Jen Kaines from Leeds City Council’s Museums and Galleries service explains the international role of the “Registrar”.
“I was recently invited by Jersey Heritage Trust to talk to their Patrons as part of the Patrons Membership Scheme about what I do as a Registrar and how exhibitions and loans miraculously appear in our venues or across the world.
"Jersey Heritage Trust although on the surface very different to Leeds Museums and Galleries actually has many similarities. It is a multi-sited service consisting of a broad range of subject areas and collection types with a broad audience base of tourists and locals.
"I was speaking with the Registrar at Jersey, whom I have known for many years and between us we have many decades of experience of getting objects of all sorts of shapes and sizes both to our venues for display and lending them around the world.
"This presentation was to showcase some of those experiences and to give the Patrons an idea of what is involved in developing exhibitions, how you move and install objects such as massive paintings that will not fit through any door in your museum, what you need to consider when lending a large rocket, natural history or other items that may have their movement controlled under international statute, etc.
We talked about a whole host of items from tiny rings to massive elephants – all encompassed in the day to day workings of a Museum Registrar.”