Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - Core Session 3

Introduction

It feels like a long time since the last Core Session, most likely as I've had a busy month and I've sadly not crossed paths with my fellow group members since then, although we have been in regular email conversations. 

As per my previous two blog posts on Citizen Curator Core Sessions, these are my own thoughts and views from the day, thus they aren't comprehensive or definitive representations of what was covered and discussed. 

Citizen Curator Core Session 3 – Communication for Curators

This session was held at Helston Museum, which I'm saddened to say is not somewhere I've visited before, although given my escapades into the museum sector are very recent, and I tend to live an introverted life, this isn't totally unexpected. For those unaware, I left my job in the IT industry in 2015 and it's only since 2016 I've been actively involved in the museum sector through volunteering and now via my own research projects and self-development programmes, of which Citizen Curators is one. I'm therefore sort of playing catch-up, although my interest in history does extend slightly further back than 3 years but not much further; certainly I would have played no attention to anything historic 10 years ago. What changed? Well, that's for another blog, if I write it :) This blog isn't about me!

For me, not only has the CItizen Curator's course helped me structure some of my museum learning, but also dialogue, as well as seeing how other museums operate compared to the one I volunteer at.

As per normal, we started the session looking back, which seemed a little apt given one is in a museum surrounded with objects from the past that have been brought into the present and future. We're reminded of the Values & Conventions of a Citizen Curator, of which the only one that sprung immediately to mind in my head was 'time': being on time, leaving on time, starting on time and valuing time. I've always been a stickler for time management although I'm no saint on the matter. Other things worth remembering is valuing others, in terms of their contributions and opinions. This is something I'm opening up more to. That's not to say I ever stuck my hand up at anyone and told them to be quiet, but more I've actively encouraged others to continue dialogue, especially within the walls of museums as I want to learn more about everything. I also wouldn't, of course, disrespect anyone else's view even if I disagreed, as the one thing I like about museums and conversations is the ability to see things differently, have interpretations revealed in ways I wouldn't have thought about, and find out what it is that makes other people tick, and tock.

There was the opportunity to reflect on experience gained since our last session, which is a bit like asking me what I was doing 4 weeks ago at 10am on the Friday of that week: I really have no idea. I've struggled with recall since I was at primary school, hence one main reason why I'm writing this blog. I have to look through my notes and recent history information on Google to remember what I was doing x hours ago, let alone days and weeks. Others, thankfully, don't have my goldfish like memory and were able to use the diagram where one has an experience, reflects on it and makes some sort of sense of it, even if the sense makes not a lot of sense, in my case. I like to think that any conclusion is a conclusion, even if it doesn't feel definitive. Anyhow, it was nice to hear what others had been up to and thought about, with the only one I made notes on being about finding out what exactly children think of an art gallery from their perspective.It's something I often think about when I see people of all ages at any museum: "Why exactly are they here? What do they think about it?". Much like the topic of today's session, if you don't know what people are thinking, how do you know if you're doing it "right?". Naturally, being right is subjective in some respects, as what's right for one person, isn't for another. Therefore, catering for as many demographics as is possible needs to be considered. Can you please everyone though? Probably not. Does that mean you shouldn't try though?

The 50/50 rule of Citizen Curators is brought up once more, as this time we're focussing on the communications sides of that equation. The quote of the session (there's one each session by the way) was from William Whyte which says "The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it." Much like I've just said, most places or people might think they communicate adequately, but how would anyone know without ways to analyse your impact and gathering feedback? We were asked what we thought of that quote and the subject of museum communication. It's safe to say that most think communication can be improved. This isn't just confined to museums, I'd say. Pretty much every group, organization, or company I've ever been involved with can improve communications. How many days go past without you or someone saying they have no idea what's going on about x,y or z?  

