Fed President’s Summer Report 2010

I am pleased to report that the Fed is going from strength to strength; the headlines are that we are making significant progress on membership growth, our training programme continues to thrive (with the support of Renaissance Yorkshire), and we are maximising opportunities for strategic advocacy.

However, as an overview we have been taking a good hard look at what we offer our members:

 Does it represent good value for money? 
 Is the pricing package right?
 Do we communicate with them well?
 Do they value what we do?

To help us understand membership needs, this we compiled a comparison sheet which compared what we offered against what the other Feds were offering, and followed this up by commissioning Rosie Crook, a Committee Member on the Executive team, to prepare and distribute an online membership survey.  At this point I must thank Rosie for her sterling efforts and commitment to this task, which was unstinting and remarkable, given the demands of her `day job’.

The response rate was excellent for a survey of its kind, and this yielded valuable and mainly reassuring information.

Essentially, though, the survey revealed that people mostly liked what we did, appreciated the services we offered but perhaps wanted a bit more advocacy; they also, however, still perceived the leadership and membership as being male-dominated, and would welcome a little more dynamism.

This is a commentary which we will as a team take on board, although I am pleased to reassure members that, if we were to have the current Fed `cabinet’ seated all in one room at one time, the women officers would actually outnumber their male counterparts (10 vs. 8), so perhaps this is in part an incorrect perception.

As a consequence of this, we looked at the link between the quality of our website and our membership needs.  Another Executive Committee Member, Jim Garretts (whom I must also record profuse thanks for his diligence and support) undertook a detailed qualitative assessment of the web site, and this resulted in a number of recommendations about how it could be improved.

Mark Tindle of NE Lincs has stepped into the breach of the Memebership Secretary to begin implementing the recommendations of the website review.

In terms of populating the website and continuing the Fed’s modernising programme, our current First Vice President, Nial Adams has drafted clear roles for each of the Fed Executive (including, of course, the President’s) – the first time we have ever had such documents.  This clarification of what is expected of each of our leadership team, will give us a sense of purpose and allow is to focus on our accountabilities and responsibilities to the organisation and our members.

He has also pulled together statements on the Fed’s mission, objectives and aims, and these have now been posted on the web site, so visitors can easily find out what we’re about, and (as if that wasn’t enough) he also has even written a recent history of the Fed for the site.

Another innovation is the introduction of an online Fed E-newsletter and blog, the first issue of which has already appeared; we believe that this will greatly improve communications between the leadership team and the membership.
 
I think it is also important that we examine the sustainability of the Fed – it’s something we are trying to move towards in securing the future viability of our workforce development training programme – and we are also critically looking at the income we derive from individual and institutional subscriptions.
We are in the process of completing an options study of all the different ways we could charge for membership in order to achieve the right balance of subscription and to ensure that we have enough money to do what we need (and are constitutionally expected) to do.
 
Another area of development is in events.  We have deconstructed and analysed our offer in this area and thanks here must go to our Honorary Secretary, Rachael Walker, and our Events team, led by our Events Coordinator, Laura Turner, with support from Susan Capes and Jim Garretts.  Our aim is to make the previously titled Fed General Meetings and more popular and accessible.  Consequently, we have co-opted more Executive members on to the Events Sub-group so there is more critical mass and an immediate major change has been to review the structure and content of our general meetings, and morph them into day-long `mini-conferences’ – up to four a year – which deals with themes which are contemporary and relevant to the needs of our members.  Rolled up in this is the need also to review the role of the hitherto-termed Fed Forum.  More about this in due course.

Our other big commitment is, of course, to training.  With the generous on-going support of Renaissance Yorkshire, we are continuing to deliver a varied and relevant training programme comprising our popular Museums Essentials menu and the Rapid Response Network training.  I would just say at this point that the lack of appropriate venues and speaker costs often hamper our best efforts to develop and run training events in a cost-effective and attractive way; members can play a part in helping us overcome these hurdles by offering, in so far as they can, their own facilities and expertise so that we foster a collegiate training offer which is shared throughout our sector.

