Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - The end, or the beginning?

As I sit here typing away on my laptop in late July 2019, it's approximately almost 2 months since the Citizen Curators course finished. I've had time to gather my thoughts and think things over without that initial bias that creeps in when you are still riding a high. Before I leap into summarizing the course as a whole, I shall briefly recap what happened after the final Core Session up until when the course technically ended.

So long, farewell, until we meet again.

The final core session was in February and well documented in my previous blog post but after that we had what one can regard as the official finale/send-off as a collective group of Citizen Curators from across the county. For us, this was a day's experience at the The Old Cathedral School in Truro on Monday, 29 April. The morning was an opportunity to do final reflections on the course via feedback forms with all groups from across Cornwall present in the same room. Well, those who were able to turn up, that is. Although advertised as a "short" questionnaire, this was about 30 questions; even my brief log I'd hastily rushed to complete before this day wasn't enough use to me in order to recall my memories sufficiently enough to do the questionnaire any justice. I need time to sit and reflect rather than quickly recall. I therefore "dumbed" down my responses somewhat to simplistic one-word answer sentences as at least that way I could give a gist of an opinion. Although one expected the opportunity to feedback, I don't think any of us expected such a comprehensive feedback form, nor that we wouldn't be able to mingle with members of the other Citizen Curator groups, create dialogue between ourselves and then give feedback in a more conversational manner, which I think would have been easier for us, but probably harder work for Tehmina. Sadly, we didn't really get to find out much about any of the other groups. Most faces we didn't recognise (as they were from the other cluster) and there was no opportunity to find out what they'd done for their projects or their own individual thoughts about the course, which, for most us of in my group, was of more value than what we thought ourselves. We got our certificates of achievement but, suffice to say, the real value of the course was not able to be conveyed on paper.

We'd anticipated at least a snack/cuppa opportunity too but that didn't happen although I believe that was down to an error on the building’s function team part. Any food didn't come until the end of the day, by which point we'd gone off for a Penlee posse group lunch in the city at lunch time.

After lunch, those who were left (a lot did leave at this point) sat through an hour or so of presentations by CMP on all the opportunities they were providing for people to get into museums, such as citizen curators, internships and apprenticeships. There were guest speakers, which wasn't too mind-numbing I'll admit, and then there was the opportunity for the group I was in, and a few other Citizen Curator groups, to get up in front of the audience (I'd guess 40-50 people) and give a 3 minute speech about what we did for a project. It wasn't really long enough, and I don't think we really managed to convey our efforts. Not because we were rubbish, but because we weren’t in control of the presentation projection behind us (CMP were) and we weren't suitably educated on what to expect beforehand. Literally 10 minutes before we got up to speak, and seeing how others had given their presentations, we realised we needed to prepare some words, so I scribbled down 3 sentences, most of which went out the window when I fumbled through my bit of the presentation and somehow went off on a total tangent by saying how I wanted to do some dressing up in drag! Don't ask me how I got to that. I wanted the floor to open up :D 

After all this CMP show, it was mingling time with whoever was left, of which I can't really remember now as after that presentation I was ready to wave a white flag and go home. The food came out but even though it looked a lovely selection, I'd had the biggest sandwich ever only a few hours earlier and could barely touch anything more. I didn't really chat to anyone other than my own gang, a few other citizen curators from our cluster who lurked about, and the official photographer who was rather cheerful.

And, officially, that was the end of it. However, it also wasn't, because at this point, we'd not actually started our exhibition at Penlee which was in its final stages but ran for several weeks during May. I can't recall exactly how things transpired but I will give an outline of our project for you.

