VISITORS who admire the rows of gleaming medals and 200-year-old uniforms at Richmond's military museum probably give little thought to the research and conservation that goes on behind the scenes.

But now, top brass at the Green Howards Regimental Museum fear a Government slide towards lessening the traditional role of museums and archives will erode their ability to preserve the nation's history.

Proposals by Resource, the new council for museums, archives and libraries, focus on accessibility, education, interpretation and community involvement - at the cost, say the museum's officials, of conservation and an academic role.

A consultation paper sent out by Resource as part of its Renaissance in the Regions programme, proposes "hub" museums in each region to oversee and guide the service. These hubs would lead the way towards improving public access to collections, supporting education and learning for all, interpreting local heritage and supporting community involvement and development.

Maj Roger Chapman, of the Green Howards museum, endorses all these aims, but is disappointed that the traditional role of museums as custodians and conservers appears to have taken a back seat.

"Museums were established to collect, preserve and study relevant artefacts of historic, artistic or scientific interest, and to display them to the general public," he said.

"Yet, over the past few years, this simple role appears to have been forgotten by our political masters. They wish to give museums a social rather than academic role.

"Collection scholarship has been superseded by educational responsibility. Actual artefacts have been interspersed with replicas and, incredibly, some museums have been created object-free with only interactive machines, dumbed-down explanation boards and puerile displays to replace the real thing."

Pressure to make collections more accessible to children risked damaging artefacts, particularly those sent out to classrooms for study, and the establishment of "kiddies' corners" in some museums threatened to over-simplify issues.

"The amount of research and academic papers produced by museums has dwindled in the past decade as staff come to grips with marketing techniques and business plans," said Maj Chapman. "These other roles are important, but they do not allow us the time to do the job of curator. We are the custodians of our heritage for the generations who will follow us. We have to think hundreds of years ahead."

Much of the vital role of conservation, recording and research at the Green Howards museum is undertaken by volunteers, but professional expertise is bought in whenever possible.

Earlier this year, Caroline Rendell, an expert in textile conservation, was commissioned to preserve some of the military hats and helmets in the Richmond collection.

It is hoped she can return to extend her work to other exhibits, but this depends on whether the museum's grant application to the Yorkshire Museums Council is successful. "The YMC gives us 50 per cent and we have to find the other 50 per cent," said Maj Chapman. "We submitted the bid in January and we will hear in March whether we have got our grant, which is based on conservation and access."

Maj Chapman and the team at the museum would like to spend more time behind the scenes, researching exhibits to enable them to answer queries from visitors and requests for in-depth information from military researchers.

"We have one of the best regimental collections in the country and it attracts the attention of some of the country's top experts," said Maj Chapman. Among them is Dr David Chandler, the UK's leading expert on the Napoleonic Wars, who has paid study visits to the collection.

The museum is home to hundreds of war diaries and documents which are not on display and which must be copied so they can be used for research and study without the original, often flimsy, documents being damaged.

Arrangements have been made for the war diaries of the ten Green Howards battalions which saw active service on the western front during the First World War to be copied by a Leeds specialist.

"We have special copies made but, ideally, we would like to get them all on to computer," said Maj Chapman. "That way, we could e-mail them anywhere and they would be easier for people to look at."

Hundreds of letters and photographs dating back to 1855 - many of them the work of renowned military photographers Roger Fenton and Robertson - also require conservation, along with dozens of uniforms hung in special acid-free covers or stored in acid-free boxes.

"All this is expensive for a museum with a relatively small budget," said Maj Chapman. "We have the political pressure without the financial clout behind it to actually put things into operation. Ideally, we would like to get all these letters and diaries transcribed and into a book in time for the 150th anniversary in 2004, but whether we will have the time or the money remains to be seen."

Funding is also an issue to the fore at the Richmondshire Museum, home to the town's local history collection.

Mike Wood, chairman of the management committee, said the Government seemed to place huge emphasis on large, national and regional museums such as those at Leeds and York at the expense of the smaller venues.

"We have a struggle to keep up financially and we rely heavily on volunteers," he said. "We and the volunteers spend all our time basically managing the museum, which leaves little time for research."

The museum held an enormous amount of information and artefacts which could provide the basis for in-depth research into local history, but lack of time and money meant much of it was merely stored.

The museum even has its own study centre, named after the late local historian Peter Wenham.

Catterick Village Local History Club recently spent a session delving into a box of old D&S Times from the mid-19th century.

"Some of the members on the visit had been round the museum before and opted to stay in the study centre while the others had a tour," said Mr Wood. "I found a cardboard box full of old D&S Times and, when I came back, everyone was doing bits of research from the papers. That is what a museum like this should be all about.

"Roger Chapman, myself and others involved in local museums have quite a lot of knowledge and we would like to expand that and ensure it is written down for people in the future.

"One of many visions for the Richmond museums is to establish a curatorial workshop and research facility, but we need financial backing before we can move ahead."

Maj Chapman admits not all is doom and gloom on the conservation front. "The pendulum is beginning to swing back towards conservation in a small way," he said

"The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has just opened a £31.5m exhibition called the British Galleries 1500-1900, which is one of the best exhibitions I have ever seen. It uses real artefacts and the explanations and displays are absolutely academically correct.

"There is no dumbing down, but there are special discovery areas aimed at families with children."