Emma King Consultancy

Curatorial Adviser Review

Curatorial Advisers are qualified professionals who work in partnership with museums that do not have appropriately qualified staff to help them meet the Accreditation standard. The creation of a pool of advisers to provide smaller museums with access to curatorial support was one of the most successful and popular achievements of the Registration scheme, and nearly a third of Accredited museums have reached that standard with the support of their CA.

MLA commissioned Emma King and Ali Bodley to review the Curatorial Adviser scheme in the light of changes to Accreditation scheme. The project included detailed research and consultation with CAs, museum development staff and independent museums across the UK to understand the nature of the scheme, its benefits and challenges and how it could be improved.  The resulting report, completed in October 2010, presented a detailed analysis and recommended changes to the scheme that have since been accepted by the MLA and incorporated into the revised version of Accreditation launched by Arts Council England in October 2011.

Advisers have been renamed Museum Mentors to reflect the changes to Accreditation, which is no longer solely a curatorial standard. The Museum Mentor handbook and toolkit, based on Emma and Alison's work, is currently available via the MLA's website pending transfer to ACE (please be aware that the version of the Accreditation standard on the MLA site has not been updated).