The National Museums and National Library are on Twitter and seem to talk about events and activities – would this be welcome from us too? Or would it be good to have a combination of the blog and FB as well, so events, activities and general thoughts, ideas, things we love, things that inspire us and things we want to do? What do you think? Do any of you Tweet and can I ask, without seeming too indelicate, how is it for you?!

 First of all, I’ve pleased to announce we made the ’50 awesome art museum blogs’!! We are in the ‘international’ category.

I also just came across the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove blog. It has such a pretty banner! They are similar to us in that volunteers and staff post online and that they are part of a Council too.

 For those interested in social networking things and museums, you might be interested in the ‘Ask a Curator’ day on 1st September. We’ve registered to take part. It’s basically a day you set aside for answering questions online. Sounds fun!

 One thing we missed out on which sounded like a challenge was the ‘Life in a Day’ project. It was a worldwide project to capture user generated content – basically make a documentary about your life on 24th July. Did anyone take part? I’ll need to put it in the diary for next year.

 And finally, for those of you in Scotland, you might have heard of the NEoN festival taking place in Dundee. It’s a digital arts festival, but this year they are focusing a debate on technology and museums. It’ll be looking at the newly refurbished McManus Galleries, which uses lots of great technology. They had a really good write up recently in the Museums Journal.

Please do share what lovely things you’ve found online recently!

The Heritage Resource Development Officer will research, plan, write and create a range of integrated digital materials to encourage public access to the museum, archive and local history collections, to support learning, understanding and pleasure and to facilitate exploration of the collections and resource discovery; to produce the materials to agreed published standards; and to work with colleagues to ensure that the information provided in the materials meets the needs of users.

The John Gray Centre Development Officer will encourage use of the John Gray Centre resources through a proactive programme of outreach and community development activity. To develop and co-ordinate the programme of activity in line with the priorities and objectives detailed in the John Gray Centre Project business plan. To network with local groups, organisations and Council staff to maximise the impact and benefits of the John Gray Centre Project for a wide range of users.

The other point in my mentioning this in the blog is to share with you all the strange combination of excitment and panic that advertising these jobs gives me! Just over a year to go… gulp.

Thump, thump, thump. Hmm, what’s the noise coming from this box, I asked Bobby the Ranger. Oh that’s a few live mice I caught earlier to show people tonight. Eeek. We have (unfortunately) had mice at our museum before, but never carried through the front door in a plush box! For Museums at Night this year, Bobby Anderson, our local Countryside Ranger, took visitors on a night-time walk around the grounds of Prestongrange.

 Before we set off, Bobby had great photographs, skeletons and stuffed versions of animals so people could get up close to animals like the fox, badger and bat. Outdoors, we set up some moth traps and began to use a grey box with a black dial on it: “That beeps and tells you when there is a bat close by”, our youngest participant, aged 5, was able to tell us! Our group of explorers then set off with their torches around the site as Bobby showed us how to find different wildlife and creatures in the dark. I managed to see three moths and two bats. Although that doesn’t sound like much, people were caught up in the whole experience and gave really positive feedback. Many said that now they knew how to spot nocturnal animals, they would start looking in their own neighbourhoods. 

 My favourite facts I learned? Badgers eat peanuts; bats have the same route they travel round so if you see one, stand in the same place it should come back again within about 5 minutes and finally; adults get just as excited as children about seeing live mice in a museum.

This post also features on the official Museums at Night Blog!

As with many museums, we don’t have a huge (or even small) publicity budget so I work away at different channels trying to get the word out in different ways. For our recent part-funded Show Scotland event, the Art of Production, we had 1500 leaflets and 150 posters around the local area, we had an advert in the Evening Times and articles in both local newspapers. I also went on East Coast FM, East Lothian’s local radio station. It was good fun, but I’ll never make it as a DJ, I kept forgetting the names of the songs I’d just requested! Julie Anne at Prestongrange also slaves away in front of the computer screen putting our events on as many websites as possible, many with great names…Remote Goat, anyone? We also try to keep our own websites up to date with details of our upcoming events to try and tempt people along.

