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Archive for 2010|Yearly archive page

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Evolving English

In Museums, new content on November 11, 2010 at 5:49 pm

A new exhibition opens at the British Library tomorrow, all about the English language. I was involved in the project as a consultant, earlier this year. I wasn’t working on the content for the exhibition – I was undertaking what’s known as ‘formative’ evaluation on the exhibition prospect – research into what people would expect in an exhibition about the English language and testing out some ideas they had for how the exhibition might be put together.

It was also a chance for the library to show people the design concept and to test it out on potential visitors. It’s a good idea sometimes to take a step back and ask someone who has no involvement in the project what they think of your plans. And it’s often a very useful exercise.

After chairing some focus groups (in March 2010) I then fed back to the library with a series of conclusions about how the exhibition was perceived at that time. The British Library has been putting the finishing touches to their exhibition in the meantime and the resulting show opens tomorrow morning. I’ll be there – perhaps not tomorrow, but soon – to see what’s been going on behind the scenes and what the exhibition has in store for us.

Evolving English is at the British Library 12 November 2010 – 3 April 2011.
There’s also a great quiz on the BL website, where you can test how much you know about our language.

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Lambeth Palace wordle

In Museums on November 9, 2010 at 4:23 pm

Earlier this year I wrote an audioguide for the library at Lambeth Palace in London. It was part of a temporary exhibition running over the summer, displaying some of the treasures from the collection they hold there. From some of the oldest Bibles in the country to Henry VIII’s handwriting and many other gems, it was a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of one of one of the most intriguing collections I’ve worked with over the years.

I decided to put the script of the audioguide into the word-cloud making website wordle.net, to see what the most commonly used words are. There are some likely characters in there which you’d suspect of finding in a library of ecclesiastical material, but also some more peculiar terms.

Wordle: Lambeth Palace Library

(It’s not the greatest image in the world, but click on the picture and it’ll take you to the wordle site.)

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Overhauling the Imperial War Museum

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on November 5, 2010 at 9:09 am

There are plans afoot to change the way visitors interact with the collection at the Imperial War Museum, London.

The IWM are currently in a master planning process with Foster + Partners, who are providing the museum with ideas about how to redevelop the public galleries at the Lambeth Road site. The aim is to reopen the First World War galleries (which were last udpated in the early 90s) in time for the national commemoration of the start of the conflict in 2014. They’d then work on the Second World War and other galleries over the following years.

There’s a piece about the plans on Museum [Insider].

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What’s next for museum education?

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on November 4, 2010 at 8:28 am

The way education services in museums are run has changed enormously over time. From clipboards and photocopied worksheets to interactive whiteboards and sophisticated mechanisms for measuring learning. As a sector we are able to articulate what we want people to learn when they interact with a museum – at the museum, on their computer or in their school – and we have the tools to plan how to achieve this.

We’ve also made huge leaps and bounds in terms of access to museums and their collections, widening audiences and encouraging a new generation of museum visitors.

Like an impatient schoolchild, the education sector doesn’t like to sit still for long. It always wants to move on and find new ways of working.

So I asked myself, and a few others, what we think the future is for museum education. What’s next on the agenda?

I spoke to Samantha Heywood (Director of Learning and Interpretation at the Imperial War Museum), Gillian Wolfe (Director of Learning at Dulwich Picture Gallery) and Viv Golding (a lecturer and museum learning expert at the Univesity of Leicester’s Department of Museum Studies) and asked them what they thought was coming next.

Their answers make for interesting reading, in a features article on Museum [Insider].

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5.3 million tune in to Turn Back Time

In what i'm reading on November 3, 2010 at 4:24 pm

5.3 million people watched the opening programme in the BBC’s new timeshift documentary Turn Back Time: The High Street, according to a ratings article in The Guardian.

But what did the critics make of it?

Tom Sutcliffe, writing in The Independent, thought it was a fun history lesson, but it sounds like the jury is still out for Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, who seems to have warmed to the participants in the programme, but not the concept itself.

Memorable TV likes the concept. Liam Tucker, writing for TV Pixie, thought the show was going to be tedious, but ended up being rather absorbed by the historical commentary.

And, oh dear, the Metro didn’t like it.

So it didn’t get panned, but it didn’t get raved about. I don’t suppose it’s ever going to take on the X-factor in terms of ratings, but to get over 5 million people to watch a social history programme on a Wednesday evening is pretty good going, if you ask me. Let’s hope all of them don’t turn up at the pop-up-shops we’ve built around the country! After a good start in the south west last weekend, the exhibitions are on the road to Clacton and Chatham ready to open on Friday.

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Pizza, cholocalte and telly

In Uncategorized on November 3, 2010 at 3:55 pm

The results of a BBC survey out today have revealed that the three things that make us most happy in Britain today are pizza, chocolate and the television.

I’m not sure I agree with that entirely, and this little video on the BBC website seems to indicate that people also derive a sense of well being from many other factors in life, such as family, friends, the weather and even happiness itself. And the usual things as well – holiday, money, winning lottery etc.

What makes you happy?
Take a look at my ongoing reserach project in the nature of modern happiness for more inspiration.