Project Improbable

At the start this did feel like "how the heck are we going to do this" and we certainly dropped several of our busier ideas as time went on. What we ended up with though we were quite pleased with. We'd got an advertisement for our mini exhibition up in a large shop window in the town by way of two larger than life figure cut-outs and a banner. Our title for the exhibition was "Penlee House and the Branwells". I won't go too much into the history aspect, but they were the couple who built and lived in Penlee House in Penzance in the late 1800s of which the Penlee Museum and Art Gallery now lives. Inside the museum we had a display case to ourselves to house objects related to the house and the Branwells, such as photos of the museum's refurbishment and items that could be attributed to the Branwells. Behind the display case we'd had mounted and framed numerous large old photos of the family, house and surrounding park. Additionally (and this was my main individual contribution) we'd set up an iPad on a stand that could interactively or automatically show off up to 40 more photos along with captions. Nearby we put one of the cousins of the Branwell's wedding dress on display (the first time it had actually come out of the storeroom), and we'd got a few more photos/plans up in the passageway outside the social history area where our exhibition was held. By far our proudest part of the exhibition were the windows outside the house on the way up the steps to the main entrance, of which we'd filled two of them with life size b/w photographs of the dining room (that was originally the room behind those windows at one point) with Mr and Mrs Branwell in each window, and suitable blinds filling up the top part to add character and hide the bit the photograph couldn't fill. There's also an interpretation panel for the windows on the wall. It's safe to say we all felt and still feel most pleased about these windows which were lifeless and boring beforehand (with just hardboard filling them up). We feel the Branwells are remembered and back home, and that, unlike the rest of our exhibition, this part will stay up for as long as they stay in good nick, which hopefully will be many years.

Final Thoughts

Was this course worth my time and effort? 

In short, yes.

Was it everything I expected?

Mostly.

By far the most common feeling from myself and other group members, was that the level of commitment, and thus time given to the course far exceeded our expectations. As with most things, you can give as much or as less as you like in many respects, but if you're going into this fully enthusiastic to seize the opportunity and gain the maximum result you possibly could, then you're going to be giving a lot more of your time than you might have thought, especially if you have work and home commitments. You've got to be able to juggle matters sometimes. In many ways this course is a bit like those part-time adult learning courses you'd do at any college and requires that you not only attend but do the homework. Now, the homework is all the optional things, like extra reading, seminars or training but that's all usually free (aside potentially from the transport aspect) and adds tremendous value to the experience and engrossment of the heritage world. Then, on top of that, you must think about your fellow group members. My group met up quite regularly, even in the first 4 months before any project talk, where we went off on excursions together, met up and chatted/drank coffee/ate cake, in order to get to know each other, discuss what we'd learnt at core sessions and give early thoughts on project ideas. For us, we met for 4-5 hours at a time. If you think about it, every month, it's quite possible to take up a day for core sessions, a few hours or so for any "extra reading" related stuff, a day or two for any seminars/training sessions you go to, and then a day for meeting your group, and of course, your museum mentor. It could be 4-5 days a month if you went full whammy.

Should you do the course?

My thought is that it's well worth doing but only really consider it if you got the time to go the full hog; don’t go into it half hearted. Not only is the time to commit what I've just said previously, but when the project time starts about half way through the course, you're talking 1-2 days a week (although of course not all day) you will be involved for multiple hours in some respect with the course. You need to have the flexibility in your life to be able to meet your group, do project work, attend seminars, and of course, those core sessions.

The value for me in the course, and the main reason why I decided to do it in first place, was the project aspect. Although my volunteering in the museum sector has got me involved in a lot of various aspects of that world, I'd never had the opportunity to put my stamp on an exhibition from that initial spark of an idea. I’d done proofreading and given feedback to staff but to design an exhibition, plan it and put it on, was something that was very rarely going to happen when volunteering. Additionally, I was determined to make it even more worthwhile by making sure there was a legacy aspect to the project. So many times I've seen objects in exhibitions go on show and then disappear never to be seen again. I wanted to do something that would be there for years afterwards and we achieved that with the windows that will inform the public and invoke their curiosity for some time to come. Out of everything, that made the course powerful for me.

The end? Or the beginning?

Now that the course is well and truly over, you might well surmise that museum life isn't for you, but for myself, I'm still volunteering in the same capacity as before. Although I like what CMP offer in terms of opportunities for people to get into the museum sector, the long and short of it is that there are very few paid opportunities in this area, and those that are, will be funding reliant. Most museums are run and kept alive by volunteers with only a handful of paid staff. If you're looking for paid employment and a heritage career, this course will seriously whet your appetite but can also leave you somewhat pessimistic about the future. There are jobs out there, because I've seen them, but they are all "up country" and I'm not wanting to move for a job at this moment in time. Therefore, I'm holding out for a local opportunity to arise. I have applied for two jobs since the course finished, gaining an interview for one of the jobs, but alas I'm still without employment. In order to make my ongoing volunteering count towards employment opportunities I started my Museum Association’s AMA at same time as the Citizen Curator's course; In a nutshell you can think of the AMA as Citizen Curators multiplied by a factor of 10. Maybe I'll blog about it, as it's also not for the faint hearted as it costs money, runs for 2 years but should you pass you do gain a qualification that is well regarded in the museum sector.