We also put up stunning handmade banners and signs on the roadside, ala this photograph. I’m also building up our email list at Prestongrange so we can email people directly to remind them about our upcoming events. It’s difficult though because people who come to our events always, always say “Oh you didn’t advertise this very well, I only found out about it through ____”. What should we do? Answers on a postcard please…

Getting in with the BBC is one way to ensure you get publicity. I was on the Fred MacAuley show on Friday talking about our Relic:Guardians of the Museum event. If you’ve got a chance to get involved with the BBC’s A History of the World and do your own Relic trail, then do so! It is basically a trail sheet, using about 5 objects around the museum, but with different challenges at each object. You upload the objects to the BBC site and hey presto, your own TV-themed family challenge.  The kids who came to our event on Friday were so excited that this had been set by Agatha, the dead tour guide they’d seen on TV- I’ve never seen scenes like it with mums falling over in a bid to finish the trail sheet first!!

One way to ensure you get famous is to volunteer yourself for TV. There was a great programme on BBC 4 last week called ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ (have they looked at our blog do you think??). Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw it said they could recognise alot of themselves and their own museum in the programme. Do have a watch, even if just for banter in the cafe!

 I can’t believe four weeks is already over! It has gone so fast, but looking back it seems like I have done a great deal. Working at the East Lothian Museums Service has given me a much better idea of what the day to day work is like at a museum (and how busy it can be!). I have had the chance to do a variety of work, from packing archaeological material to attending professional development ‘fieldtrips’. Everyone at the museums has been fantastic and has really gone out of their way to make sure I get the most out of this placement. The most important things I have learned aren’t the sort of things you would learn from a textbook, but something that only being in a working environment could teach you. First, be prepared for anything and when it all goes wrong just breathe. There will always be unexpected things that happen so flexibility is important. Second, being able to multi-task is vital. I was surprised at how much was going on at any one time and of all the details that had to be taken care of. Third, tea is key. Being from the United States I was never a big tea drinker, but now I think I am hooked. Not only is occasionally taking a minute for tea a good break from a busy day, but it is also a good way to get to know people. I have learned a lot about museums over tea. Finally, working at a museum lets you use many of your skills, not just one or two.  It is constantly challenging and I have had the chance to edit, design, research, write, etc. It is exciting to go into a field where I know that no talent is wasted. These things may seem general, and they aren’t even close to everything I have learned, but they are still valuable lessons I know I will use wherever I eventually end up working.

In addition to the museum experience, however, this placement has given me an opportunity to get to know East Lothian better. I had not been out to East Lothian for any real amount of time before I began my placement. The more I saw through working with the museum, however, the more I wanted to see and I began bringing my friends out on the weekends to explore. Learning about objects, like the Mak’Merry pottery pictured here gave me a deeper appreciation for the area, its history and its significance, making me want to see more. I have now even gotten to know people in East Lothian outside the museum. I plan on continuing my day trips when I can, because East Lothian covers such a variety of places I haven’t gotten to see everything yet! I think that one of the special aspects of museums is that, whether working at one or visiting, you are exposed to new people, places and ideas that you may not have otherwise encountered. Museums, especially ones focusing on local history, can show visitors the real depth of a place, and make them fall in love with it. I must say that I am honestly sad that my placement is over.

Why, you ask? (or at least I hope you do) The note is interesting, has a great story attached to it, and it is quite aesthetically pleasing too! Did you know that the first Scottish Banknote was issued in 1696? In those days these things were much larger than they are today, although no less ornate. This one is 12cm by 18cm – imagine a few of those crammed into your purse along with all that plastic, all those receipts, all that loose change (or is that just me)?! What interests me about this object is that whilst for us paper money is so commonplace as to be mundane it actually hasn’t been around that long in historical terms. Paper money started largely in response to the lack of precious metals to make coins out of, and forgery was a problem just as it is now. Banks used watermarking, embossing, detailed engraving, colour printing and the signature of Chief Cashiers to deter imitations.

The fact that banks operated on such a local level (although they weren’t terribly successful from what I can find out) is also very interesting, as is the information that the chief cashier, one William Borthwick, caused the bank to fail in 1822 when he absconded with the banks deposits. This caused a great scandal at the time and the tale resonates in the present day with the current global banking crisis. As more and more people begin to ‘think local’ it is interesting to re-examine stories like this one. For more about this object why not visit www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld or www.scran.ac.uk?

What would you like to see us (museums in general) put on to this site? Do you have things in your own collection or just kicking about the house that people might be interested in? The key thing for me is that whatever you choose needs a story. Just like a good film or book the narrative has to be engaging beyond the cover, which is the lure to get you to look in the first place! And remember what you might think won’t interest anyone outside your family will almost certainly resonate with someome, somewhere, sometime.

