Another ladder at @wellcomecollection, this time in the #StatesOfMind exhibition (before the mist is added).

Photo by Russell Dornan

#MuseumLadders is a thing now.

Head on over to @MuseumLadders on Twitter to submit yours.

Dear Future Chief Curiosity Correspondents of the World:

Yesterday I gave a short presentation in front of the presidents and leaders of 12 of the top natural history museums in the world, including such reputable institutions as the Smithsonian NMNH, the NHM in London, Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin, the Royal Ontario Museum. Et cetera. The Field is hosting these leaders in an effort to strengthen our global partnerships, to facilitate dialogue around the problems we face, and to help us create a shared vision for the future.

It was my wholehearted suggestion that one of the most effective ways to share the stories of such institutions and their collections is through the role of a Chief Curiosity Correspondent, of which there is, so far, only one. (Me.) This is not just someone in marketing or public relations, not exclusively a person who is a social media strategist, nor solely a science writer. These are people who are Professionally Curious and Enthusiastic, they are storytellers, teachers and learners with a passion for questioning everything and pursuing answers relentlessly. Give them a camera, an editor, access to your scientists and specimens and let them go.

It’s also come to my attention that one of the biggest roadblocks to employing a Chief Curiosity Correspondent is simply a lack of where to begin looking, so I’ve come up with a very preliminary list of who I think would be great for a museum in which they’re already familiar. Full disclosure: I haven’t told these people I am electing them to be future Chief Curiosity Correspondents of the World, nor am I sure they’d accept the position, but if I had my way these are the sorts of folks I’d sure want to spend time with at an annual CCC of the World conference. This list is also very North America-centric, I know.

I want your suggestions!  Who would you like to see join the ranks of future Chief Curiosity Correspondents? You?

What an awesome idea and some great people nominated!

This has reminded me that now I’ve settled in at my new job, I need to up my energy when it comes to being CURIOUS about the NHM. It’s easy to get bogged down in day to day tasks and disheartened by a lack of access to the things you find fascinating, but I intend to remember why I wanted to work there so badly, and let the curiosity break through!

What’s wrong with this picture?

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this picture: assumption.

This picture has gone viral as thousands of people deliver searing indictments of both smartphones and teens.

I’ve met a couple of teens. I’ve had a couple smartphones. Could these teens be playing Angry Birds or texting stupid jokes to each other? Yeah, they could.

But they could also be googling provenance for that painting or taking a second to text a friend about how amazing the museum is or completing an assignment given off-screen by someone standing just beside the photographer. They could be taking notes about the palette choice so that later they turn into a generation of artists that take your breath away.

What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, until proven otherwise. Welcome to 2014.

Yup - I spent yesterday in London. In 4 various museums we used our phones and iPads to:

I would have added updates online while in the BL Terror and Wonder exhibition, but respected their policy about photography. I would have looked up more details about Seti I’s sarcophagus (the room attendant was busy with a group, in a spirited chat about Soane’s intentions) at Soane’s House, but again, respected their no phones at all policy. 

We increasingly rely on our blocks of technology. For the generation who has grown up with them, smart phones etc are a part of life, and rather than just being a source of diversion, are also the key way to gather data, share experiences, record reactions and impressions, and interact with the world around them in an enhanced way.

That said: French students, camera phones, selfies, museums. No. Just no. Localised EMPs, that’s what’s needed. 

While I could not disagree more with the final (bolded) sentence of this post, what's above it is worth noting.

A few weeks ago in the Daily Telegraph, Oliver Smith wrote a list of 21 reasons why he hates museums. It is of a course a very subjective list (“You only go because you’ve been told to go” (no.1)… who is bossing Mr. Smith around? “The artefacts are boring”, “Sometimes the work is modern”) and in some places contradictory (“The atmosphere is funereal” (no. 6) and “Screaming children” (no.9) or “Nothing fun for adults” (no. 11) and “Museum Selfie Day” (no. 16)). His problem isn’t with British museums either, it’s with all museums.