You can call me Mr Branwell ...

Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - Core Session 6

It's early February as we reach the very last of the Core Sessions before we go totally loose on project work. In the previous weeks since the last Core Session, us Penlee House Citizen Curators have met a few times and cracked on with planning, thanks to meetings with Tehmina and Zoe, plus Katie from Penlee House itself. We have a good idea of the outcomes we'd like to deliver, although the nitty gritty is still ahead to make it happen. The next formal session will be the big finale in late April, two months from now, where one needs to be able to demonstrate the project is primed and loaded to go, even though it doesn't necessarily have to be live by that date.

Rather bizarrely, my notes from this session are not in my notebook, so goodness knows where they went. Therefore I'm relying on my rubbish memory totally for this blog post.

Project Workshop

On a blowy damp morning, we ended up for this session in the cartshed at Penlee House, which has officially the slowest cold water tap in the South-West but an impressive three kettles to ensure everyone is well watered. This session is all about the project that us Citizen Curators have to get busy with over the next two months, so therefore we started off with a little pre-enable of filling in our thoughts about everything we'd learnt from the course. I'm not good with a blank piece of paper in front of me, so had to get that brain churning via looking at my notes and the handouts from previous sessions, plus a second cup of coffee. Strangely, my sheet is also missing from my notebook but it was divided up into sections in a table form covering the main headings from the core sessions: Communications, Research, Collections etc. What came to mind for me? Unsure as the sheet has gone missing :D I'll probably be doing a conclusion post on the whole course in the early summer so I'll neatly slope my shoulders at this point and move on to the next part of the session.

A Good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

That was today's quote on the handout and also sums up the next portion of the morning that took us up to coffee and cake, or, as most other people call it, lunch. We had a double sided handout full of multiple sections to fill in, this piece of paper being our formal project plan document which needs to be submitted by the 22nd February. Although there are some 14 sections to be filled in, it's not as daunting as it sounds, especially as most groups have done a decent amount of ground work for their projects by this point. Of course, this isn't the day we have to do the project plan, but an opportunity to think about the form, get a draft copy done and have some help. Types of things to think about and cover on the form include 'communication' - what message are you telling your audience? who is your audience? What are the primary outcomes? What is unique or different about your project? what's the star object? what about feedback,? what's the Cornish connection and more. I'll not go through everything but suffice to say it's comprehensive but also a very highly useful document to help collate ones previous planning work into a formal structured plan document. Plus, it's only two sides of A4 so you aren't writing an essay here.

I thought you was doing that?

Additionally, we had a one-sided handout form that is like a tasklist, detailing the tasks you need to do to complete the project, who is doing it and by when. There's also a shopping list which isn't for your next supermarket trip but the bits and bobs you'll need for the project such as interpretation boards, flyers etc.

All in all, a very useful morning spent bringing everything together in a more formal manner and helping to ensure you've not forgotten anything or lost your focus.

Golden Tree Productions

The afternoon was taken up by a presentation and group tasks set by a representative from Golden Tree Productions, who promote Cornishness off the back of a pot of money given our way in 2014 when Cornwall became officially a national minority. All the sordid details of that framework and what it means for us Cornish was shown to us, and we got to do some group tasks to test our cornishness and thinking about what one needs to do to put a big project together, as Golden Tree did with the Cornish Tick Box Bus ... which, I don't think I'd even heard about before. Mind you, given my introverted ways, they are lucky I'd heard anything about their work thus far.

It was interesting, although a little dry perhaps. I'm not totally sure what to think, most likely because I'm totally unsure what to say about the whole Cornish topic, and I'm about as Cornish as they come! I actually kept quite quiet during this part of the day, mostly because I was a little sleepy but also because I've never really been able to convey my thoughts on the topic coherently. Certainly this blog isn't the place to start ranting on about Cornish stuff either way but as a presentation is was adequate, and as a guide to a project, it ticked a few boxes (no pun intended) although if I'm being honest, I'd had preferred more structured examples I think.

