MUSEUM IRELAND 2020
Past, Present, Future: Access and the museum as a third space at MoLI – Museum of Literature Ireland Simon O’Connor
The museum of the past must be set aside,
brac cemetery’ against which Goode warned.
reconstructed, transformed from a cemetery of bric-
Thinking about Goode’s statement made me
a-brac to a nursery of living thoughts. The museum of
consider how the curatorial ambitions of museums
the future must stand side by side with the library and
must not only coincide with, but be the same as,
the laboratory.
their plans for access and audience growth; how
Smithsonian curator George Brown Goode, 1889
this has become clear in the current blurring of lines of responsibility between curatorial, archival
This quotation, used by the Irish Museums
and education staff roles. The development
Association to frame its 2020 conference in
of MoLI provides a useful case study of how
Athlone, came as a surprise to me. Since starting
these three goals – programming, audience
work at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI)
development, and access – are closely interlinked.
in October 2017, I had been describing our goal of creating this new cultural institution as a kind of
MoLI Buildings and Ethos
third space, between the library and the museum,
The Museum of Literature Ireland project began
as a repository for the past and a laboratory for the
over ten years ago, as a collaboration between
future. For many participants at the conference,
University College Dublin (UCD) and the National
the ideas about which I spoke were not new.
Library of Ireland (NLI) to develop an exhibition
However, the context in which I discussed them
on James Joyce in historic buildings owned by
- the creation of MoLI - was interesting. This
UCD on St Stephen’s Green. The original home
was both because of the scale of the project, and
of the university, these comprised two Georgian
because a philosophy of access had from the outset
houses and a Victorian assembly hall. Having
positively and comprehensively impacted the
been restored in the 1990s, the houses were in
development of this new cultural institution.
reasonably good condition, but the assembly hall was derelict. Physical access across the site was
In my paper, I suggested that when an institution’s
furthermore impossible, particularly for people
leaders aim for ‘access at every step’ and allow this
with mobility difficulties.
ambition to filter through its entire ecosystem, they automatically enable an outcome quite in
With significant funding from the Naughton
sympathy with George Brown Goode’s ‘nursery
Foundation and capital investment from the
of living thoughts’. By contrast, the relegation of
University and Fáilte Ireland, the two partners
responsibility for promoting access to more junior
ultimately developed a larger scale project than
roles leads to the entrenchment of the ‘bric-a-
had originally been conceived, requiring the
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