Should Trinity have an alumni museum?

Mr Pseudonym

There is talk of moving the Book of Kells to another place on campus so that it and the Old Library can be separate attractions (thereby increasing income).

I reckon another attraction could be an alumni museum. You know them all already, but I'll list some for emphasis: Burke, Berkeley, Hamilton, Walton, Wilde, Beckett, Stoker, Swift, Emmett, Carson. To give some gender balance, living figures could be included: Mary Robinson, Jennifer Johnston, and others.

Ravelleman

Yes, I feel that Trinity should worship its past even more than now; it's not decrepit enough as it is.

I also hate the new logo.

Bears and Vodka

Ravelleman wrote: »

Yes, I feel that Trinity should worship its past even more than now; it's not decrepit enough as it is.

I also hate the new logo.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in cherishing history and past achievements.

endacl

An alumni museum? Would I have to take a turn as an exhibit?

:eek:

MagicMarker

Don't forget McNulty from The Wire and Joffrey from Game of Thrones.

Mr Pseudonym

Bears and Vodka wrote: »

There is absolutely nothing wrong in cherishing history and past achievements.

I agree with this, though I think a number of Irish institutions overdo it.

However, what I was proposing was a museum that celebrates the various alumni as significant Irish individuals who happened to go to Trinity. Although it would be good for Brand Trinity, it wouldn't be an exercise in self-adulation.

bscm

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

...celebrates the various alumni as significant Irish individuals who happened to go to Trinity

You'd have to be very careful with that. A lot of great Trinity alumni either were born outside of Ireland, or did not consider themselves Irish (before the Free State, and all that jazz).

retalivity

I look forward to seeing the glorious exhibit to my 2.2 in Comp Sci from a decade ago

Extrasupervery

No.

andrew

It'd be good if the memorial to WWI soldiers wasn't just a few pictures by the stairs in the museum building.

hfallada

I can imagine any tourist wanting to spend money on an alumni museum when there is a few one around the corner for Joyce and possibly Wilde in the national library. The Joyce exhibition is actually brilliant and it's free. Most of the other alumni are not week known enough for people to justify paying for.

I seriously doubt the museum would break even. There is plenty of other things in the college that need money instead of the museum like power outlets in the Lecky, more staff

Mr Pseudonym

hfallada wrote: »

I can imagine any tourist wanting to spend money on an alumni museum when there is a few one around the corner for Joyce and possibly Wilde in the national library. The Joyce exhibition is actually brilliant and it's free. Most of the other alumni are not week known enough for people to justify paying for.

I seriously doubt the museum would break even. There is plenty of other things in the college that need money instead of the museum like power outlets in the Lecky, more staff

I disagree that tourists wouldn't be interested, and think it irrelevant that they mightn't know the people.

Half a million people visit The Book every year, and another 300k visit the Science Museum (which is free). If even a minority also visited what would be a pretty cheap-to-produce and permanent series of exhibits, it would certainly break even. The Joyce one might be brilliant (I haven't visited it), but the permanent Yeats one isn't up to much IMO.

You say that there are other things that need money, but the point of such a museum would be to increase income.

bscm

Probably easier, and cheaper, to set up "Alumni/famous Trinity visitors tours", no need to find a building or space to set up a centre, just use the facilities already in place. I know the Physics department have the Fitzgerald nicely laid out with cabinets full of apparatus and interesting tidbits about past experiments, and the Museum Building could be a tour in itself, complete with a museum packed full of volcanic rock, fossils, lunar rocks and meteorites. Tourists already spend about 15 quid on the "History of Trinity/Book of Kells" tour, it could almost be an add-on to that.

"...Here is where Schrodinger actually delivered lectures including "What is Life?"... he potentially started his contribution to the wave function right here in the Dining Hall..." (the Dining Hall part is actually a "fact" passed down from several Physics lecturers, Schrodinger apparently scribbled equations a lot on napkins whilst at Commons).

Mr Pseudonym

bscm wrote: »

Probably easier, and cheaper, to set up "Alumni/famous Trinity visitors tours", no need to find a building or space to set up a centre, just use the facilities already in place. I know the Physics department have the Fitzgerald nicely laid out with cabinets full of apparatus and interesting tidbits about past experiments, and the Museum Building could be a tour in itself, complete with a museum packed full of volcanic rock, fossils, lunar rocks and meteorites. Tourists already spend about 15 quid on the "History of Trinity/Book of Kells" tour, it could almost be an add-on to that.

"...Here is where Schrodinger actually delivered lectures including "What is Life?"... he potentially started his contribution to the wave function right here in the Dining Hall..." (the Dining Hall part is actually a "fact" passed down from several Physics lecturers, Schrodinger apparently scribbled equations a lot on napkins whilst at Commons).

But the numbers taking tours is probably tiny in comparison!

Wave function was earlier in his career

bscm

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

But the numbers taking tours is probably tiny in comparison!

Wave function was earlier in his career

He started developing something in the Dining Hall though, but it's probably Chinese whispers at this stage. Soon the department will be claiming he was born in the basement of the Fitzgerald before being brought back to Austria.

Edit: you've never been stuck behind an official Trinity tour when running late for a lab. Then the numbers are far greater than expected. Also, Schrodinger started proposing his theories about "wave-only" instead of particle-wave duality after he left Trinity.

Ravelleman

andrew wrote: »

It'd be good if the memorial to WWI soldiers wasn't just a few pictures by the stairs in the museum building.

I take it you've never been in the 1937 Reading Room then.

AndrewJD

Ravelleman wrote: »

I take it you've never been in the 1937 Reading Room then.

A memorial only a fraction of trinity students and no members of the public can actually access.

Ravelleman

AndrewJD wrote: »

A memorial only a fraction of trinity students and no members of the public can actually access.

Thanks for clarifying. Regardless of who it can be accessed by Trinity does indeed have a proper War memorial.

Necessity no doubt led to its restriction to postgraduate students. The Hall of Honour itself was around for about eight years before the Reading Room was even built.

andrew

Ravelleman wrote: »

I take it you've never been in the 1937 Reading Room then.

Nope! I didn't know there was one there. I'll get to see it this September at least.

Mr Pseudonym

None has been supportive of the proposal! I thought today of the significant income that could accrue from merchandise sales: the temptation to pick-up a copy of The Pic of Dorian, for instance, increases greatly after having seen a Wilde exhibit.

cbreeze

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

There is talk of moving the Book of Kells to another place on campus so that it and the Old Library can be separate attractions (thereby increasing income).

I reckon another attraction could be an alumni museum. You know them all already, but I'll list some for emphasis: Burke, Berkeley, Hamilton, Walton, Wilde, Beckett, Stoker, Swift, Emmett, Carson. To give some gender balance, living figures could be included: Mary Robinson, Jennifer Johnston, and others.

I think its called the Board of the College

Mr Pseudonym

cbreeze wrote: »

I think its called the Board of the College

I don't understand.

Mr Pseudonym

Trinity abandons plans to move Book of Kells to 'leaky' basement | Irish Independent

It's not entirely clear whether they've abandoned all plans to move it elsewhere.