Behind the scenes

A few weeks ago, I attended a masterclass, organised by the nice people at Leicester University’s Museum Studies department, entitled “Design As Interpretation”. Exploring museum architecture and design, and their role in providing context for the interpretation of a museum’s objects, the masterclass attracted attendees from Norway, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Portugal, as well as the UK, and comprised museum professionals, educators, in-house designers, interpretation specialists etc..

The “tutors” were three architects from a US practice that specialises in museums and exhibit designs; a principal of Metaphor, who design exhibits in the UK and elsewhere; a principal at Land Design Studio, exhibition designers; and a principal at lighting designers Sutton Vane Associates. The theme of the week was using exhibit design to enhance the meaning(s) of an exhibition: the lead “tutor” used the term embody. In other words, how an exhibition is put together should embody the exhibition’s themes. This took in such ideas as audience definition, conceptual framework, narrative, procession and circulation, design vocabulary, materiality, interactivity, graphics, lighting, and media.

In teams of six, we were given three days to come up with a presentation proposing a change of use for a space (of our choosing) on the university campus. The changes proposed had to relate to a broadly-defined theme that was chosen at random; in our case the theme was “connections”. Using model-making materials, a laptop, digital camera, glue, scissors, paper and coloured pens, our team had to develop a proposal to remodel the space (we chose a busy lobby).

From our work, and through talking to the design professionals, it became clear that spaces (and especially, by inference, museum spaces) can be appropriately enhanced when the designers and museums professionals collaborate and share ideas. This is preferable to the scenario where an architect will design a building with little reference to the end users: the example of the National Museum Of Ireland in County Mayo was given, where the architects decided to install a large glass window in a section that ended up housing costumes, and which actually required low light levels. The huge window had to be screened off later.

If, therefore, the museum staff and the designers and architects of future East Lothian museum spaces could get a chance to meet and discuss, then this may serve to enhance the final result. With proposals to remodel two of our museums on the table, and plans to build a new museum space in Haddington under way, this was quite timely.

This will be an unusually short post for me, but it is an important update. After one abortive attempt (with the volunteers of Prestongrange Railway Society present, and pics on Flickr) the volunteers of SRPS have removed the cab and tank (hence the appalling pun) from locomotive number 6 and she is now ready for inspection. There are some photos on the SRPS steam section website up to the time of removal, with more to be added. Unforunately I wasn’t there to see the big reveal, as my contact details had gone astray, however, it is very satisfying to know that we are almost done. Thank you to the volunteers of the SRPS steam section. A more meaty post will follow, but perhaps not for a while as there are lots of other things going on, and I need to tie up the admin of the project to this stage.  

I am running out of bad puns with the word ‘loco’ in to use in the titles of these posts, which is a relief.

This posting is by way of an update about Locomotive number 6, which for the sake of brevity I am now just going to call ‘6′. Towards the end of last year I visited 6 at Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway. She (I think locos are spoken about in the feminine, like ships, but I may be wrong) has been moved inside the sheds and is currently resting in very good company. She is in the same shed as the Morayshire (a working loco that belongs to the National Museums of Scotland) and (more interestingly) Thomas the Tank Engine and his little green buddy Percy. It is enough to make a 3 year old green with envy. Clearly I have spent too much time reading the Thomas stories, as during a tour of the shed I actually knew what a Giesel funnel is, thanks to the story of Peter Sam.

Anyway, 6 is now being worked on. There are a series of tubes that run the full length of the boiler, one end in the firebox (literally where the fire is) and the other at the front of the loco. The plates where the tubes finish look like rusty Swiss cheese. There are pictures of this on Flickr. To get the boiler into a fit state for the boiler inspector to view it all the tubes have to be taken out. To do this the beading (welding) around the edge of the end of each pipe has to be removed and then pressure applied to one end of the tube, which will then come out. Apparently this will be a couple of days work. The tubes are probably going to need to be replaced to get 6 ready to steam again, but this isn’t unexpected. 