Full disclosure: I love museums, this will not be a balanced post. I read articles like this, or hear exactly the same thing from people about why they don’t like or don’t visit museums and it kind of deflates me. Museums are doing great – they have expanded their audiences and continue to do so, they try and tread the line between appealing to lots of different people (yes, that means children too!) and in Britain all that history, art, innovation, fun, heritage, information (etc., etc.) is for the large part completely free. And I don’t feel that the fact that they receive £40m in taxpayers’ money (his figure) does make the “boasts about free entry ring hollow” (no. 13), given that the economic benefits of the UK’s major museums is estimated to be £1.5bn (turnover and visitor expenditure) and that they spend £650m per year (figures from the National Museum Director’s Council).

Museums have changed, but it seems Oliver Smith hasn’t been to one in a while. His examples are almost exclusively foreign (the Vatican Museums are presumably mentioned as one of Dante’s circles of Hell, they are an extreme example), but he is a travel writer, so I would expect him to be more intrepid - seeking out the hidden gems, the rough diamonds. The most exciting and innovative museums aren’t always the most famous and on the tourist track. It speaks for museums that there’s always a couple in the ‘top ten must see’ of any guidebook, it says a lot about the traveller too if they go to those places and don’t expect everyone else to have read the same book.

Museums: Love them or hate them, just have a good reason

Oliver Smith has even put together a slide show of “The World’s most Boring Museums”. Either he’s incredibly dedicated to his campaign against museums, or… or… he hasn’t actually visited the museums he lists and has just gone ahead and assumed that because he doesn’t find quilt-making, pencils, soap etc. has the potential to be interesting, then neither will anyone else. One entry on the list isn’t even a museum, and one he admits is very well received on Trip Adviser.

Despite thinking that his list has left me feeling a bit sad about how museums are perceived, the more I write the angrier I find myself getting, wanting to pick apart all of his assumptions and defend my beloved museums. But I don’t have to. Because Claire Haywood did it for all of us. She didn’t get angry, she didn’t nitpick. She prefaced her list of “21 Reasons why Museums are Great” with:

She addresses some of his bugbears directly: Museum Selfies and why she thinks it’s a good idea (no. 8), or why pencil museums might have more about them than just looking at pencils (no. 4), or museum lates, exclusively for adults and very interactive (no.6). She uses the examples of smaller community museums or local museums to drive home their importance in inclusion, cohesion, belonging, rather than as places for the passive cosumption of ‘high culture’ (nos. 1,14, 20).

So, thank you Claire Haywood. I hope your reasoned and passionate defence of museums wasn’t just read by people like me who love museums anyway and cheered your reply, I hope people read it and were inspired to give museums another chance, to take their children, to get involved. I say the more the merrier.

I’ll certainly miss the views…

Almost three years after I joined, today is my last day at Royal Museums Greenwich. I’ve done a million things in my time there, so there had to be something of use for my blog. Yesterday I got talking to our volunteer, she’s studying for her MA and looking to...

Some great tips for anyone looking to work with digital + museums.

There is absolutely no way to determine a species’ identification without collecting a specimen. Our technology is just not that sophisticated; there is a major misconception there that we’ve all got portable, fully-efficient laboratories and equipment that can be hauled into the field, readily available and accessible. We don’t. Nobody does. And there’s absolutely no way to ensure an area will be conserved if it is not determined beforehand and established firmly that there are species in that area which warrant conservation. In order to do that, legislation requires that biologists prove the inherent value of biodiversity in said area. And they aren’t going to set aside acres and hectares of land for conservation on the basis of someone’s field photograph and a vague assumption that there might be a species of concern in that area. That just isn’t how it works.

This is the importance of communicating science so we don’t have a majority that look at stories like this and jump to the conclusion that curators and researchers are maniacally out in the field, blood-thirsty and without regard towards conservation. That’s just not what museums do. In fact, it’s completely against our mission. 

This is also why I felt the need to make our latest video: Where’d you get all those dead animals?

Oh, that raccoon.  Always up to no good. 

I receive quite a bit of anonymous criticism for using this specimen in the way we do - putting antlers on him, moving him around on a snare drum, using him in a time lapse.  Our handling of this particular object tends to make some uncomfortable, which I can understand.  After all, it is a museum specimen, and most understand the incalculable value we place on museum artifacts. I mean, it’s in a museum. 

