Since the Penrith Museum of Printing began in 2001, after receiving a Commonwealth Grant and a lot of hard work by our founder Mr Alan Connell, we have managed to go from strength to strength becoming an important local and State venue for showcasing the craft and art of letterpress printing to present and future generations.The museum has now become a fully viable and self-supporting organisation and we are rightly proud of our achievements.
However we recognised that whilst we had a lot of collective printing knowledge, experience and history amongst our members, we were not necessarily skilled in the ways of museum management and conservation techniques.
At the end of 2008 we were approached by the Museums & Galleries New South Wales (M&G NSW) staff which asked whether we were interested in taking part in their successful State wide Museum's Standards Program.
The program is completely voluntary for museums and galleries interested in improving their museum's operation and practices in both an open and supporting way.
It was a unanimous decision by our members to take part in the program.
We took the opportunity to examine the many different aspects of our operation in areas such as sustainability, emergency preparedness, conservation and financial management.
The M&G NSW staff have been extremely helpful and suppotive in guideing us through the program so that we can ultimately have a museum that is not just successful now but one that can be successfull into the future.
The program was challenging - one of the requirements was to sit down and complete a 75 page questionnaire laden with questions on our management, operation and museum practices. Following this brain sapping, (but necessary) activity we hosted two M&G NSW staff who provided their input and suggestions on how best to proceed based on our questionnaire responses.
A further follow-up meeting is scheduled for early October to further explore how we can best continue on the journey to having the best working letterpress printing museum in NSW.
Blog entry by Stephen Brique
Penrith Museum of Printing