Then we got to the exciting bit, which involved wearing overalls and going into the pit underneath the loco and into the firebox! The ash pan (catches the ash from the fire, like a domestic fireplace only bigger) has been taken out and Brian Thompson (one of the directors of the steam section of SRPS, and our contact and guide on this project) took me into the firebox. This was a cube (with no floor) with the tube plate at one side, the cab to the back of us, and the tank (where the water goes) over the top. Unfortunately I managed to leave the lens cap on for this bit, so there is no film (so embarrassed) of this, which is a shame as it was pretty interesting. To be where the fire ought to be in a steam loco was quite an odd experience. These are powerful engines (even 6, which is small by steam loco standards), and there I was with my head in the business end. The firebox was aesthetically quite attractive (in an odd way) with the regular patterns of nuts and tubes, and the reddy brown rust on the metal. It was almost eerie to be inside something that at one time would have been very, very hot and noisy, and is now silent and being examined in almost forensic detail. In some respects this really convinced me that this is the right thing to do (re-steaming). Although the engineering is interesting (and I surprise myself when I type this, as I didn’t think I would be this interested) the engine is effectively dead at the moment, all we can do is imagine it. I don’t think I am anthropomorphosising a lump of metal, but I would like to see her steam again!

I wonder if there is some way we could recreate the experience of working with the locos one day, and not just driving them, perhaps seeing inside the guts of a loco would help us start communicating some of the engineering behind their operation and maintenance. Afterall at a mine like Prestongrange (6 didn’t actually work there, but others did) much of the day to day maintenance of things like steam locos and other equipment would have been done by skilled people on site. There is more to coal mines than simply coal.

The plan from this point is to remove the tubes and continue to strip down the boiler. Then the loco gets taken apart for inspection, and we really need to see that bit (and get it on film). This all needs to be completed by the end of Feb 2007, to enable us to claim the grant from the Scottish Museums Council, without which the work would not have gone ahead. Then, we really need to look at costing the real work - getting 6 steaming again…

Our Museums On The Move program continues with another successful venture, this time out to Haddington’s Knox Academy.  Three classes of S1 students invited their parents, friends and families to see the grand opening of their “Great Scots” exhibition last night, and a jolly good time was had by all.  The Great Scots on show ranged from the usual suspects (Robert Burns, William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots) to icons of the Heat Magazine generation such as Gillian McKeith and Michelle McManus.  The depth of research into each student’s choice of Scot varied, naturally, but all concerned embraced the project enthusiastically.  As well as lending a glass cabinet and some AV equipment, we also loaned a stethoscope (to represent Elsie Inglis), a miniature TV (John Logie Baird), a mobile phone (Alexander Graham Bell), a Burns address from 1921 and portraits of Mary Queen of Scots.  Objects to represent Scots of more recent vintage were few and far between in our collection, but the students came up trumps, either bringing in their own memorabilia (for Oor Wullie or Ewan McGregor, for example) or creating objects of their own.  We were all particularly impressed with the Tardis (David Tennant) that opened up to reveal facts about the actor.  In fact, this notion of interactivity was particularly evident in nearly all the students’ displays, from audio-visual presentations to quizzes where you had to lift the flap to reveal the answer.  A worthwhile project, then, and a good chance to show a wider audience the work of the school.  Hats off to Mr. Wood, Ms. McPhee and Ms. Anderson of the History dept. for organising the event so effectively, and to the students of S1.

See here for more pics.

So No.6 has gone to Bo’ness. Makes a change from Port Meirion, I suppose.

With apologies for the poor pun, and long posting.

Steam locomotives are evocative reminders of our industrial past. Big, noisy and smelly they have a really wide ranging appeal, my 3 year old loves them, and so does my (nearly) 90 year old Grandad. This appeal is greatly enhanced when they work, or better still you can ride on them. Until 2002 visitors to Prestongrange Museum could do just this on a short section of track, all as a result of the labours of the Prestongrange Railway Society. However, steam locos (never ever call it a train!) need a boiler inspection every 10 years, and invariably need some maintenance as well. This means that the boiler has to be lifted off the base of the loco for a boiler inspector from an insurance company to assess it, and advise on what needs to be done to get the boiler back into some kind of working order. At Prestongrange we lack many of the resources to do this - the equipment (a crane for example), the space, the manpower (we rely on a small long suffering band of dedicated volunteers) and of course money. 2002 saw the certificate on number 6 finally expire, and no steam locos have operated since then.

We know that visitors would like to see a loco operating again, and indeed many would come specifically for this (the figures demonstrate this), but how do we go about it, and should we? Museum curators are the butt of much mockery due to our seemingly odd habits of treating everyday objects with solemn and obsessive care (and our tendencies to wear tweed and corduroy). But this much maligned behaviour is based on common sense. If we treat the objects we are charged with the care of well, then they will be there for future generations to enjoy and learn from.