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Turn Back Time

In Museums on October 30, 2010 at 11:47 am

Calling all social history geeks – there’s a new programme starting on BBC ONE on Tuesday called Turn Back Time all about the history of the British high street. You might have seen the trailers for the show which feature Gregg Wallace hopping into a time machine and travelling back in time with a group of shopkeepers?

If not, it’s quite funny and worth a watch on the BBC website.

I’ve been involved with the BBC on the project – not making the programme, but curating an interactive exhibition which is going to be travelling the country to high street locations over the next 7 weeks. More details about the full tour to follow, but in the meantime do tune in to the show:

Turn back time: the high street
Tuesday 2 November
21.00 on BBC ONE

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Hands on History

In Museums on October 28, 2010 at 10:08 am

Over the last three months I’ve been working on a travelling exhibition project for the BBC linked to their forthcoming TV series Turn Back Time: the High Street. The exhibition, which opens tomorrow, will travel to 11 locations across the UK over the next seven weeks, stopping in at unused shops on high streets across the country.

The programme sees a group of shopkeepers taken back in time to different periods from the 1870s to the 1970s, with the aim of trying to run their shop in that era. So the butcher has to adapt to life in a Victorian butchery, then Edwardian etc, right up to today. Each week the shopkeepers get told their new historical period and are presented with challenges along the way, such as rationing.

The BBC’s learning team have a project called Hands On History, which is about getting people to engage with history in new and interesting ways. As part of the campaign for this programme they commissioned the event production company Innovision, and me, to come up with an interactive, educational history experience that can travel to the pop-up-shops across the country while the show is in transmission.

We’ve created a flexible, modular piece of kit which can be moved each week into spaces of varying sizes. The first part of the ‘experience’ is a recreated 1930s grocer’s shop, complete with counter, till, scales and lots of lovely 30s products. We’ve commissioned interactive live interpretation company Past Pleasures to provide actors in role as a 1930s shopkeeper and customer.

Visitors then get to go into the back room of the shop where they will encounter a range of interactive elements, such as a timeline of the high street, with smelly games and things to touch; a place to record the memories of the high street; a chance to dress up and local resources about the history of the area.

The first shops open tomorrow in Truro and Poole. Do go along if you’re in the south west and take a look at the exhibition. And look out for the tv show starting next week.

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Cuts to cultural spending

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on October 21, 2010 at 6:33 pm

Another day of announcements about cuts to public sector spending in the UK, another article about the impact on the heritage sector.

Yesterday George Osborne announced where the cuts will come and broadly where the cuts will take hold in the museum industry. Speaking in the House of Commons, Osborne said:

“Britain’s arts, heritage and sport all have enormous value in their own right, but our rich and varied cultural life is also one of our country’s greatest economic assets. The resource budget for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will come down to £1.1 billion by 2014-15.

Administrative costs are being reduced by 41% and 19 quangos will be abolished or reformed. All that is being done so that we can limit four-year reductions to 15% in core programmes such as our national museums, the front-line funding provided to our arts and Sport England’s whole sport plans.

We will complete the new world-class building extensions for the Tate Gallery and the British Museum.

The Secretary of State will provide details of further projects shortly. I can also announce today that, in order for our nation’s culture and heritage to remain available to all, we will continue to fund free entry to museums and galleries. There is also ongoing provision of the £9.3 billion of public funding for a safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic games in London in 2012.”
Initial analysis in live now on on Museum [Insider]. We’ll be writing up a full analysis of the impact of the coalition Government’s actions and spending review in the coming weeks, together with more detailed information about the exact implications of the spending reductions.

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Quango-fandango

In Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on October 15, 2010 at 8:17 am

We all know what a quango is now, right? (Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation).What have they got to do with heritage?

Yesterday the coalition government announced its review of the 679 quangoes and 222 other stautory bodies as part of its huge cost-cutting exercise and in advance of the major overhaul of central Government spending, due out next week.

I took a look through the full list of organisations, bodies and committees to find out, firstly, how much of their work is related to the museums and heritage sector, and also to see how deep the cuts have been in this area. While there have had to be some cutbacks, it turns out that the reduction in Government spending in this area is perhaps not as bad as we anticipated.

Rumours had been circulating that the HLF and English Heritage would have to merge; that the Arts Council was going to be disbanded and that some of the smaller bodies and committees would be completely disbanded.

There have been casualties, but mostly they are in the field of advisory committees (libraries, national historic ships, government art collection, railway heritage). Visit England has also been told to modify its operation and customer focus.

The other big news is the disbanding of the MLA, which we’ve known about for a few months now. The exact effects of this decommissioning are yet to be fully digested by the sector, but the Culture Minister has said that Renaissance will be protected, which is great news for many of the nation’s smaller museums, especially those in the regions.

The great news is that most of the rest of the sector is safe (for the moment). The national museums, British Library, MoD museums, National Archives, Historic Royal Palaces, National Heritage Memorial Fund and Big Lottery Fund are all also safe, although the last of these is being transferred from DCMS to the Cabinet Office. Even Natural England survived, but only by the skin of its teeth.

There’s a fuller analysis of yesterday’s decisions on Museum [Insider] today and there will be more coming as a result of the spending review next week.

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