Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - Core Session 2

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.