TY - JOUR
T1 - A geography of UK museums
AU - Ballatore, Andrea
AU - Candlin, Fiona
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/N007042/1) and Birkbeck, University of London.
Publisher Copyright:
The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2022 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers).
PY - 2022/12/10
Y1 - 2022/12/10
N2 - Museums are important centres of heritage, culture, education, and tourism. These diverse institutions operate in different ways, reaching different audiences and managing varied collections. Thanks to a novel database of unprecedented completeness produced by the Mapping Museums project, this study provides a quantitative geography of museums in the UK, showing how about half of the sector had not been surveyed before. The presence of museums is mapped across several attributes, including museum size (estimated as yearly visits) and governance (government-led, independent, or university-led). Firstly, observing a snapshot of the sector in December 2017, we quantify and interpret the spatial distribution of museums, discussing its implications for access to museums, public service provision, resource allocation, and cultural tourism. Then, in a regional analysis, we study their density in relation to the local population, at the regional and Local Authority District scale, providing new evidence of the extent of spatial inequalities in the cultural sector, particularly relevant to a sector in which funding is mostly allocated at the regional level. At the crossing between human geography and museum studies, this inquiry reveals the centres and peripheries of this cultural sphere, providing fresh evidence of the presences and absences that shape cultural life across the UK.
AB - Museums are important centres of heritage, culture, education, and tourism. These diverse institutions operate in different ways, reaching different audiences and managing varied collections. Thanks to a novel database of unprecedented completeness produced by the Mapping Museums project, this study provides a quantitative geography of museums in the UK, showing how about half of the sector had not been surveyed before. The presence of museums is mapped across several attributes, including museum size (estimated as yearly visits) and governance (government-led, independent, or university-led). Firstly, observing a snapshot of the sector in December 2017, we quantify and interpret the spatial distribution of museums, discussing its implications for access to museums, public service provision, resource allocation, and cultural tourism. Then, in a regional analysis, we study their density in relation to the local population, at the regional and Local Authority District scale, providing new evidence of the extent of spatial inequalities in the cultural sector, particularly relevant to a sector in which funding is mostly allocated at the regional level. At the crossing between human geography and museum studies, this inquiry reveals the centres and peripheries of this cultural sphere, providing fresh evidence of the presences and absences that shape cultural life across the UK.
KW - museum studies
KW - museum geography
KW - museum analytics
KW - GIS spatial Analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141462102&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/tran.12578
DO - 10.1111/tran.12578
M3 - Article
SN - 0020-2754
JO - Transactions of the institute of british geographers
JF - Transactions of the institute of british geographers
ER -