The question "Is there anyone listening?" was mentioned, which reminded me of SETI, of which I forgot to explain to anyone who SETI was when I chirped up; They search for extraterrestrial activity signals. Occasionally they get all excited by something unusual in their data before dismissing it as something natural or manmade. The thing for me here regarding SETI is, do we know anyone is listening? If we don't know, should we even be bothering? I'm of the view that if you don't try, you don't know. Similarly with communication in museums, I'm also of the view that you can never do too much communication. 

Good Team Communications

What aides good communications in teams? We were asked to have a think before giving responses although I'm still slightly unsure if this was related to our own Citizen Curator groups or general team communications. Examples given by others were of newsletters for volunteers, email, social media, video conferencing ... and ... a few one might not think about so quickly such as delegation and shared plans. I guess if one can delegate tasks to others, it makes for a productive team, as long as one doesn't delegate everything and then put one's feet up. Shared Plans, or even shared task lists, are really useful. I'd actually just suggested this a few days earlier where i volunteer. When I worked in the IT industry we used shared task lists although I have to admit, it wasn't foolproof. Not everyone remembered to update them, and then another system came into place that was more "official" but was not really suitable for tasks, yet we had to use it. As long as everyone uses the same electronic resource for sharing tasks and it's accessible enough, then yes, it's a great thing as you know exactly what others are up to and how far they have progressed on their tasks.

Group Task: How does your museum communicate?

From the confines of our relatively cosy cramped conditions in the morning, we grouped up to answer the questions as to what does our museum do well and what could/should it use for communication? For some reason I couldn't get the idea out of my head of a town choir marching through the streets of Penzance ringing a handbell and proclaiming to all that Penlee Museum and Art Gallery was open and that they should come immediately. That's my wandering mind for you! Anyhow, every museum differs in this respect and thus the responses were naturally different from each group. Some museums it seems do better with traditional printed media and word-of-mouth, whereas others probably lack in that area and are more keen on social media. One area that most seemed to agree could be used much better was Instagram. I still see Instagram as being art based, focussing on photography and paintings, rather than objects, but luckily most museums have the former two in abundance also. Additionally, Instagram has got incredibly more interactive in the last year (or gimmicky, depending on your level of cynicism). You can vote on posts, quickly ask questions, and do quick polls. Stories in Instagram have become a thing and can be quite rich and absorbing as the content rotates between still photos, video and onto interactive content. It's much more interactive than Facebook and has a younger demographic that uses it. There's certainly room for more development in this area by some museums.

Communications & Resonances

A reminder of the various ways to communicate with the world was brought up, from signs, press releases, radio, TV, websites, online collections to leaflets in doors and more. No mention of carrier pigeons though, sadly. There's certainly a lot of ways to get your message out there, but it was emphasized that what one has to remember is, what is your target group? Although more age groups are getting online, if your target group is for over 80s, there's no use spending £1,000s on a twitter campaign.

Group Task: Cake Timer 

Hmmm, cake. Yes please, this sounds excellent, I'll get my apron on. 

Sadly, no cake, except the imaginary one in my mind on offer for this task. This was a group task in the afternoon where we had to choose an object in the museum and plan a social media campaign on how one would communicate what we were going to do with that object to the audience. There was another choice of task based upon wikipedia but we went for the one that felt harder for us to do, because, well, that was what we agreed and maybe we like to make ourselves suffer? :)

The plan for either task you chose was based on the cake timer diagram which consisted of four yummy slices: Theme/Topic, Modes of Communication, Feedback opportunity and Community/Audience. We was going to choose the nearest object we could see from where we sat but instead went for the rather large chunk of RAF Sea-king helicopter that was downstairs. I was elected to go take a photo of the helicopter so we could remember what it looked like, and proceeded to get myself photographed taking a photograph by the resident official photographer ... great! Can't imagine anyone wants to see my mugshot online but alas most were of my hands it seems. I rejoined the group with my rather rubbish low light photos and we got to grips with the power of Instagram, showing off its charms amongst each other before listing its attributes of polls, comments, likes, votes as ways of garnering feedback from posts on Instagram. In terms of the audience, well, there's the obvious, such as those currently in services, wishing to be in the services or ex-services. Cadets, pilots, enthusiasts etc. 