At this juncture, I really must offer massive thanks to our outgoing Training Co-ordinator, Emma King, who is leaving the Fed to pursue other challenges and opportunities.  Her support and drive have been absolutely instrumental to us getting the training programme to where it is now; her commitment has been 100% and she has acted as a wonderful ambassador and advocate for the Fed and its ambitions.

In terms of a new Training Co-ordinator, we hope to commerce the procurement and recruitment process, as required through our relationship with Renaissance Yorkshire, very soon, and I am heartened by the amount of interest that has already been shown, with several potential and very viable candidates having already declared their interest.

Another big development has been to establish the Yorkshire Integrated Museums Training Group – a very clunky name but one which we shall be reviewing in the very near future.  The aims of this body are to:

 provide an integrated, one-stop training calendar that lists all the museum-related training and development opportunities in the region at www.yhfed.org.uk
 develop a sound, evidence-based understanding of staff and volunteer training needs
 co-ordinate our training and development provision
 long term, to work towards providing a comprehensive and integrated training offer for everyone working in the region’s heritage sector, no matter what their role or organisation

A virtual manifestation of this aims has already been delivered – the Fed’s website now hosts an integrated training calendar which is beginning, quite successfully, to be populated by a range of training providers in the region.  This will eventually, it is hoped, provide a one-stop-shop, whilst ensuring that all the different and diverse providers in the region don’t clash or cancel each other’s efforts out by having their events on the same date.  Please do visit the website www.yhfed.org.uk and have a look at it.

Finally, we want you to play your part by:

 Promoting and perusing events on the online training calendar
 Finding training events for yourself and your organisation
 Telling us about your organisation’s training needs
 Contributing to intelligent planning – talk to us about your forthcoming training events and help us avoid duplicating provision.

Advocacy remains a mainstay of our ambitions.  I already represent the Fed on the Yorkshire Museums Directors Conference, and am also a member of their steering group – rest assured, I will take any opportunity to promote the Fed and its good work.
Equally, and we are much more outward looking, and have given the Fed more national and regional clout by opening up lines of communications with other UK Federations and working with important regional and national partners such as MLA (I’m pleased to report that, subject to her busy commitments, Jayne Tyler, the Regional Manager of MLA, attends Executive meetings) and the Museums Association.

In terms of budgetary control, we are, as you will all know only too well, working under harsh and often difficult operating circumstances.  You should be reassured that our outgoing Treasurer, Sheauran Tan, has delivered prudent, robust and effective administration of the Feds finances, with experienced and valuable support from our Fed Freelance Administrator, Keith Crawshaw, whom we will be engaging for a further year.  Our budgets now are much more tailored to organisational need and now reflect what we must and want to achieve.  We owe both a massive debt of thanks.

The current prevailing financial situation will inevitably mean an uncomfortable ride for many of us over the coming months.  The new national coalition government has already begun to take severe measures to tackle the national deficit – indeed, my own organisation has already had around 3% shaved off its grant-in-aid for this year alone.  This combined with sector specific initiatives, such as the review of the Accreditation process, and the reshaping of Renaissance, may well mean more uncertainty and more work.

However, it is in such times of uncertainty, we look to fixed points which reassure us during the day-to-day grind – I believe the Fed is one of those constants.  You should be aware that we are not only one of the oldest but also one of the fastest-growing Feds in the UK.  Our great strength and security  is in the unity of our membership, and it is important that we maintain solidarity through difficult times ahead.

Finally, I would also like to pay tribute and offer my personal thanks to all of the other members of the Fed `cabinet’ whom I haven’t been able to mention.  Their support – particularly during my first year as President – commitment and knowledge is amazing, especially when you consider that they are busy in their `day jobs’.  As members, you should feel proud and reassured that the Fed is led by such an able and enthusiastic team, and is in such safe hands.

Have a wonderful summer!

