Wellcome Collection: summary of the year's activities
9 February 2009
Wellcome Collection is a free public venue hosting events and permanent and temporary exhibitions. It also houses the Wellcome Library, the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, a Conference Centre, a forum and events space, a bookshop and a café.
During its first year, Wellcome Collection proved popular with public and critics alike. An external evaluation found that 98 per cent of those surveyed rated their visit as excellent or good. Nearly 67 per cent felt that they had learned more about health, medicine and science as a result of their visit.
Temporary exhibitions
Exhibitions spanned a range of topics, from sleep to archaeology. Almost 6500 visitors attended a gallery tour over the year. A family activity pack was introduced a few months after opening to enable younger visitors to navigate the galleries.
Events
An ongoing programme of live public events supports the exhibitions. At 'Flesh', for example, held in November 2007, visitors could take a suturing session with a plastic surgeon and find out about mummification and plastination.
In May 2008, 'Nobody Lives Forever', a play written by Judith Johnson and performed by Y Touring Theatre Company, explored the questions raised by stem cell research. Performances were held while the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was going through Parliament.
On the weekend of 26-28 September 2008, 'Drawing on Life', the national launch of The Big Draw, attracted more than 5000 visits - Wellcome Collection's busiest weekend since opening. The event was a collaboration between Wellcome Collection, the Campaign for Drawing, University College London and the Bow Arts Trust.
Wellcome Collection Club
Currently, the Wellcome Collection Club has around 400 members. As well as the comfortable facilities of the Club, there are opportunities to meet and relax at Club socials, and specially organised events run on a monthly basis.
Wellcome Library
With over 33 000 visits, the Library had its busiest year yet. In the first user satisfaction survey since its return to 183 Euston Road, responses to the newly refurbished spaces were overwhelmingly positive: "it is a total joy and pleasure to have access to the Wellcome Library"; "your amazing collection refreshes my scholarly enthusiasm".
Library hours were extended to include all-day Saturday opening, while the successful public 'Insights' programme of visits included a variety of themes such as The Body in History and Healing Herbs. These one-hour sessions enable visitors to see collections first hand and meet the staff who curate them.
Notable additions to the collections included casenotes by celebrated forensic pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, whose career encompassed the Crippen case and the 'Brighton Trunk Murders', a portrait of Lili Elbe, one of the first to undergo gender reassignment surgery (in 1929-30), and the notebooks of general practitioner Robert Storrs (1801-47), an early adopter of the stethoscope.
Wellcome Images
With nearly 3500 images published during the year and more than 100 000 images freely available on its new website, Wellcome Images continues to grow and to disseminate the Library's collections. The Wellcome Image Awards, a celebration of the best images added during the year, attracted widespread publicity. An exhibition of the award-winning images toured Japan.
Conference Centre
Over 27 000 delegates attended 495 events throughout the year. User feedback was highly positive.
Business
Blackwell bookshop has proved to be a popular destination for book launches. Wellcome Collection's café, run by Peyton and Byrne, won the Theme Bar and Restaurant Awards prize for Best Café Bar 2008.
Image: The 'Life Before Death' exhibition.