That's not quite all folks 

I'll be back with another blog post probably in May as a sort of conclusion to our project and the whole course. Until then, we've got work to do :)

Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - Core Session 5

Believe it or not, we've arrived at the final core session before things go full-on project crazy up until the end of the programme. It's a trip back to Helston's 'Museum of Cornish Life' for us in the West Cluster of Citizen Curators, where there are more objects from all aspects of life than you can imagine ... and more. So much more than you'd think, that my imagination feels quite feeble when I'm within the walls of this museum.

Before getting to the subject matter of the hour, there was a recap on our conventions (an opportunity to guess amusing responses to the clues) and reminder about our log ... ooops. I'm totally failing on that aspect but at least I have a blog and my diary to help fill in the gaps when I get round to the log :)

Interpretation and (re)Presentation

We started with a trip back to the 1970s by way of John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing' TV series; particularly episode 1, 30 minutes of which is on youtube, which we were supposed to see before the session; I totally forgot. Thanks to Christmas and New Year, up until a few days ago, I thought the next Citizen Curators session was next week so my schedule was totally mixed up! Today we watched ~ 10 minutes of the episode, which provoked different views from those of us in the room: from those finding it absorbing, right up to disinteresting. For me, it had a rather psychedelic feel, much like everything in the 70s, and being a big fan of progressive-rock (which originated in the 70s) I really like that vibe and atmosphere that you get. He provoked thinking and did things in a surreal manner at times via the camera angles. Not everyone can watch old programmes and connect with them, but being a bit of a retro fan, and enjoying the mystery he created when talking about our perceptions of art, I found it strangely soothing and absorbing. When it comes to art, I'm much a "like what I see" person and less on the finer details, yet Berger's programme did make me think much more about the art itself, and how most art is taken out of its original contextual setting and reproduced amongst other paintings in galleries. Seems early art was mostly commissioned, and only ever destined for a specific room in a specific location. The lighting and other objects/colours in the room influenced the artist, yet all that it lost in reproductions and paintings being just one of many in a gallery. And yet, by having reproductions and paintings being plastered all over the internet, it actually encourages some people to physically go see them. Then there's the grandeur nature of museums when it comes to art and by having painting hung and positioned in certain ways, people immediately will believe a painting could be more magnificent than it is. I'm reminded of many a stories I've seen when non-displayed objects have accidentally fallen on floors in museums, such as someone's glasses or a pen, and you see tourists gathered around them as they believe that fallen object is a piece of art itself. All in all, Berger's programme certainly created an interesting debate within my mind and the group itself whilst watching the programme.

Storytelling

Thereafter we moved on to how objects on display can have different stories created about them, from the more scientific life story of the object, to any new or unexpected knowledge that might have been discovered that one can tell the audience. How can we make that object more relevant to the people viewing it? I've been in plenty of museums that don't even bother to make objects interesting, and simply just give the standard 'museum label' and info. i.e. a jug. The more simpler the object, perhaps the more inventive one needs to be. A jug is a jug after all, but who handled it? What was in it? What's it made of? Where was it found? Why should anyone care about this jug? There are of course objects that are fascinating to observe even with the simplest of descriptions present, but not everyone is going to lap up an object with a mundane label next to it. How to cater for all types of audience?

Group Task - Key Messages and Calls to Action

This mini-task was all about selecting an object and thinking about what it was about that object that you want the audience to know about it, and then look at how to help the audience interact with it by way of some form of action.

In my Penlee Museum group, we concentrated on the object that forms the basis of our upcoming project: Penlee House itself. What we wanted the audience to know is that this is a house that was lived in and hadn't always been a museum/gallery; that's our key message. In terms of calls to action, we would ask things like "Can you imagine what it was like to live in this house, as a servant, as one of the family?"

Moods & Meanings

Just before the lunch break we went through the numerous ways that information about objects can be presented the audience:

• The Museum Label - Your bog-standard obligatory label next to an object that tells you what it is and, if you're lucky, a little more about it.
• Punditry - As you might think, this is less about in the museum, but more about those critical "experts" who like to tell you what they think the object says and how you should think about it.
• Personalisation - This is about bringing people into the object, much like those classic fairground displays where people put their heads through a gap in a display to make it look like they are somewhere else. Whether they get the right message about the object is debatable, but they go away with a memorable experience.
• Poetic - There's been plenty of poems written about people and objects; perhaps something with a zangy rhyme to it or thought provoking verse can cast a certain perspective and view about an object..
• Musical - Everyone likes a song - but by having music accompany an object, it can make it much more interesting and even have you tapping your feet or thinking more about it than if there was just a deathly silence.
• Humours - A witty label? Animated painting anyone? Some think this is sacrilege but if you're bored or uninterested in a painting, and it winks or smiles at you, it certain gets your attention where it wouldn't have before.

