Seventh International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Museums have the unique capacity to lend unaccompanied diverse cultural and natural collections to the public. Formalised as ‘loans services’ or ‘travelling trunks’ since mid-19th century, these ubiquitous and individualistic services have the longest, ongoing history of any museum outreach. 1,800 museums, presently lend to the public globally. In-house developed, they provide diversity in subject, content, format, management style, but constancy in offering regular (library-like) ongoing open user access. Curiously, their leisure value is largely unknown. In Australia, my multi-methods longitudinal analysis of the Queensland Museum’s lauded large state-wide service is shedding light on the extent to which it has been meeting community expectations including for leisure. Analysed through an inclusion theory lens, the study, spanning 30 years of “Queensland Museum Loans” operation, is identifying changing patterns of use penetration, user diversity, access opportunity, social impact and in-house volunteerism across time, age, location, and disadvantage. At this mid-study stage there is emerging an overall finding of pervasive leisure use embedded variously in all learning institutions. Of particular interest is the growth of regular lending to the caring and senior citizen sectors. Reflective of the characteristic flexible nature of a loan, a complex picture is emerging of a wide spectrum of community borrowing usage. The data is also revealing inclusion/exclusion factors and tensions unique to museum lending which may explain why the value of ‘leisure borrowing’ has hitherto gone unrecognized and how social inclusion theory and practice may be refined to better understand how leisure lending can realise its future potential.