Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on my experiences as a volunteer on the First Hand scheme at Plymouth City Museum which allows visitors to handle artefacts from the collections. It considers questions about visitor reaction, sensory and emotional engagement, and the effect of the scheme on visitability.

Paper long abstract:

Plymouth City Museum's Archaeology gallery, entitled 'Uncovered', re-opened to visitors in 2009 after a redesign and refurbishment which aimed to provide a more meaningful engagement between visitors and collections. The displays and activities in the gallery feature artefacts in the context of places and periods, but also show the methods used to excavate, conserve and interpret the artefacts, and allow visitors a more complex sensory interaction with the artefacts and the archaeological process. As part of this new perspective, the 'Uncovered' gallery plays host four days a week to a 'First Hand Discovery Desk'. Visitors handle a selected range of objects from the museum's collections and discuss their ideas and feelings about these artefacts with volunteers who oversee the desks. This paper will discuss the ideas behind the 'First Hand' scheme, and will draw primarily on my experiences as a Discovery Desk volunteer. It will consider my assumptions about the way in which visitors would react to artefacts and the way in which assumptions have been confirmed and confounded. It will also consider a number of related issues: does handling an object enable a more meaningful encounter? Is this encounter essentially a performance by object and volunteer? Does the scheme allow greater freedom of interpretation or encourage the telling of particular stories? And does it contribute to the museum's 'visitability'?