Group Task - Words and Senses

In the afternoon there was another group task where once again we chose an object (we stayed with Penlee House) and picked a "sense" out of the glove and present the object in the manner of that senses interpretation. We got "picture" whereas another group got "Music". In this task, picture literally meant picture: so no words. However, as this was more about planning than performing, the plan of course featured lots of words. We came up with numerous ideas about having a nice old map or the area on display with pointers to where modern scenes fit into the old layout and having the windows of the house filled up with enlarged photos that show a view that people might have seen in yesteryear whilst looking into the house. 

Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - Core Session 4

Introduction

In what's been a total opposite of my feelings before the last session, time has really flown by this time between sessions. Aside from being kept busy with my volunteering, I've been ploughing ahead with my first draft of my AMA CPD Plan, with the second draft deadline early January. Naturally I'm trying to factor some of the Citizen Curators course into the CPD Plan which isn't as easy as I expected. I also attended an Ethics session since my last blog post, which I have written about but not posted ... yet.

Once again, as per my previous 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 4 – Curators in the Community.

It's back to home base for me this time around, as we were situated at Penlee Art Gallery & Museum in the rather unique former cart shed outer building. Luckily there are heaters in this somewhat shell of a structure as well as the world's slowest cold water tap when it comes to filling the kettle. There were also less of us, for various reasons I didn't fully grasp, which made it somewhat cosy, especially as I was the only male this time. 

Things started off with the usual reminders - a task that is very useful for my rubbish brain function as I often need pointers to help jog the memory into action. Oh, coffee helps too, but pokes and prods really do jumpstart my brain into optimal functionality. We had a rather fun "Fill in the gaps" shout-out-the-answer task at the start to go through the Citizen Curators Values and Conventions. I could remember most of them thanks to the visual clues, of which the most important is to be an observer and to think critically. Thankfully for me, those conventions come naturally; I'm never afraid to ruffle feathers.

Thinking ahead to the upcoming group project, we were reminded to think a little about any training requirements one might require, who our digital colleague is (of which none of us were familiar with the Penlee one) and to arrange a meeting with Tehmina to go through the first high level project plan; this we have scheduled for next week.

There was an opportunity to do some verbal reflections of experiences since the last session. Naturally I drew a total blank in my brain; recall being a very weak component of my brain structure. Thankfully there were other people with much better memories than me, and we nattered about their thoughts on troubles in a local Cornish music group and their participation in the 'Empowering Women in Cornwall' Facebook group. It's always interesting to hear others views and thoughts on issues and how they've made some sense of those experiences.

This session, as with all sessions, has a quotation based around the session's theme, with this week's being connecting with communities and the social and economic barriers as well as preconceptions of museums. The cost of entry to museums is a barrier to many with the cost varying quite wildly. Solutions, such as free days or free entry with an emphasis on donations, is one way to get people in. We discussed how single-parents and unprivileged might find it harder to visit, not least the logistics but also costs: family tickets are usually for the classic 2.4 children families. We also talked about more staff training for dealing with disabilities, so they can recognise not just the obvious visual disabilities visitors might have but the unseen ones. Personally, I find staff are often trained but when it comes to putting things into practise, it's almost as if they never had the training. Perhaps more real-world training or on-going training is needed because there's nothing like real practise to really help people learn.

Diversity

Diversity was heavily brought up. One needs to create as many ways in to museums as possible and remove obstacles. It's not just the obvious here either such as the workforce and governance, but diversity is needed across many areas. What types of collection are on display? Do they represent the audience? Who visits? Just schools? Or are there just exhibitions? One needs to look at profiling the groups who visit and finding out who they are and then working out who isn't visiting. One needs to think 'Beyond the legal' - for example, transport isn't a protected characteristic in law, but can museums help provide transport for certain groups who aren't able to visit?

