Re: Museums
I share David's despair over what happens when previously great, classic museums are 'improved' by the removal of most of the actual exhibits (because kids find those boring) and replaced with acres of space, signage and 'interactive' displays, many of which are invariably 'awaiting repair'.
Locally, we call this 'Hancocking', because it reflects the sad fate of the Hancock museum in Newcastle - up until the noughties this was a fantastic old-school natural history museum stuffed full of geology, fossils, Egyptiana and all sorts of other fantastic stuff, all in glass fronted wooden cases, and I loved it, but then those who know best decided to completely revamp it and, while doing so, amalgamated several other museums - like the Museum Of Antiquities, which mainly specialised in roman artifacts - into the Hancock. The end result was a disaster, acres of space and hardly any exhibits, which raises the question: Where did all the stuff go?
I didn't make my first visits to the National Museum Of Scotland and the Kelvingrove in Glasgow until relatively recently and as soon as I walked into both venues I knew that they had been 'Hancocked', and I dearly wish I had taken the opportunity to visit both museums in the days before this happened.
That's why I, like a previous poster, was delighted to find the museum in Dalbeattie still in its original format - at last visit, the museum in Dumfries was also largely untouched, so visit them both while you can.
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