's hard to go back after five years and
say we want more."

Mr Morton said he would have liked a smaller entrance hall and more exhibition space
for the award-winning museum, which opened in March 2001.

His comments came as he unveiled details of a new facility, the Centre for Historical
Research, designed to boost the museum's research capability and improve its standing.

"The great museums of the world use their collections to enhance research and to develop
an understanding of the particular fields that they're in, in a way which we have done
to some extent but we've done unevenly," Mr Morton said.

"One of the reasons that we're setting up the research centre is to provide the opportunity
both for independent researchers to come in and research using the museum's collection
and also to allow ... our curatorial staff to get away from the demands of their jobs
and to really focus on their areas of research interest."

The new centre, which will focus on multidisciplinary research, will be headed by war
historian Dr Peter Stanley.

It will offer short-term fellowships, the first of which has been awarded to Professor
David Day, an Australian studies expert based in Tokyo.

Also today, Mr Morton said the national museum looked set to attract between 750,000
and 800,000 visitors this year, having recovered from lower numbers a couple of years
ago.

AAP dcr/mfh/cjh/bwl

KEYWORD: MUSEUM

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