Cornwall

We had a discussion on Cornish recognition, of which I am a born and bred Cornishman. No no no, it wasn't a discussion about me but our minority status, much like the Welsh, for we have our own distinctiveness in customs, traditions and sports etc. Most of our museums are highly kitted out for tourism, especially as 70% of visits are by tourists but what about the locals? Most museums closed out of season. There's also a lot of deprived areas in our county. Is enough done to help the locals by museums? There are special reductions and/or passes for locals at some museums, but do enough know about it?

Knowing your museum's communities

There are numerous ways to find out about who visits your museum, from the obvious forms of physical and online surveys, to playing more attention to comments left in visitor books and comment cards. Some places are better than others at reading those and making any actions based on the feedback they get. Talking to people and finding out why they don't visit, watching and observing those who do visit, looking at TripAdvisor and Google reviews - all various ways of getting data. I myself have been looking at the Google Analytics of where I volunteer's website. There's a wealth of information there. Perhaps too much information but it can tell you how many visits you get, what days/hours, what pages are being visited, for how long, if people return to visit your site and demographics. I did report back on the information I obtained from the analytics, which did make for interesting listening although I am still unsure what difference that data made to anyone's general thoughts.

Access

We looked at access to museums which includes physical issues but also the more invisible ones such as dyslexia and most mental health illnesses. Surprisingly, 1 in 5 museum websites don't provide access information, which, along with how to get to somewhere, you'd think would be right up there with the obvious things to provide information about. This led into the afternoon's group task, in which our group looked at a specific area of the museum and the kinds of included and excluded groups that area catered for. Homing in on Gallery 5 of Penlee Museum, which is upstairs and a reasonable large room, it clearly caters for art lovers, especially those who loved local art, as that's the primary function of that gallery. There was also work from local adults and children. Who did it not cater for? Well, we didn't think there were a lot of options for parents who work the standard 9-5 job to get access into the museum, the lift had a weight limit and excluded those confined to mobility scooters. The solution to these problems were not easily solvable with the latter already having been looked at by the museum and would require extensive work. As for the former issue, we figured a series of after closing time events, for children, parents, or the elderly would help to fill in some gaps for excluded audiences.

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. :)

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/

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.   

Conversing about 'Citizen Curators' - Core Session 1

A brief introduction about Citizen Curators

Citizen Curators is a work-based training programme in museum awareness and modern curatorial practice. Yes, I copy/pasted that sentence. The course is free, as in it costs zilch ... nothing ... diddly squat ... nowt ... I think you get the point. Anyone who is interested can apply for a place, of which I did just that, obtaining a slot at Penlee House Museum & Gallery along with four other volunteers. If you missed out this year, it will be running again for the next two years, so keep your eyes peeled.

I should get the official housekeeping out of the way first by saying that the programme is organised by Cornwall Museums Partnership, is funded for three years by the Esmee Fairbairn Collections Fund, and the programme leader is Dr. Tehmina Goskar, Director of Curators Institute. This year's course runs from September 2018 to April 2019.

The first session took place Friday 28th September 2018 at Penlee where we were joined by fellow volunteers from two of the other museums locally that are taking part in Citizen Curators, which is the Telegraph Museum Porthcurno and Falmouth Art Gallery.

More information about the Citizen Curators course can be found here https://www.penleehouse.org.uk/assets/file/Citizen%20Curators%20Information%20for%20Participants.docx

I thought I'd write this blog post for two reasons: I wanted to help others thinking of joining in future years get some insight into the course ... and also for myself to help get my musings and thoughts written down.

Disclaimer: all views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and do not represent the opinions of any organization, committee or other group or individual.

Basically, I wrote this myself and it's my thoughts, and I really hope it doesn't upset anyone, because that's not the aim.

Lastly, I've not covered everything from the day because, well, this is just my thoughts, not a study guide, plus, I don't have time to go super verbose.

Core Session 1

The emphasis today was on 'Curators & Collections': two topics that most of us should have some sort of insight into, no matter what level of experience we have thus far in the museum sector.

Incidentally, if you're like me and feel compulsively like you have to write down everything that is "lectured" at you, don't worry. Everything is available on hand-outs and/or will be emailed to you. That being said, I did jot down a few notes of how things flowed as, with a memory like mine, I'd be clueless to what I was thinking a few weeks later.