I could use a personal example here. I found a little pocket sized Bible the other day (I am ashamed to say in my sock drawer) that my Grandmother gave me, along with a coin purse and a pair of needlework scissors. They all belonged to her mother, who I am named for. My Great-Grandmother Kate carried the little Bible down the aisle with her when she married (and I can’t remember the year, oops) and carried it with her throughout her life. Ordinary? Yes. Boring? No. This little story (which I could elaborate on but not here) has religion, belief, tradition, habit, convention and a wedding. What more do we need!

 The East Lothian Museums service has been a great place to do my work placement. Being a smaller, council run museums service there are unique challenges that were not discussed in my classes. They also have strong connections to the community. Their collections and museums reflect the history and life of the East Lothian area they serve. My second day on my placement I was lucky enough to have the chance to go with the education officer and collections officer to St. Andrews for a meeting on ‘Revisiting Collections’. This program (there is one of those pesky words: ‘programme’ in the UK, ‘program’ in the US) is about engaging with communities through objects often using focus groups to gather reactions and insight from groups in those communities. The East Lothian Museums Service has been working on developing a display using these focus group interactions. In class we often discuss how museums are meant to be a resource for the community and to help preserve and share culture heritage, so it was exciting to see this being put into practice in a more active way. I think that getting groups and communities more involved with collections helps people realize what a great resource they have in their community. It also seems to make museums less intimidating and more approachable (much like these blogs). I know that part of my interest in museums stems from elementary school where I was allowed to explore local museums and even participate in events and ‘behind the scenes’ programs.

As a student, ‘Revisiting Collections’ along with digitizing databases and writing blogs are all excellent, practical examples for me of how museums can reach out to their communities and make the most of the services they offer. Often in classes we discuss more abstract ideas like ‘what is a museum’, or learn about museum policies, but it is really valuable for me to have a chance to see and be a part of how museums really work to achieve their ideals.

Recently, we were lucky enough to have one of our objects chosen to be part of the initial collection on the BBC’s History of World site. Our Bronze Age Beaker is amongst the earliest version of its kind in Britain still intact. You’ll probably have heard about the BBC’s project in one way or another, it’s basically about creating an online database of objects which represent…‘The History of the World’ (cue dramatic music).

Objects are now being uploaded from museums and individuals. Even Neil Oliver is getting involved by choosing his personal object (I know, it’s like he’s never off the TV). So I tried uploading another object to see how it would work.

I registered as a user on the website which was really simple. (Hint – make your username your museum name!)  I instantly received an email which meant I could register an object. I chose a Mak’Merry bowl because I knew a bit about it already and thought it had an interesting story. I was asked for some details which I already had on our collections database – size, colour, material, age of object and so on. The BBC have made it really simple – lots of tick boxes and drop-down lists. I also had to write 150 words on the ‘story of the object’. You might find some of it a bit too simple for museum standards, for example when choosing what size it is you might be debating between “Tiny – it fits in my hand” or “Medium – I can put my arms around it”. (I suppose it depends on the size of your body parts). From my education point of view, it’s a perfect way of getting the general public thinking about how to categorise their personal objects as part of history.

What are the benefits for you of putting an object up online? We use a lot of different sites to promote our collections – Scran, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Blog, plus our own website. If you don’t or can’t use any of these, the BBC is a really easy way of sharing your collections instantly, without worrying about the issues of copyright and managing such a site. As an experiment I did a Google search for ‘Mak’Merry bowl’, the BBC page came up third, after Flickr and our own online exhibition about pottery. Scran came up 5^th. I imagine most people around the world would recognise and trust the BBC brand meaning they are instantly more likely to look at this search result. As an added bonus, you can also put links to your own website beside your object so that interested parties can link directly back to you. So go on, you’ll be bowl-ed over by how easy it is!!

As of this moment, we have 54 fans on Facebook. We do have a few regular contributors (Kate, mainly) who ‘like’ or comment on things. Facebook tells you when you were most popular – so what makes our friends comment or view? Pictures of random things!! Our most commented upon and viewed post is one on 5th January 2010 of this photograph of Museum HQ Office carpark under snow!

Our second most? You’ll need to look on our profile now to check out the other picture that has been creating quite a flutter.

East Lothian Buzz is a social networking site supported by the Council – local things for local people and all that. It’s a really good way of finding out about what’s going on nearby, there are always loads of events being posted. You can also reach East Coast FM through the site. It’s more friendly than the bigger sites as some one always replies when you post a question, or will often just get in touch without prompting.

Well, that’s where we’re at just at the moment. Please share with us if you’ve seen other museums on Facebook that you particularly like – always looking to borrow other people’s good ideas!