Both our work on this group task and from other groups jointly brought up issues such as legality and copyright, which leads deeply into Museum Ethics and another conversation I'm not going to go into at this juncture, but I may well in another future post. :)

Star Wars Resistance: Episode 8 - "Synara's Score"

Synopsis: On a mission to repair a vital platform defense, Kaz calls on the help of Synara as the platform comes under attack by pirates.

My thoughts: Well, it's highly convenient of course plot wise, but the main surprise here is that somehow Neeku didn't gob off to everyone the secret that Yeager's crew were repairing the canons. I'm also curious as to how much time has passed since the previous episode as it appears to be at least several weeks going by what Kaz says of Synara. Why were these canons not fixed earlier? I'm also somewhat surprised Captain Doza is drawn to the First Order so "quickly" after the attack and the canons saved the day? Where did the Aces go? What was that important cargo that was obviously occuring miles away? Then there's the question of how did the reactivation of the platform guns send the pirates on the run so quickly? It wouldn't have made much difference to the raiding they were doing on the platform? And where exactly is security when all this pirate raiding is going on? Why is Synara creeping about during the attacks?

So many questions from this week's episode, although I expect most of the answers are simply a matter of accepting what you see and not questioning it too much. Synara seems to go from ruthless secret pirate to a potential "goodie" during the course of this episode, as her being saved by Tam really opens her eyes. Although I'd somewhat have preferred her to go on being an inside pirate for longer, this is a promising progression for her, although I feel a sacrifice coming along in future for her.

The pirate raids did some serious damage. Their raid seems designed to just steal stuff rather than take over. Their action sequences are amusing as they all seem pretty wacko. It's great to see the elderly alien guest star in the episode once again in the background, making off with some goods that most likely were not hers. I still don't understand where security personnel were all this time. I assume they were there somewhere. It would have been handy to have seen them at least once during the battle.

The threat of the pirates seems ever present. It'll be interesting to see how the whole pirate/first order dynamic goes if/when the First Order assume control over the station. The bigger question is, why do they want it?

Additionally this week, it's also an episode with very little zanny Kaz in it. He seems rather normal this week and even useful. Has the tide turned and has he grown up already?

Nothing to see here ... except ... a steamer?

I'm thinking those weren't originally hers?

Doza gives in?

Rating: 7/10 - Pirate attack/raiding scenes really spices up the rather straightforward episode.

Mesmerised by Morrab Library

Hidden within the heart of Penzance, obscured from view by the twisty turning paths of the sumptuously furnished foliage of sub-tropical gardens, is Morrab Library where recently I spent two days on a sort of AMA work-experience-awareness adventure. I’ve not blogged anything about my AMA museum course so far, choosing to concentrate on ‘Citizen Curators’, but I will be at some point. I’m still very much in the infancy of my AMA, thus my two pre-arranged days at the library was seen by myself as an opportunity to familiarise myself with a totally different setting and witness first-hand what exactly goes on at this library. The aim being that this will help sow the seeds of thoughts in my rather muddled mind as to what possible directions I could take my AMA. In the meantime, however, I was here to learn and absorb everything around me.

Morrab library is absolutely delightful to behold. I’ve visited a few times in the past whilst doing my own historical research and loved its quiet, still, ye oldie rooms full of wooden decor and walls of books. When I say the walls are full of books, I’m not in any way making light of the view. Every room of this house is adorned with hundreds of books sitting like soldiers on parade, from shelves down along the floor, right up to the ceiling. If you are a lover of books, this place will mesmerise you. It’s like a work of art in itself, as you are surrounded by knowledge and history. The charm of this building is much like the gardens it is nestled within, for the corridors and rooms have lots of character, and somewhat meander, gracefully guiding you in different directions, with always something to stop and see, and surprises in the nooks and crannies. Quite simply, for me, this is a place of beauty, where I could just walk around day after day and never bore of seeing what’s on offer; there’s always something new to learn here.

