Report of Representatives on Board of Trustees of The National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum

During the year the representation of scientific interests on the Museum Management Committee was considerably strengthened by the appointment of Mr. F. R. Callaghan and Dr. W. M. Hamilton as representatives of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Dr. Fleming resigned from the Building and Finance Committee of the Board and Mr. McQueen was appointed to take his place.

The Museum has received a constant inflow of acquisitions, including the herbarium and other collections bequeathed by the late Dr. W. R. B. Oliver, the balance of the Sainsbury moss collection, and Macquarie Islands birds obtained by the Director, Dr. R. A. Falla, during a visit to the Island on the invitation of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition.

The construction of a store-room in the base of the Museum courtyard was completed, and promises to help solve some of the more urgent problems of storage which have become acute.

Although there has as yet been no progress in the attempt to increase the number of professional officers on the Museum staff, your representatives are pleased to comment on the improved academic qualifications of several members of the present staff, in particular the award of doctorate degrees to Dr. R. K. Dell and Dr. T. Barrow, and by the continued studies in the United States of Miss B. A. Holloway, who has been appointed Entomologist. The Museum Management Committee again surveyed the staff establishment and has asked the Board to ask the Government to approve an increase of seven during the next five years.

Recommendations for constitutional reform were drawn up by members of the committee referred to in our last report, but all progress in this matter has been halted by complete opposition to any change by the Management Committee of the National Art Gallery. This attitude emphasises our opinion that the interests of Art Gallery and Museum are too divergent for the present constitution of the Board to be satisfactory.

The Museum has been asked, during the past year, to take increasing responsibility for the housing of war relics, and technological and historical objects for which it has at present neither space nor the staff. We believe the time is rapidly approaching when national specialist museums should be set up to cater for such material.

H. C. McQueen, C. A. Fleming, Representatives on the Board of Trustees.
April 30, 1958.