What has this got to do with steam locos? Well, since number 6 is part of the museum collection, shouldn’t we be wrapping it painstakingly in acid free tissue paper after discreetly numbering it, and then carefully pacing it on a shelf for no-one to touch, see or generally interfere with for the forseeable future, rather than using it and repairing it? No. Museums and curatorship is about much more than just preserving an object. When we choose to take an object into the collection it isn’t just the object we are preserving, it is the web of information, emotion and stories associated with that object too. Things in museum collections were made by, used by, loved, hated, played with and looked after by real people. The collection and interpretation of this information is very important in making these things make sense. In relation to the steam loco, we have lots of hard facts but the machine had a job to do, someone drove it and people maintained it. It would be impossible to recreate the sights, sounds and smells of a huge industrial complex like that at Prestongrange, but by operating a steam loco we can give some impression of the world as it once was, and crucially that impression is one made real by noise, sound, smell and sensation, not just flat text, and is all the more memorable for that.

By working towards the resteaming of number 6 we are focussing on a goal of accessability to the collections, even if in the long term the actual operation of the loco will wear out many of its working parts. This is a common dilemma for industrial curators - at what point do we stop conserving something and start restoring it? If we continually replace, repair and mend a machine does it stop being the object it once was? Very few parts of the Flying Scotsman (if any?) are those that it was originally made with, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the most popular (and iconic) museum exhibits in the country, perhaps in the world. Another aspect we need to consider is how is the work done? Ideally in the same way it would have been done when the loco was in operation - in our case up until the ealry 1980s. This way we go some way towards the preservation and recording of the engineering skills (many of which would die out otherwise) needed to maintain something like this.

So to get back to my story, we decided to apply for some grant aid from the Scottish Museums Council to start the long process of bringing number 6 back up to standard for steaming, and were awarded some money earlier this year.

The actual process of finding somewhere to do the work was laborious, and made even more so by a number of factors, not least that there aren’t many places we could turn to for the job, as it is something of a specialist market. Also in common with other public bodies East Lothian Council has a policy of transparent procurement proceedures for purchases over a certain value whereby a number of comparitive quotes need to be obtained. So this took uo some considerable time. However, in the end we decided to go with the first group we had approached, the Scottish Railway Preservation Society at Bo’ness, who run the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway. Working with SRPS offers many advantages for us. They are local, they are a heritage orgainisation and (the clincher) they like us, viewed this as a partnership opportunity, with mutual benefits (as a training project for their new volunteers, and as a development opportunity for ELC staff and PRS volunteers). So FINALLY last Thursday things got moving at Prestongrange Museum.

It was a lovely sunny (but very cold) day and various ELC staff and volunteers and a PRS volunteer met a low loader and drivers from Allelys Heavy Haulage at Prestongrange at 8:30am. Getting the loco from the track to the lorry proved to be a challenge (met with gusto by everyone present) and eventually the loco was on its way to Bo’ness to be unloaded. It has been a complex job to get us to this stage, and whilst Thursday was very satisfying personally, as someone who has invested a huge amount of time and energy in this project, I know that there is plenty more to come.

There are some photos on flickr just search for Prestongrange, and there will also be a video on YouTube soon too.
 

Meetings are a regular feature of museum life - just like everywhere else, really. I wonder if we should set targets for numbers of meeting and attendees? Today I attended the regular joint meeting with Library Staff at the grandly-titled Library and Museums HQ. This is regular in the sense that we meet twice a year, largely to catch up on what we’ve all been doing and are planning to do, but sometimes to latch on to projects where we (or they) can make a contribution. On occasion it might seem like mere listing of stuff, but sometimes you hear things that you want to know more about.

I’ve been very taken with the potential of ICT and in particular with Web 2.0 (that wonderful marketing term). Apparently over in Alternate Earth (the one with the evil Captain Kirk) so have libraries, as they have conferences about Library 2.0 (kind of like Museum 2.0 with added books). It’s made me wonder whether, rather than forging off on our own, we might more usefully get together with the librarians to work on some of the ideas (like the Bebo site and the flickr photostream). After all, in doing this sort of thing the major cost isn’t the technical equipment or the applications, it’s people to actually do the work of creating and updating the content. So now I’m waiting for list of urls from Andy so I can see what libraries around the world have been up to.

The fact that libraries and museums are so often moving along parallel tracks in this way means that we spend a lot of time duplicating effort and relearning lessons that others elsewhere have already learned, making mistakes that others have made and developing applications (or more usually variants of existing applications and services) that have already been developed and are freely-available elsewhere, if only we knew about it. We end up wasting time working out the how to do it, when we should be concentrating on what goes in it. And as for what’s going on over in the Education Universe… How on Earth can we ever keep up with it all.

