Behind the scenes

You may think it’s always hot and sunny here in California, but two weeks into my staff exchange at the John Muir National Historic Site (JMNHS) here in Martinez, and I’ve seen every kind of weather so far!

The idea of running staff exchanges between the Birthplace and John Muir’s family home in Martinez was first discussed as far back as 2004. Dunbar and Martinez were ‘twinned’ several years earlier and visits from Dunbar Grammar School pupils have already taken place. It was thought therefore that through our staff exchanges we could build on the existing good relationship between our two towns, not to mention the benefit for both sides to be had from an exchange of ideas and for personal development.

I have been living in Martinez now for over two weeks and feel I’m now settling into the routine. Group visits, school parties, shop sales, team meetings and, most importantly, assisting visitors - one of the main things I’ve learned so far is that working at the front line in the museum sector/heritage industry is basically the same everywhere. Mastering the till in foreign currency (with tax) and getting used to driving an automatic on occasion on the ‘wrong’ side of the road has probably taken a little longer! The site is an oasis in the middle of town and perfect not only for discovering more about our famous son, but for environmental education, picnics, events, or simple ’sauntering’.

Last Saturday (21st April) was an important day here, being Birthday/Earth Day. What has now become a traditional celebration of John Muir’s birthday, organised by the local John Muir Association, with many of his own family present, was linked with the wider ‘environmental’ event. 52 stalls, tours, a fun run, music, food, speeches, pipers and over 1650  visitors later, all agreed that the day had been a success. Moreover, the rain held off until the late afternoon!

Summer is now on the way at last and the temperatures are rising with lots of sunshine. As well as working at JMNHS, I have enjoyed one or two ‘familiarisation’ visits to other Park sites in the area. American playwright Eugene O’Neill’s beautiful Tao House by Danville, the Rosie the Riveter site at Richmond, and a day’s visit to Point Reyes National Park have all been highlights.  

Both staff and volunteers here at JMNHS have been so welcoming and patient with a ‘foreigner’ in their midst, not to mention one member of staff allowing me the use of her home while, coincidentally, she is visiting Scotland. Hopefully we will be able to reciprocate the hospitality in the not too distant future.

Documenting the collections - what is that exactly? At its simplest it just means recording all the information we have about each object we have in the museums collection. It is this information - from the name and type of the object, its size and the material it’s made from to the stories, the people and the places associated with it - which is essential in undertanding the object; in relating the stories we can tell with it; and in making the connections between our own objects, things elsewhere and the lives and interests of our visitors (both physical and online). Without the documentation the objects are mute - they do not speak for themselves (except to those experts who already carry some of this information around in their heads anyway). So I’m pleased that we have been awarded a grant from the Scottish Museums Council to support the establishment of a Collections Officer post to work on the documentation and conservation of our collections.

But (there’s always a ‘but’) what sort of information is this? It often tends to be technical, and to use obscure professional terms whose meaning would not be obvious to the non-expert. Since we are planning to put our collections information online (and to connect information about collections with the Site and Monuments Record and the records of the East Lothian Archives) the question is: will visitor be able to find stuff that they are looking for, that is in our collections, if they don’t know the terms we have used to describe them? Probably not, unless by complete chance. If that’s the case, what can we do about it?

Yesterday I went to a really interesting presentation yesterday on tagging as a means of facilitating resource discovery (or, in English, helping searchers find stuff). Tagging means adding individual words or short phrases that describe, or relate to the record being tagged. For example, you might tag a photograph of a fishing boat with the tags ‘boat’, ‘photograph’ and ‘fishing’. But you might also use other terms (perhaps the boat’s name, or names of crew or owners, or other terms relating to fishing). In the end you have a list of words and phrases that relate to the photograph. The fun bit for visitors searching for stuff on your site comes when they can search on one of these tags (maybe by clicking on it in a list on screen) and bring up all the other items tagged with the same word or phrase. Searching (and finding) becomes simpler - once you’ve found one item, you can easily find more items of the same sort, or related to the thing you’ve found.

But the really fun thing is when you allow visitors to the site to add their own tags to collection items that they find while searching. This helps future visitors find what they are looking for more easily. It got me thinking about how we might do this for our own collections, both adding in our own tags and allowing visitors to contribute - helping searchers, and helping us to understand how our visitors categorise and think about our collections. It turns the documentation of the collections from an internal professional process into a wide scale ongoing collaborative process. The ‘our’ in ‘our collections’ is no longer just us curators, but expands to potentially include all of us.

So if anyone reading this ends up applying for our Collections Officer post, you now know why you’ve got a little extra job to do…

I’ve just attended a workshop on museums and blogging by the three guys from the Walker Art Cente - a follow on from a similar session last year. It was amazing to see how the traffic generated by the Walker blogs has boomed since then, and a confirmation that producing content of this sort is a worthwhile because there is an audience out there for it. Once again there were useful tips, although as ever there were things we’ve already done or are in the planning stage (though with Bebo.com in our case, as that is what teenagers in East Lothian predominantly favour at the moment). Even this is heartening as it is in a sense getting some external validation of how we are planning (and encouraging others) to proceed.

Now I’m off to ponder the idea of Facebook, Bebo et al. as virtual street corners - as teenagers increasingly tend to get moved on by the police from the physical street corners which have been their territory since time immemorial.

I think I’ve finally stopped fiddling with my presentation for Museums and the Web 2007. Of course, one of the disadvantages of computers for the perfectionist-inclined obsessive re-writer is the ease with which you can endlessly tinker with your text / presentation / layout. In the end you are making changes that probably no-one else would ever notice, that in all likelihood make no difference to the impact (or lack thereof) of your end product. It’s also a danger that by focusing on the detail you can lose sight of the overall shape of your paper or presentation. Those of us old enough (as I am, alas) to remember the years B.C. (Before Computers) will recall those heady days of paste and typewriters, where making changes was such a pain you quickly reached the stage of “Dammit, it’s good enough.”

Anyway, it is done. Fingers crossed. I just need to pack my suitcase, decide which books I’m going to take, and make sure I’ve printed up all the paperwork I need.

Actually, it turns out I haven’t stopped fiddling - I’ve just thought of a small change I’d like to make…