As with a lot of smaller museums, libraries and heritage centres, Morrab Library only has a few paid members of staff, 1.5 in fact, with every other duty and responsibility performed by the tens of volunteers who produce all the magic. This is also a private library, relying solely on subscriptions (for book loans), grants and donations. Over the decades they’ve been blessed with some very wealthy benefactors, whom it’s safe to say, if they hadn’t been so amazingly generous, not only would a lot of knowledge have been lost by now, but the library itself would most likely not exist today.

I spent a good portion of time wandering the corridors looking at random books, although spending most of any free time in what I called the Cornwall Room. As you can probably guess this contains everything and anything about the county itself. I was given a tour on my first morning, going upstairs, downstairs, looking through the numerous rooms and stores that sometimes seem sporadically positioned but simply add to the quaintness and delightfulness of this building. The history of this establishment is as intriguing as the contents: from its foundation in 1811, the male/female book clubs it originated from, its financial struggles and its various movements in location to where it ended up now.

In very recent years, a Photo Archive has been created as part of a rear extension to the building and is fully equipped with everything you’d need to scan the vast majority of photos and negatives. There’s an ongoing project to digitalise every photo from the numerous collections of photos the library has acquired over the years. My eyes popped out of my head when I saw not one, but three, what I call ‘super-duper’ scanners capable of scanning A4 sized negatives. There’s enough Apple Macs to start a small orchard, photography equipment to capture the more awkward of objects and several metallic heavy-duty storage cabinets tightly packed in the middle of a room that has modern lighting, decent workspace and oodles of photos to be scanned. There’s about 5,000 already scanned and automatically uploaded onto their public photo archive website. It’s an impressive operation and one that really is never ending, much like every collection management project I’ve come across.

How does one organise knowledge? This is the question asked of me by one of the volunteers tasked with teaching me the ways of the library. If it’s regarding knowledge in my head, the answer is probably that one doesn’t bother to try, and simply uses my phone to record more important facts and reminders but in a library they don’t just throw everything on the shelves and let you go hunting. In a surprisingly interesting hour or so discussion, I was introduced to the Dewey Decimal System by one of the volunteers who had 35 odd years of experience in libraries. I know from my collections management work thus far about classification systems such as SHIC (for Social history) and although I’d been aware of the numbers on the sides of library books all my life, I’d never really thought too much about them. The Dewey system is absolutely fascinating. More so than I could possibly have imagined. So much in fact that I will be looking into it further and even the man himself who started it going many decades ago although I’m told he’s probably not as interesting as the system he created. Basically, everything comes down to being grouped within ten distinct areas of knowledge using everyone’s modern friend, decimal. One of the many things that instil my enthusiasm in my museum collection’s management work thus far, is the fulfilment I gain from my desire to bring order to chaos, and also to maintain some degree of organisation. This might well explain why I lapped up everything about Dewey as if I’d been given my favourite chocolate bar. To see how knowledge can be ordered, structured and “attributed” to every book in the library is simply amazing to me. Even more amazingly, the library itself did only in relatively recent times adopted the Dewey system (Version 19 if you’re in the know) which I think was ~ 20 years ago, which is about as long ago I’m told as this version of Dewey, which is around version 24 now. As the world changes around us, thus knowledge changes, and what we know about everything alters. This means how we group and classify knowledge has to adapt too. I imagine countless librarians in fear of the next version of Dewey and the work involved in reclassification that it entails, although I’m told that it’s usually minor on each revision. In keeping with its ye oldie charm, the library itself still uses the old paper ticket style for loaning books in and out, with their database of books stored on numerous cards in drawers. That will change in the coming years I’m told, and although it’s a shame in some ways, it’s I feel necessary, because if you don’t easily know what you have, how can you plan how to look after it?