Following on from the previous post, I note that the Brooklyn Museum have their own MySpace site. Mind you, it’s filtered from here under the category ‘Personals and Dating’. This seems like a cunning plan (the site, not the filtering, that is), but my daughters and their friends all use Bebo instead, so maybe we should look at some sort of presence there…

Collections Online meets Web 2.0

I wrote a little about this earlier, but now seems a good time to expound at slightly greater length. Like many museum professionals I have been wondering (for years now it seems) about the best way of providing online access to collections. The objective has always seemed, at least in part, to force visitors to come to your site, which then becomes the sole point of contact. But the great advantage of digital information is the ease with which it can be copied and the ability to deliver the same content through a variety of different media and in a range of differing contexts. Couple that with the fact that the World Wide Web allows content to be drawn in from anywhere, enabling the creative re-use of resources originally built for quite other purposes; the growth of ’sociable technologies’ like blogs, wikis, YouTube, MySpace and Bebo; and the widespread deployment of tools that mean creating online content is now easy and requires no (or little) technical knowledge beyond that required to use a word processor, and we can see that there is now a world of shared content out there already being created, used, re-used and re-shaped. Perhaps its time to stop thinking about re-inventing the wheel and to take a free ride instead?

Flickr.com is a web site that enables people to publish and share digital images – but in addition it allows people to contribute to the information associated with the images by adding comments and notes, additional tags (i.e. keywords) and to add individual images to their personal favourites. Museums across Scotland already have large quantities of digital images of objects in their collections (many created through Scran), but lack the knowledge or resources to make these images and the associated information available through their own web sites. Flickr.com provides a simple (and free) alternative.

At the end of August I uploaded a trial batch of 51 random images taken from our collections, together with the captions that had been written for them for Scran. I included their museum accession number and a number of keyword tags, and made them publicly available under a Creative Commons licence. The Flickr user account allows you to see at a glance how many times your images have been viewed (with the usual caveats about the effects of intermediate caching); how many have been ‘favorited’; and how many comments visitors have left. In the five weeks from August 23rd the 51 images were viewed a total of 365 times (ranging from 69 for the Red Cross Nurse to 4 for the portrait of James Miller); two of the images had been ‘favorited’; one had a comment requesting further information; and I received a publication request for an image. I took no steps to publicise this experiment, but I did make use of the code Flickr provides to put a changing random selection of your photos on your web site which link through to the individual images, both here and on the main museums site.

A few weeks is too short a time to fully assess the effects of making museum content available in this way, but I intend to keep adding to the photostream over the next year. Perhaps by then some patterns will be emerging – particularly if other museums also begin to make use of Flickr too. For the moment it is at least clear that we can reach some people in this way that otherwise we probably wouldn’t reach at all.

I wonder if I have to include this in my SPI statictics?

Note: the Flickr.com free account allows you to upload 20MB of images per month and has other restrictions. The Pro account with 2GB of uploads per month and few restrictions costs $24.95 per year – about £13.50!

Update: I was quite wrong about the statistics - 365 is the number of times all or part of the photostream has been viewed. The individual views of images are separate from that, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to total these individual image views. Anyone know the answer to that?

The education department of our museums service was lucky enough to receive two grants this spring from the Scottish Museums Council; one to institute our new Museums On The Move project, and one to begin a Podcasting project.  The former is now well under way, with equipment purchased, and community exhibitions already undertaken.  The latter is finally getting off the ground, though, as podcasting implicitly involves lots of computer hardware and software, it’s been slow-going.  We’re just about ready to start making our podcasts though, and over the next few weeks, we plan to visit schools and sign them up to help us create new audio content for our existing tours and to create new tours, and to work with a local day centre to record a series of audio memories of East Lothian that will appear on our site at regular intervals, ready for subscribers to download.

As a sort of proof-of-concept, and a chance to try out some of our new hardware and software, I’ve created an initial download (can you call it a podcast when there’s only one of them?  Lots of other sites seem to…) about my recent trip to the GEM Conference in Durham.  It’s only short, but it gave me the chance to use the software that came free with our mic and mixer (Audacity), and to use some of the copyright-free audio loops that also came free.

With luck, this will be the first of many.  It also appears on our podcasting page on the main site, where I’m currently setting up RSS and Atom feeds. 

Download East Lothian Museums podcast.