Introduction
I’m back again
and following on from my previous blog where I waffled my thoughts about what
was covered on the first Citizen Curators Core Session which was held at Penlee
Art Gallery and Museum several weeks ago. Since then, I have met up with my
group (me and four others from Penlee) where we mingled and also took a joint look around Penlee whilst discussing what we might do for a group project which
is the direction the course takes more after the halfway mark around the New
Year. I’ll not give any spoilers on our ideas yet, but suffice to say I might
well blog about them nearer the time we actually make a start J
Citizen Curator Core Session 2 –
Research for Curators
This time round
we were all at Porthcurno Telegraph Museum for this core session, which
naturally involves logistics to get to, as does the majority of places in
Cornwall. There’s also, gasp, no mobile signal around Porthcurno, unless you
are on Vodafone, who appears to be the only mobile network provider who have
their signal strength turned up to max in this little hamlet. Given its past
heritage, it’s a little source of amusement that mobile signal quality is so
“particular” at this place. Good job there are morse code machines at this museum!
Joining us in
the middle of this communications blackout were the other West Sector posse of
Citizen Curators from Porthcurno and Helston.
A reminder about Core Session 1
The session
started with a reminder about last time, which is very handy for my colander
brain which just about remembered the names of some people in my group, as well
as my own. As Citizen Curators, we’re reminded, as last time, about what is
expected of us, not least to be on time. Luckily, I’m a stickler for timing,
much like I was in my last job where I readily tutted at anyone late to a
meeting, pointing at my watch. Well, I would have if I wore one. The imaginary
one still works however. Along with getting to places on time, there’s a
reminder to value one’s time by setting limits. Much like office meetings I
used to hold at my last workplace, I never liked to leave the room without
actions and decisions having been made, so as to have made the portion of time we’d
dedicated to being together to actually have achieved something. If your time
is limited, you tend to focus better – providing it’s not too time limited,
whereby one just ends up becoming stressed. We’re also encourage to take part –
something I do much more these days than I ever used to. I still do a fair bit
of lurking in the background, as that’s generally how I like to roll, but I’m
more than willing to interject and make my presence known too. Last, but not
least, us Citizen Curators should remember to respect others’ contributions, be
aware of what’s going on around us and to not be afraid to ask why? Much like
an annoying child, "why, why, why" questions might drive some people mad but
there’s often at least a few times when as adults we go “Well, I actually don’t
know why” and this is one of those moments where the most interesting
discoveries can be made.
Also from last
time, the circular graphic ‘Experience->Reflect->Make Sense
of->Plan->’ was brought up to remind us that when an experience happens,
we should reflect on it, try to understand it and then try to find a way to
make use of what we’ve learnt. A few others in the group gave examples. At this
point in time, I don’t think the coffee had kicked in for me as I was feeling
brainless although this sort of thing is really where I struggle with lots of
things in life – giving examples from memory. It’s not just the memory thing,
but trying to work out what was an experience where I did any reflection or making
sense of it afterwards? Most of this sort of thing is so instantaneously done
within our minds, one barely gets chance to blink before everything is taken
care of within our inner neurons. I would guess one could turn matters on its
head for me and say that my realisation of my own memory failings and
reflecting on that, was what helped me get to writing this blog. Sure, that
wasn’t exactly instantaneous nor was it tangibly planned out on paper, it just
happened. However, it does fit into this graphic of learning from experience.
Captain’s Log
We were
actively reminded to use the Citizen Curators’ log to keep track of what time
and activities we’ve been doing outside of core sessions. There’s also an opportunity
to reflect on those activities. I’ve not actually thought about the log yet, but
I would think writing this blog would count towards that, as well as meeting my
group in-between sessions. I do tend to listen and read multiple museum related
sources most weeks, but knowing which was for Citizen Curators, or just general
interest is pretty hard to distinguish. I shall have to get my thinking hat on.