Paul Goodman
President

Thackray Museum – Local Heroes Award

  

The Royal Society launched a Local Heroes Scheme to mark 350 years since its foundation in 1660 and the Thackray Museum is a recipient of one of these prestigious awards.  Our Local Hero is William Astbury, Fellow of the Royal Society and Professor of Biomolecular Structure at the University of Leeds.  Our project, Hair Splitting Images – How William Astbury’s X-Ray Vision Changed the World is at the Thackray Museum from 26 June 2010 until 2 January 2011 in partnership with Leeds University Library (in conjunction with the University’s History of Science, Technology and Medicine Museum Project).

Astbury established a Textile Physics Research Laboratory at the University of Leeds in 1928 and his work was crucial to the development of the textile industry.  His expertise in X-Ray diffraction photography and his analysis of the images created to deduce molecular structures proved to be highly significant.  His team took the first X-Ray diffraction image of DNA in 1938 in his Leeds laboratory, paving the way for the demonstration of its double helical structure in 1953.

The project’s objectives are to:

• bring overdue recognition to the achievements of William Astbury FRS (1898-1961), one of the ‘fathers’ of molecular biology
• give public access to documents and objects held at Leeds University and by the family. Objects earmarked for exhibition include the sample of Mozart’s hair on which Astbury carried out X-Ray analysis and the actual X-Ray diffraction camera he used in his laboratory
• create public understanding of him as a scientist and as a personality. Astbury encouraged the public to take an interest in his work through popular talks, lectures and newspaper articles.  The museum is planning for a Leeds Civic Trust ‘Blue Plaque’ to be affixed to Astbury’s home
• enable young people to explore at first hand Astbury’s contribution to the development of molecular biology and his legacy to medical research

Planned activities for young visitors include making pin-hole cameras and even DNA!  The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds, which carries out international research in all aspects of structural molecular biology, will deliver exciting talks to make a highly complex subject more readily accessible to museum visitors of all ages.

A series of Science Clubs and Arts Workshops are planned, including talks by noted scientists and guided visits to the University of Leeds’ molecular biology laboratories to find out about the latest ‘cutting-edge’ research.

This exhibition is kindly supported by the Royal Society’s 350th Anniversary Local Heroes Scheme, the British Society for the History of Science and the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society.

[Thackray Museum - see http://www.thackraymuseum.org/]

Jim Garretts
Senior Curator
Thackray Museum, Leeds

Disaster on the Cotton Mill Express

 

Cotton Mill Express

Imagine you are sitting at your desk one day, a little bored with the document you are sweating over, when your phone goes.  It is a TV company, milking you for information about trains, you talk for 40 minutes about aspects of early railway history.  You enjoy talking and the person on the other end is clearly interested in what you have to say, so you warble on.

Now comes the bolt from the blue.  The lady explains that they are filming some parts of a TV programme on the Cotton Mill Express and it would be lovely if I could join them.  Dan Cruikshank is starring and they would like you to talk with him.  I nearly fell off my chair, but this was for real.  I was going to go and do TV with one of the most erudite and intelligent presenters on the planet.  Could I be available?  Is the pope a catholic?  I’d mud wrestle my own mother for a chance like this!!!!

TV is like the medieval church, it holds a power to overawe and control we mere mortals and the TV moguls are ruthless in there ability to exploit it.  So I dutifully wrote out a load of research notes for Dan.  You will see the articles over the next few months!!!!!  The director rang me up and spoke for a good forty five minutes to explain exactly what he wanted from the shoot and I was not to worry about meeting Dan.  Man was I loving this!!!!!

So the day came and I was up at ten to five am.  Quick breakfast, pressed smart casuals and off to Preston for an 8.00 am meet.  All goes well and by 7.05 I’m parked up at Preston.  I dozed, relaxed and watched people wander by, then it’s 07.45 and it’s time to meet the crew.  But where are they?  I wander aimlessly round Preston station, watch Pendolinos and Voyagers cruise in and out, but can’t see any TV people.  Is this some kind of complex wind up?  Then I notice a small knot of people and suddenly see Dan doing his stuff to camera.

