GLASGOW'S MANY MUSEUMS

In true Victorian fashion Kelvingrove, the jewel in the crown of Glasgow's nine-museum system, offers everything from stuffed mice to Rembrandt and from Maori carvings to ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. The newly cleaned, turn-of-the-century, sandstone building is self-consciously impressive. Most of the satellite museums are post-Victorian in origin. The Museum of Transport, recently re-housed, originated in 1964. Pollok House, one of Glasgow's few 18th-century buildings, which contains a private collection notable for some good Spanish Old Masters, was given to the city in 1966. The nearby Burrell Collection, a varied and friendly art collection assembled by a shipping magnate, is surely Glasgow's most successful tourist attraction ever.

Haggs's Castle is a children's museum housed in a much restored 16th-century castle. Provand's Lordship, housed in a Medieval building, Glasgow's oldest, displays medieval furniture in period-room settings. The city's remarkable collection of costumes, long under wraps, will open to the public in early 1991 at the old Sherriff's Court in the center of town. The only truly Victorian museum is the People's Palace, where arts and artifacts of ordinary Glasgow life are displayed. Rutherglen Museum, housed in a former court building, offers a collection on the history of the ancient royal borough of Rutherglen, which became part of Glasgow in 1975.

The McClellan Galleries, once the home of the original museum housed after 1902 at Kelvingrove, is to re-open in January after extensive renovation, as the 10th institution under Julian Spalding's directorship. He will use it for large temporary exhibitions, including, he hopes, the kind of the international blockbuster shows that haven't, as yet, stopped off in Scotland.