As with anything, the log can be as short or long as one likes. I believe this
log not only helps us, but helps the whole programme with showing what exactly
us Citizen Curators get up to over the course!
Debating Trust
Not long after revisiting
the 50/50 curator graphic, we talked about trust once more in relation to the
session topic of research. Museums are in a position of trust, and more
respected and held in higher regard than a lot of other professions, such a politicians,
newspapers or social media. If a politician says something, we are likely to
take it with a little pinch of salt but if the National British Museum says
something, most of us would take it as being true. With research comes power
from the knowledge you gain, and although one can use that knowledge to invoke
questions from the public, one should not be using it irresponsibly.
It was at
this point my brain really smelt the caffeine I’d ingested and I launched into
my first interjection of the day about the wealth of museum care and
conservation material online from non-UK sources. I think my waffling manner
took things a little out of context as I feel most thought I meant we couldn’t
trust the information from other countries but what I actually was trying (and maybe
failing) to enquire about was the implications of using non-UK sources of
museum care in UK accredited museums. i.e. if an American Museum has on their
website in-depth information on how to store x,y,z and we follow that guidance
as we feel it’s better and more comprehensive than our own UK guidance from say
The Collections Trust or other Museums, what sort of position does that put us
in? Where is the de facto source for British Museums and how should we react to
what we see on oversea museum websites? It’s something I’ve thought about a lot
over the last year and I’m still little clearer on actually fathoming this all
out.
Activity - Asking Questions
The first dreaded
activity of the day J
This time in pairs. We were asked to direct questions that start 'What, How,
Where, When, Who or Why' questions at our partner in context to finding out about
something related to them. Possibly not as simple as it sounds:
“What is that
around your neck?”
“It’s a necklace.”
“Oh right,
that’s kinda what I already knew.”
Certainly, one
could be annoyed at multiple questions in succession yet I guess the
rationality here is to learn not only how to ask questions about something (an
object, a person) but also how to tailor those questions so as to extract the
best results. Some people you ask questions to don’t need much of an invitation
to chat for the next 20 minutes! One needs to think who it is we’re asking the
question to, how we’re asking it (tone of voice) or if it’s likely to be a
sensitive or far too personal question to ask.
Sources of Research
Aside from the
obvious source of the object itself, we went through all the various places one
could look for information, such as Google, Wikipedia, library, public, Modes and
object history files. There are also Subject Specialist Networks for maritime
or archaeology etc. The latter of which we got a little insight into those
various groups, as well as a discussion into how Wikipedia works, and its
potential pitfalls.
Group Activity
Rapid-prototyping
was introduced to us. Another recursive cycle graphic that flows from Research,
to test, to learn, to repeat. The idea here is as it sounds: you research
something, you test your ideas that you got from that research, you learn from
the results of that testing and you repeat the whole cycle again. It’s sort of
a way of constantly improving something to possible perfection – potentially.
Spend too long in that cycle and you may never deliver an end product. Spent
too little time in that cycle and you might deliver a dud.
In the
afternoon our group activity was to look around the museum and decide our
output to answer the question of how we might share stories of communications
history to an audience under the age of 25. We’d then have to work out the
sources/methods of data for that output and work out who would do what. We
weren’t actually going to implement the plan however.
Whereas the
other group based their presentation of what they’d done that afternoon around
the rapid-prototyping graphic, we sort of totally dismissed it in some
respects. We settled on a website as it seemed pretty early as a good catch-all
for all the various age-groups that fall under 25 (i.e. 0-5, 6-11 etc) and then
looked at all the various ways Porthcurno museum engaged with those age groups:
dressing up, play corners, learning experiences via playing with communication
devices, interactive guides, video etc. We envisioned teaching the
communications history via the website using all those things as possible
content to deliver that learning experience.
I think for me,
understanding the actual question was a little vague in my head, although taking the task
and the rapid-prototyping together, it helps to show how to go about research,
the multitude of ways to deliver an output, and the value of testing, not least
also about actually using the testing results to improve the output.
