A heritage organisation has placed a content advisory on its own guidance document designed to help museums navigate sensitive historical material.
Museum Development North's "trigger toolkit" carries a caution about its "potentially triggering content", despite the manual's purpose being to advise heritage workers on managing distressing topics.
The document, created in collaboration with Arts Council England, aims to assist museum staff when dealing with historical materials from periods when "intolerant, discriminatory, and offensive attitudes and behaviours were significantly more prevalent than they are today".
However, the organisation deemed it necessary to warn readers about the manual's own contents before they access the guidance.
The guidance provides a glossary of terms
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The training document identifies a wide range of subjects that could potentially distress heritage sector employees.
These include colonialism, Islamophobia, transphobia, classism, politics, policing, transmisogyny and genomics - the study of genetic structures.
Museum Development North's guidance instructs heritage organisations to provide clear warnings before staff encounter any potentially disturbing material.
The manual states that museum employees will inevitably need to discuss "material which represents a break with the diverse social and cultural landscape of the present day".
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According to the document, some workers might find themselves unable to "comfortably engage with the material at hand" when confronted with certain historical topics.
The guidance recommends that heritage institutions provide psychological support following particularly distressing training sessions.
Museum bosses are advised to identify triggered responses through observable reactions, including instances where participants are "crying".
The manual emphasises that "preventing triggers from happening is the most effective and inclusive way of demonstrating an active commitment to your training participants' mental health and psychological wellbeing".
The manual ended by emphasising the importance for diversity, equity and inclusion
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Heritage organisations are instructed to include content advisories across all communications, from emails and discussions to presentations and training materials.
The document suggests that aftercare should be available for any staff members who experience emotional distress during sessions covering sensitive historical topics.
Content advisories have become increasingly common across British cultural institutions and publishing.
Recent editions of Ian Fleming's James Bond series and Agatha Christie's detective stories now feature printed alerts warning readers about potentially outdated and discriminatory content.
Publishers have also attached similar notices to works by Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, EM Forster and PG Wodehouse, cautioning readers about antiquated attitudes within these texts.
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