The staff of Manx National Heritage feel that they are developing the largest "museum" identity in Britain - some 227 square miles (570 km2) of interpreted landscape. The consequent diversity of responsibilities is remarkable and a Multi-disciplinary professional approach is essential. This itself is not as easy to arrange as it may sound for there are many entrenched attitudes still evident in the professional world of cultural administration which restrict people working together across the whole area of potential community benefit - I have no time for such dinosaurs!

You will see why when you look at what we have to administer as part of the heritage of our territory.
To develop this strategy we have had to substantially redefine and expand the old
concepts of "museum space" and the users of that space.

First of all we undertook an audit of our heritage assets:

We first related the role of our museum spaces to the two most critical elements of socio-economic life in the isle of man:

- firstly the decline of traditional tourism-decay of industry

- secondly, the changing nature of the social structure - the new financial markets bringing new families to live in the island with no background knowledge of its life and traditions, resulting in an education gap and a situation where the native-born Manx people are now an ethnic minority in their own land.

This allowed the museum organisation in our territory to pioneer the development of a new recognition of real assets.

- The Manx Museum in Douglas is the headquarters of Manx National Heritage. It is the Island's National Museum and provides the initial interpretive display of the Story of Mann through a dramatic, large-format film presentation and a series of redesigned galleries. The Manx Museum is also the home of the Island's national archives which form the basis of all academic and public research.

- There are two medieval castles - one in the south of the Island, the other, at Peel, a small fishing village on the West coast of the Island has recently been the subject of a major new interpretive exercise, specifically involving the three themes of this article - “Culture, Tourism and Local Community” .

- Cregneash is a preserved nineteenth century crofting village comprising thatched cottages in their original setting surrounded by over 300 acres of preserved countryside. As well as the period buildings, visitors can see the operation of a nineteenth century farmstead and walk through the restored and interpreted original field systems, observing traditional crops and livestock.

- a small nautical museum includes a uniquely preserved eighteenth century armed yacht.

- the Great Laxey Wheel and associated mining complex - the largest historic industrial water-wheel in the world.

- a small Victorian mansion house with associated farm complex.

- over 100 ancient monument sites ranging from megalithic chambered tombs to carved Celtic and Viking crosses and thirteenth century chapels.

- two and a half thousand acres of formally preserved natural landscape.

- Manx National Heritage also operates a bird observatory, two flocks of the native breed of loghtan sheep and enjoys a close working relationship with the Island's transport department which operates over twenty miles of the original nineteenth century steam and electric railway system.

The question then was, can these assets combine, indoor and outdoor, to provide
a unified community focus and personality?

In the isle of man, we felt this is best done by linking the museum service into the community at as many levels as possible in a way which has an holistic effect for community benefit and considerably widens the power base of our organisation to compete for resources.

We asked ourselves, can natural sites, cultural sites and monuments, site museums and the community be made to interact in a way which provides a new and unique "sense of place” which can subsequently provide social and commercial benefit.

We then asked the community what they thought of these assets and what they thought of our care and presentation of them. Particularly important at a time when - the census reveals that the Manx are now an ethnic minority and the pattern of tourism is changing drastically.

We then presented government with a unified heritage strategy concept -co-ordinated marketing which depended on the fusion of all these elements into an understandable whole which could then be co-ordinated both in terms of its interpretation and its commercial marketing.

Above all, it was a concept not stricken with the curse of departmentalism!

This concept we named The Story of Mann.

It is a multi-disciplinary, multi site development of a museum/heritage identity comprising over 570 square kilometres of historic landscape.

Like a giant jig-saw puzzle, the complete picture emerges slowly but each piece of the picture is carefully planned and produces a synergy of added value to each of the previously completed elements.

Fundamentally, we have been asking ourselves the question:

- can the development of museum space, new or existing, keep abreast of the pace of attitude change within the community and the modern economy?”

This has forced us at Manx National Heritage to look very hard at the social role of our organisation. Perhaps harder than some similar organisations elsewhere for whom the concept of the "social role" of their museum or heritage service slips glibly off the tongue, often as an element of self-defence, but is equally often difficult to find substantial evidence for on the ground.

We looked hard at two main areas:

- the definition of space

- the definition of public

The first you might say is easy, being an Island. But how many museums would take on the responsibility of an interpretive space potential which extends over 227 square miles (570 km2) of countryside?

The consequent strategy was based upon a belief that there is a unifying historic story which is fundamental to any community and this historic story is the essential defining factor in assessing the parameters of the role which the community museum should be serving.

Inevitably, this takes us far beyond the confines of a particular museum building, although it also does involve the creation and remodelling of museum buildings and spaces.

It depends upon a willingness to make bold statements in display terms which will provide a quality of visit which will sustain a momentum of visitor movement and inter-action in the landscape.

Above all, it is a strategy which attempts to recreate the links between the primacy of the object, its original context, and that most dynamic of links between the PEOPLE - then and now.

It is an attitude and strategy for presentation which entirely rejects the arrogance of “old style” information, particularly in the area of archaeological and ancient monument presentation