Dunedin Gasworks Museum and Port Chalmers Museum officials have welcomed proposals for the Otago Settlers Museum taking over the running of the two institutions, providing them with governance and other support.
Dr Rodney Wilson, a former director of the Auckland Museum, was commissioned by the Dunedin City Council to prepare a wide-ranging report on governance and other issues facing the city's community-owned museums.
In the report, which was only recently released after an Official Information Act request by the Otago Daily Times, Dr Wilson warned the council against "spreading the net of support too widely".
Resources were lean and the council should concentrate its care on the big institutions and "resist the impulse to support other groups wherever possible".
The Gasworks Museum should not be encouraged to "escalate its ambitions as an independent, council-supported museum".
Instead, the gasworks and Port Chalmers facilities could be added to the council-owned settlers museum as "satellite" operations.
The gasworks would require only two staff to operate it on open days.
The Port Chalmers facility was not professionally staffed, operated on "a very lean budget" and owned a historic building at Port Chalmers, plus some adjoining land.
A proposed option, involving that land, to create a three-storey addition to its building was "worthy of development".
This museum was a "special case" and could be developed as a "fine professionally staffed maritime museum", being well placed to receive visitors to "picturesque Port Chalmers" including cruise-ship passengers and crew, Dr Wilson said.
Dunedin Gasworks Museum Trust chairman Barry Clarke was "very much encouraged" by the report's positive suggestions.
Mr Clarke, who is also a former chairman of the settlers museum board, said the gasworks would benefit from governance, marketing and other professional support.
Ian Church, a former acting director of the Port Chalmers Museum, welcomed Dr Wilson's comments and said the museum ultimately needed a full-time manager.
The settlers museum could provide valuable governance and other support, with the Port Chalmers Early Settlers and Historical Society operating as a "friends" group, he said.