I’m greeted, introduced to the crew and presented to Dan and off we go.  Before I have really had a chance to take all this in, the Cotton Mill Express barrels into platform 2.  Man, it was going so fast I wasn‘t sure it was going to stop.  But it did and the next thing I know I’m being filmed getting on the train.  “Good” says the cameraman, “let’s do it once more”, as the director had blocked my exit from shot.  We did it and we’re going to go one more time, when the doors were bolted, whistles blown and we were off.  “Can’t we wait one minute” says the director?  “No” says the carriage attendant.

We settle into our seats, and the crew star talking over what shots to do.  I’m miked up and the country side whistles by.  The express takes the curve at Newton-Le-Willows and we glide from the West Coast Main line onto the Liverpool & Manchester railway.  I point this out to the crew and Dan says “well let’s do the death of Huskisson”.  The crew agree and I’m sat opposite Dan, who is just checking his script/notes.  Then we are off; so who was William Huskisson and I dive into the Member for Liverpool’s sad story.  Just like the director wants, I lay on the gore from eyewitnesses accounts of his death.  “Great”says the director.

Dan is the consummate professional, polite, erudite and massively knowledgeable.  As we work, members of the public keep wandering by and some stop, stare and for some reason point at Dan.  He remains polite to a fault, chatting and exchanging pleasantries; it is fascinating to watch at close quarters.

Now we are doing the eating on trains shoot.  So we wander down to the dining car and take our seats.  Soup is served and we are off again.  “How did people eat on early trains Russell?”  – Well Dan blah blah blah.  We eat our soup, talk and it all goes very smoothly.  I’m loving this, what a way to earn a living.  Little did we know as we finished our soup, that this lovely bubble was about to be burst.  We had noticed when crossing Chat Moss, the train was going rather slowly.  But by the time we had regained our seats the train was at a stand still.  What was going on?

Word filtered back along the train that something had gone bump under the locomotive.  We were simply stopping to check it out and would soon be moving again.  The crew began to check there watches, would they make the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry on time?  A quick phone call told them they had till 15.30, then the replica planet class loco would have to drop its fire.
 
Just as this information was being digested, the outside cameraman trotted up to the crew to announce the loco was buggered.  The young man was in a good position to know this as he had been filming on the footplate.  He had heard the train crew talking, and it was clear we were going no further.  Next, the news was made official, the locomotive had certain problems and we were going to be put in a siding at Eccles.  A rescue locomotive had been dispatched from Carnforth.  Disaster on the Cotton Mill Express

Suddenly were marooned on a train in the middle of urban Manchester.  The film crew went into overdrive, checking what footage had been captured, where units were and re-scheduling appointments.  Dan was fully involved in these discussions and I sat awaiting developments.  Dinner was off, although we were given another bowl of soup and we ate through crews own supplies.  Time dragged and we talked, and a kind of Dunkirk spirit developed all along the train.  Some passengers took the bar apart and others read the Sunday papers.  It was like Gormenghast on wheels.

After four hours, and a B&Q angle grinder being used to cut lumps of the locos shattered big end, life returned.  The diesel would push the train into Manchester Victoria, where it would terminate.  We had seven minutes to get that footage in the can.  So off we went, and that was it.  Job done.  Dan was massively impressive, after four hours he just clicked into gear.

Next, we were in Manchester Victoria.  I said my goodbyes and the TV bubble rushed off to the Museum of Science & Industry.  I climbed onboard a bouncy castle, changed at Salford Crescent and made my way to Preston.  It had been a fascinating day that had given me some insights into different worlds.  An experience I will never forget.

As my DMU sailed into Preston, you’ll never guess what I saw being towed toward Blackburn, that dam Cotton Mill Express.  Why anyone would spend £150 pounds on such a trip is beyond me.  But why would anyone give up a Saturday to do some TV?  Different folks ay?

