Posted 23 December 2011

A project to help museums in Scotland get their collections in better shape is having a positive impact further afield. Under the Old Tools New Uses project, a partnership between the industrial collections arm of the National Museums Scotland and Tools for Self Reliance, museums have been busy rooting out duplicate industrial and domestic tools in their collections and handing them to Tools for Self Reliance.

The tools are already making a difference to artisans and their families in Africa. One of them, a leg vice, was on our last consignment of tools to Sierra Leone.

The project also shows what can be achieved through partnership working in the UK. As well as making a difference to the musuem service in Scotland it is helping to drive home the recycling message in schools, with the creation of new teaching resources.

“I like this project so much because it is outward looking. It puts a group of collections in the context of the world around us and then acts accordingly to make those collections understood, sustainable and useful.”Sally Colvin, Museum Association