I don’t know if these people want me to defend myself, or stop what I’m doing, or just admit that I’m a terrible person and how dare I?  The way I see this specimen - this one, specifically - it has no data, no lineage.  We don’t know where it came from, or when.  It’s not even put together well; his eyes are rocks.  Literally, he has rocks in his eyes.  Perhaps that adds to his value, perhaps I’m not treating him with the reverence he needs — but we have an entire collection of teaching specimens that can be handled as such, and he belongs to that. How much we value an item is an amount we assign to it.  After this series is over his value increases from a space-waster living behind a cabinet to the token raccoon of The Brain Scoop.  Worthy of living his days out on display, even.  

I see his sacrifice - if that’s what you want to call it - part of our message to raise awareness about natural history museums and zoological collections.  Personally, I am way more upset that we have 3,200 flammable specimens stored in an electrical room and no one is sending me inflammatory messages about that, nobody is demanding I move those fish today, or how dare I live with myself knowing they remain in such instability?  These are specimens that I know are over 100 years old; we know where and when they came from, and who collected them.  We have journals about them, publications citing them.  I’m not saying what we do with the raccoon is ‘okay’ because some will always be against us on this, and that’s fine.  But the way I see it, if I need to use one ratty raccoon as part of my mission to create a collective invested interest in preserving a greater collection, then I’m going to do it. 

An oldie but a goodie from @thebrainscoop.

so my friends and I went to the Royal Ontario Museum last weekend…

Incredibly accurate recreations of ancient Greek statues.

Thanks for visiting!

OH MY GOD THE DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE PUT CHRISTMAS HATS ON SOME OF THEIR DINOSAUR EXHIBITS JUST

LOOK AT THAT

WELL HEY THERE LITTLE GUY

IT’S A PARTY

TIS THE SEASON

It’s that time of year again…

Students are leaving campus for the holidays, and the Museum staff doesn’t know what to do with all their new-found free time…

So we decided to make the museum a bit more…festive!

HOLIDAY HATS FOR ALL THE SPECIMENS!!!

Today was a hard day for a lot of people on this planet, and I’m bad at talking about feelings, but this made me feel better so I hope it helps you, too.  

The barnacles are my favourite.

I wish we were allowed to Santa Hat the Walrus.

“The Tomorrow People: Entry to the museum workforce“ - Maurice Davies, 2007 (via museumsandstuff)

I am terrified that this will be me. The 'months before finding a second post' part.

Of the people who did my MA, I only know of one who, by a huge stroke of luck, has actually 'progressed' a significant amount in the sector in a year. Most are like me - voluntary work, and one entry-level job, which is excellent no matter what it is because hey, at least it's in museums. Two, that I know of (there were only 24 on the course) have already given up because with their qualifications they can step into another sector easily and immediately earn about 3 times as much money.

Museums: prepare to need more qualifications, have more responsibilities and work harder than any other sector, and get paid less than the cost of living.

Museum Mondays

So what if it’s Monday? Instead of Manic Monday or Blue Monday, why not start the week with a little museum nerdiness. From here on out, let’s celebrate Museum Mondays. That said, I’m going to kick off this series with the International Council of Museums’s definition of a museum. And guess what? Apparently, there are at least 55,000 museums in the world! This includes all types — ranging from nonprofit arts organizations to natural history museums as well as historic sites and zoos. I love museums because of their potential for discovery. Why do YOU love museums? What do you like about them? Which museum do you visit the most and what for?

Museum Mondays! I need this to be a thing.

Moving away from the “priestly voice of absolute authority” in art museums to providing more context and and information that encourages people to respond in their own way. 

Interesting article via artnews.com. 

At the Oakland Museum, executive director Lori Fogarty acknowledges that team-based interpretive practices “put the curator more in the role of a kind of moderator rather than a sole author. Curators are experts in their fields, and in an art museum the curator typically develops an entire project. That’s a lot of authority and control to let go of.”

Yes. Yes. A hundred times YES.

Excellent article dealing with the knowledge/audience dynamic.