On my second day I got the opportunity to rehome some books which had come in off the streets (ok, they were donated) and needed to be found a home on a relevant shelf in one of the many rooms in the library. This task is a learning experience in many ways. I helped assist two volunteers who had the weekly task of finding some 30 books good homes to go to within the library. This involves assigning them a Dewey number, which isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. Now, I know from my discussion the previous day that it is possible to find out a Dewey number for a book online (or on the inside pages of a book), however, given the library is using an older version Dewey, that there are no free computers available to utilise within the library itself, and that exactly what Dewey number a book gets can be a matter of personal choice and the library’s own setup, we weren’t going down that route. I was quite happy in this instance that there were three Dewey reference books for us to palm through for help as this is a much better way to learn not only about Dewey, but the library itself and the book’s subject matter. I was looking though books about real life murders and sexuality in art – two genres I would not in a month of Sundays readily pick up and browse through. Yet, here I was, reading inside pages, back covers, flicking through the odd pages in order to gain an appreciation of the subject matter, as an aide to knowing more about the book so I could assign it a relevant Dewey number. The Dewey reference books are magical in themselves for if there’s any subject area you wish to learn about, these books really break things down and also introduce you to topics you really would not know about unless you had to classify a book. Even in these two areas that are normally no interest to me, the books I worked through became amazingly more interesting when it came to be classifying their knowledge. Being within a library full of thousands of books, one of the aides in helping to determine a book’s Dewey number, is to go find similar books and see what they have been assigned. This provides further opportunity to not only learn the layout of the library but also the subject matters. It’s also interesting to find books with questionable Dewey numbers which provokes yet more conversation about the classification of knowledge which quite frankly anyone can get involved in, regardless of their own knowledge, because how to align a book with the Dewey system is down often to interpretation and we can all interpret things in our own unique way.

Later on in my second day I went down into the depths of the library, where in one of the stores there is some fascinatingly hard work going on by volunteers in helping repair and maintain books that have, shall we say, seen much better days. Deteriorating leather, broken spines, detached pages – these inflict all ages of books but no more so than the older statesmen of books that are pre-1900. There’re some massive bound books that newspaper companies brought out pre-1940s that are like doorstops. Thankfully the inner contents are in very good condition on the ones I saw, but the spine and covers were not. They were horribly faded, crumbling and in desperate need of some support. I’ve had training and experience with looking after certain paper-based items, and repairing minor tares, but here were more advanced techniques although still thankfully familiar. The vast majority of techniques used for repairing books are Japanese based and far more ancient than the books themselves that are being conserved. Here, the use of very fine but super tough Japanese paper, starch glue, grit and determination, along with every trick of the trade, produce amazing results that ensure these books see the next 100 years. Some of these large heavy books have had new “jackets” made for them using expensive conservation standard material which felt almost like decent quality wallpaper. The technique for strengthening the inner open spine of a book was a new one to me but relatively simple and effective. Some of the books that had been recently saturated by leaks and/or accidents by customers, but looked surprisingly in good health, as if they’d merely dipped their toes in the ocean rather than having been totally submerged as they previously were. There’re only 3 dedicated volunteers working on this project each week and a never-ending number of books that need their attention, but despite knowing their work is never done, they carry on enthusiastically and passionately with their task. I admire them and praise their efforts as they help keep precious knowledge intact for future generations. As I’ve witnessed in many places I’ve visited in recent months, volunteers are the heartbeat of many libraries, museums and heritage centres, often plugging away on thankless underappreciated tasks, but helping to keep not only the establishment going but also preserving knowledge for future generations to enjoy.

Morrab Photo Archive http://photoarchive.morrablibrary.org.uk/

Morrab Library https://morrablibrary.org.uk/