[Cotton Mill Express 2010 - see  www.railwaytouring.co.uk/index.php/the-cotton-mill-express---170710.html]

Russell Hollowood
Exhibitions  Developer
National Railway Museum

Hawley Tool Collection: from Home to Kelham

For over fifty years, Ken Hawley, a well known owner of a tool shop in Sheffield, has been collecting tools, cutlery, catalogues and memorabilia connected with the Sheffield tool and cutlery industries.  Items from the collection had been displayed at the Ruskin Gallery, Sheffield and the Sheffield museums, and it was long felt that a permanent home should be found for this unique collection.

Original home of the Collection

The Ken Hawley Collection Trust became a legal entity in August 1995 with an initial aim of raising the funds to acquire the collection and thus ensure that this unique part of Sheffield’s heritage was able to stay in the city.  The Trust’s initial work soon led to a major award from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in December 1998 when the acquisition was made possible through that award plus other donations.  The Trust had already agreed with Ken Hawley that the Collection should be moved from his home, where in the main the Collection was stored, to larger and more secure premises where the Collection could be sorted and a start made on a more comprehensive cataloguing and recording of the Collection’s contents.

The Collection quickly found a new home through the generosity of the University of Sheffield in providing a new home for the Collection in Mappin Street, Sheffield.  Support from the University also provided some initial research resource in the guise of Dr Joan Unwin who worked with Ken and other volunteers in making a start on realising the Collection’s research potential.

 

Mappin Street Building

 

The key achievements made during the period the Collection has been at Mappin Street have been as follows:

• Substantial re-boxing and improved storage to protect the Collection and improve access to the Collection
• The Collection has been listed at accession level with a view to creating full catalogue records in the medium term
• Development of research activity based on the resources of the Collection to disseminate knowledge and understanding
• Local craftsmen in trades which were about to disappear were interviewed and films made of the processes in the Sheffield edge-tool and cutlery industries
• The development of a small core of volunteers to support the Collection in the absence of significant on-going revenue income
• A number of small scale publications and article contributions to journals
• Provision of consultancy support for artefacts found during archaeological survey work particularly within Sheffield
• Contributions via talks and open days to National Science Week and the ‘Galvanise’ Festival
• The successful conclusion of an HLF ‘Our Heritage’ project which used a variety of recording techniques and oral history approaches to enable knowledge transfer of valuable but as yet unrecorded information on the history and background to key objects and elements of the Collection
• In the absence of public access to the Mappin Street building a range of exhibitions in other locations have provided opportunities both large and small for the wider public to become aware of the Collection’s existence.  These have ranged from a major exhibition in the Millennium Galleries in 2003 titles ‘A Cut Above the Rest’ which was a major exhibition to celebrate the heritage of Sheffield blade manufacture to smaller travelling exhibitions in locations such as library which brought attention to the oral history project in 2008
• The achievement of Registered Museum status in 2002

Although clearly successful in a key number of ways, public access to the Collection remained limited until the evolution of the partnership with the Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust (SIMT) which sought to re-site the Collection to Kelham Island Museum, providing both a public dimension supported by improved storage and research facilities.  The building used at Kelham was the last derelict building on the site but with sympathetic restoration it provided the opportunity for a unique home for the Collection.

The derelict site for the new home!

The ambitions of the partnership were realised with the award of a major lottery grant from HLF in 2008.  The HLF award of £595,000 to the SIMT was made to enable the development of the new gallery to house the Collection.  This was further supported by £50,000 each from the University of Sheffield and the SIMT to provide the matching funds element of the bid.  The construction work was completed on time by August 2009 and was within budget.  Work on the fit-out and displays commenced in November 2009 and the new facility opened on 17 March 2010 completing not only the transition to public display for the Collection but also the final phase of the Kelham Museum post flood recovery plan.

