Elgin Marbles Poll

[mcbishop]

Of course money is important. Money is always important. But we should be careful at overstating it in this context. For instance, last year the British Museum took in £3.4 million in admissons fees. That sounds good, but it took in £8 million in donations. In other words, donations to it as a charitable entity was twice as important as admission fees. And if we remember that it spent £78 million last fiscal year, it is clear that overall running a modern museum is a money-losing proposition.

It should also be pointed out that the BM does not charge for admission to the museum itself, only to special exhibitions (which it, of course, has to pay to put on, particularly if they are travelling money-earners). Having toyed with making museums charge (it cost them more than they made) the UK govt now enables many of them to allow free entry. Key phrase to note is on p.21 of that PDF and says

The British Museum received £43.7 million revenue and £7.2 million capital grant-in-aid from the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport in 2008/09

Don't expect that to go up in the current fiscal climate, but for the time being it's free to go in and admire their collection of heritage hardcore (of course, you can always listen to it too).

Mike Bishop