The emphasis for teaching on the course isn't to lecture us anyways, but to provoke your mind into thinking and invoking future discussion.

What do we have museums?

This was the first question asked to the group. It felt very much like a trick question in some respects, so naturally there was no way I was going to speak out with an answer :D As it happens, the group gradually sprung into life around me and offered up thoughts on the matter. We had an impromptu conversation about how collections were traditionally in the private care of the rich, that museums have a responsibility over ownership of objects and were somewhat custodians of cultures.

Admittedly, the history of museums wasn't a train of thought I'd initially picked up on when the question was asked, but nevertheless it's a curious one. Thinking back, I guess museums were a little like the country estates and manors we visit now, with all the wacky and expensive objects nationally and internationally hoarded within the wealthy person's building. It's somewhat amusing then that there are plenty of private houses and National Trust places (for example) we still visit now that have objects the former inhabitants paid big money for in the past, or just took on their travels. I guess there are modern museums in more modern buildings too whose initial collections might well have come from former wealthy private collectors.

There is however an answer to the question. Well, there's at least a "best-stab" answer at it for explaining what museums are about at this current point of time as things are evolving (which we talked about and will get brought up in later sessions I'm sure). The actual definition one could use to explain what a museum is was given by the Museum Association, although I see that was defined in 1998, which is 20 years ago! Given how much cultural and political changes there have been in the last twenty years, you'd think it might be time for an update?

You can read the "official" museum definition here, along with some other interesting facts about museums https://www.museumsassociation.org/about/frequently-asked-questions

Also covered under this question was the Museum Association's Code of Ethics, which I've read twice in the last three months as part of background reading for my AMA (another museum self-development course), but I'll be darned if I can remember anything specific in it now. My memory is so bad! What I do recall though is that I agreed with pretty much all of the ethical points in it, as if it was written from my heart. I also remember that I thought, in many respects, that it was all a common sense approach to museums if one wants to live in a respectful, caring and kind society. It's well worth a read. It's not full of jargon and is easy to digest. See https://www.museumsassociation.org/ethics/code-of-ethics

Lastly, mission statements. No, not "To Boldly go where no man has gone before" like James T Kirk said, but somewhat similar. Every museum will have a mission statement which defines exactly what they are all about. What is their grand vision in a nutshell? What exactly do they exist for and strive to do? It's well worth a look, because what you think a particular museum might be there for, might not be exactly what you thought ... or it might be spot on. Either way, it's worth knowing about.

Penlee's can be found here under their forward plan https://www.penleehouse.org.uk/about-penlee/policy-documents

What does a curator do?

We all wonder about this sometimes regarding our own jobs: "What is it I do exactly?" Given there was a curator in the room, actually two at the time, hopefully they weren't wondering what the answers would be too ;)

The answers given by members of the group included: conceive an idea/interpret, see what community wants, care and organise for the collection, marketing, collecting, research, accountability, accesses other agencies, finds out latest conservation techniques.

In smaller museums I'm pretty sure that a curator does all of the above and probably even hoovers the floor and makes cakes for everyone. In that, I mean, they probably have to do their fair share of other jobs to help keep the museum churning along. The question being asked here was more about the curator side of things alone, rather than other strings and bows that might be needed in certain other scenarios. For me, caring was the key point. I think if you care about what you're doing, no matter what the job really, you are set up well for whatever it is that's expected of you. Coming from the outside I guess I see it in a rather simple way: curators look after collections. If you are going to look after them, it's really best if you care about them. If you care about them, then you want the best for them, which brings you into all the other aspects previously mentioned, in that you want people to see them, you want to look after them, you want people interested in them, and you want people to know that you are looking after them for the community.

For the purposes of the Citizen Curators course, we're following Tehmina's model of what a curator is which is 50% creator and 50% communicator. Both sides fill me with a little dread :D I don't feel creative, although I will guess that creativity comes in various disguises, plus, this course is designed to get us thinking creatively, so hopefully I'll pick tips up and experience as we go along. Strangely, I don't mind the communication side much, even given my rather introverted nature, because I like a good chat and I also like getting people interested in something, so I look forward to that.

