Behind the scenes

 It’s a very handling objects themed blog today. Hence the gloves. By that, I mean that I’ve been considering the importance of letting our visitors access our handling collection. 

 Plans for the John Gray Centre are rolling on. For those of you who don’t know, the JGC will be a new museum, library, archives and local history centre in the centre of Haddington.

 At the moment Studioarc, who are designing the museum part, have asked us to come up with more detail about what should actually go in the museum. We’re down to details such as the objects that will go with each display. More bizarrely they’ve asked me to come up with different smells relating to fishing. Any suggestions? It’s part of a multi-sensory display where people will be able to smell and feel what it’s like to be a fisherman. Lovely!!

We had a talk by Bobby Anderson, ELC Countryside Ranger, at Prestongrange Museum on Friday 15th May. The original idea for the event, called Creatures of the Night, was to have a walk outside but of course, that day it was heavy rain and strong winds so all the creatures, including ourselves, were in hiding. Instead he brought lots of stuffed animals and animal props into the Visitor Centre. One visitor got a fright when he produced a live mouse! It was amazing seeing things like a bat up close, and really made me think about the importance of presenting people with objects that they don’t normally get to see. On the other side of this, I was recently at Deep Sea World and got to touch a starfish. Do you know they are hard?! I really wasn’t expecting that! Any suggestions about things you all want to touch in the JGC are therefore most welcome!! Leave your comments as usual.

Finally, some of our wonderful volunteers are assisting with the improvement of our handling collection. Ken is writing up information to go out with our loan boxes so that those borrowing them know a little about the history of the topic. Jenny will be joining us over the summer to help whip our loan boxes back into shape and Catherine is working to develop and extend our costume collection. To quote our Prestongrange Museum Assistant Julie Anne; “Exciting times!”.

That’s it from me for the time-being. Now get out there and touch some museum objects (only those that you’re allowed to, of course).