Bad curator versus Good curator

The first group task proper was for our groups to get together and draw up a list of what we think makes a good curator and what makes a bad curator. I failed to make any notes of this at the time so can't really say too much, although some of this was along the lines of 'saying the obvious'. I remember I had an easier time with the bad side of the list, although the simpler way to do any good/bad list is to do one side of the list and then just write the opposite on the other side :D

Anyhow, my first thoughts were in the negative which was that a curator should not push their own personal opinions of judgements onto others: namely what you say about objects. My best example was saying that someone who wore some clothes that are on display was a horrible or disgusting person, purely because you didn't like the way they dressed or looked etc. Non-judgemental would be a good way of saying how I feel a curator should be.

I also brought up a topic that got mentioned a few times again during the course of the day with my suggestion that a bad curator might put a jug on display and simply place a label next to it which says "A Jug". This says nothing but the obvious about the object, nor does it really create much of a reason for anyone to get excited about it, unless it's bright pink jug perhaps with unicorns and reflective stars all over :D

We do we have museum collections?

The lead in to the afternoon session saw us touch upon the topic of museum collections specifically.

This was discussed using the triangular model of museum at the bottom, with Collection, Knowledge and Power layers on top. It seems to all come down to power from the knowledge and what we do with that power. Personally I didn't really like the word "power" especially given we was previously talking about the history of museums and chatting about how lots of museums have objects from other countries that they "acquired" questionably. "Power" reminds me of the British Empire, and pushing oneself about saying that they are right and everyone else is wrong. I guess with power, comes responsibility. Oh that's a good sentence. Don't think we've heard that before? Ok, so spiderman movie beat me to it! :) But it's true. It's one thing having power but what do you do with it? Make it serve your own needs and desires, or use it for the better good of everyone? Naturally, the sensible answer, and the one for museums is the latter option.

Do you see what I see?

The afternoon session focused heavily on the group task, where we were all gathered around a table full of various dissimilar objects (I'm not going to reveal what they all were - secret!) and had to pick between 2-5 of them before coming up with a story about those objects, be it fact or fiction (we went for a combination in our group). You also had to decide if you wanted to read out the story, act it (I was pushing for miming ... lol), or even as a poem (which I also was keen on, but time was short). There was also a collection of tools for looking at objects, from the traditional Sherlock Holmes magnifying glasses, to funky UV light, and my personal favourite (every home or museum should have one) a loupe. Basically, it's a really small magnifying glass that you hold up to your eye, much like you'd see watchmakers in the past using them. In fact, I am going to have to recommend this for where I volunteer. There were a few other tools but I don't want to spoil the surprise, and plus, I'm not 100% sure from memory what they were now :)

The group I was in ended up picking up a b/w postcard of Penzance, a blue/white striped teapot and a wartime cookbook. Given fiction was an option for the story we could tell, we came up with all sorts of wacky but plausible ideas, all centred around a little girl in the forefront of the postcard despite the fact she wasn't even looking at the camera. With me Googling for factual tit-bits about the four objects, we devised a loose story about how the girl in the photo married the person who manufactured the jug and then in later life wrote the cookbook. That was the story in the nutshell, but it was artistically told by a member of our group like something out of Jackanory as the story was padded with all sorts of extra believable but totally untrue antidotes, as well as numerous actual facts that I'd found out about the objects. It was a masterclass in storytelling if I don't say so myself.

Some groups kept simply to facts that they'd researched about the objects, where others adlib a little fiction (or should I say, plausible explanations) as to what the objects might be and how they were related to each other. I'd say the group I was in gave the most fiction, as we'd a whole story for the three objects.

It was clear to me though that there are numerous ways to spin a story, or, in this case, more than one way to tell the story of an object. Obviously no one here is suggesting curators just totally make up everything about an object, but, there's no harm in adding substance or plausible backgrounds to help flesh objects out and help make them more relevant to visitors and provoke questions. When you've got a relatively "mundane" or "mass-produced" object in a collection, what makes the object instantly more interesting is a story, or in the museum world, you can say, its providence. Who has touched this object? Where has it been? Who owned it? This information can be equally as interesting as the most static details, such as when it was created, who made it, and it's dimensions. If you have a collection of multiple objects, the story can become even more important for connecting the dots together and instantly making objects, that might previously seem dissimilar, more cohesively interesting.

Stay tuned for more blog posts - hopefully! If not, pester me for more :D