The new Hawley Gallery awaiting content

Although the move to Kelham enables the operation of the Hawley Gallery within the envelope of services provided by the SIMT, it is intended that the Hawley Collection will retain a separate identity and separate Accreditation will be sought.  The relationship and service provision by the SIMT will be conditioned by the Collections Agreement that is in place between the two parties.  Ownership of the Collection is retained by the Trust as will be the responsibility of developing research and other activities.  The two trusts will also retain separate and distinct Acquisition & Disposals Policies, but with a clear complementary relationship.  The SIMT will resource and provide public , curatorial and building support in return for making access to the Hawley Collection part of the Kelham experience.

The Hawley Gallery opens March 2010

Accountability to the Hawley Trust will be through the provision of regular reports on the SIMT stewardship to the Hawley Council of Management.  The relationship requires nothing other than a peppercorn consideration from the SIMT for using the SIMT services and the SIMT require no financial contribution from the Hawley Trust.  What the arrangement has achieved is the bringing to Kelham the major collection of a key element in Sheffield’s heritage which enhances the recent renaissance of the museum after the disastrous flood of 2007.  For the Collector, Ken Hawley, he has seen his ambition of making the Collection available to the wider public in a journey which started over 15 years ago from his home in Hillsborough to Kelham Museum.  Along the way we even managed to incorporate in the works an important works entrance (the Kangaroo Works arch) from the Robert Sorby works, an important tool manufacturer.

Ken Hawley & Sir Neil Cossons open the new gallery

[Hawley Tool Collection - see www.sheffield.ac.uk/hawley/]

Keith Crawshaw
Chairman
Ken Hawley Collection Trust

Centenary Sail at The Yorkshire Waterways Museum

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the object that helped to create not only a Museum, but also a project tackling social exclusion and a familiar sight on the inland waterways of Yorkshire – our Humber Keel Sobriety.

The Yorkshire Waterways Museum is committed to tackling social exclusion, with the overall aim of using the heritage, arts and environment of the Yorkshire waterways as a resource for learning and regeneration.  Our organisation is unusual in that the Museum grew out of a social inclusion project – not the other way around, and the Museum is still governed by ‘The Sobriety Project’.

After retiring as a coal carrying barge, the future fate of Sobriety was sealed when in 1973 a local business man gave the Keel to Goole Secondary School, where our Director Bob Watson MBE was teaching.  Bob took up the challenge of making the somewhat dilapidated Keel into a school resource taking groups of children on residential trips.  The project soon took on a life of its own, building what is now the Museum as its land base and taking groups of disadvantaged people out on trips with volunteering opportunities for people from local prisons.  The Project started to acquire objects and collections, and was officially registered as a Museum in 1995.

Sobriety in the sun!

Fast forward to 2010 and Sobriety is still taking out groups, after a major refit to bring it up to modern standards in 2008.  Not only this, but every week the Museum has up to 10 volunteers  from Moorlands Open Prison, 25 placements for young people at risk of exclusion or offending , as well as young apprentices and adults on the Work Related Learning Programme.  Add to that our 30 strong learning disability craft class, trainees, the small army of general volunteers, another five boats, five allotments and two satellite community boat organisations, and you will see that The Sobriety Project and the Museum tie up like a figure of eight knot – nobody quite knows where one finishes and the other one begins!

After kick starting all this activity Sobriety deserves something special to mark her 100th birthday, and we were very pleased to have received Heritage Lottery funding to carry out the ‘Centenary Sail’ project.  For the project our young volunteers are researching the history of Sobriety – both its working life and its passenger carrying life – and are creating a travelling exhibition that they can take with them on their residential outings to show other youth groups.  Then, in July we are having a ‘Berthday Weekend’, but I can’t guarantee there will be much ‘Sobriety’ amongst the staff at the party (I had to get that pun in somewhere!).

[Yorkshire Waterways Museum - see www.waterwaysmuseum.org.uk/]

Rachel Walker
Museum Officer
The Yorkshire Waterways Museum

Why have a Museum or an Art Gallery?

This year sees the centenary of Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery – although the Art Gallery opened in October 1909 the Museum didn’t open until 23rd March 1910.

To help with the promotion of the centenary I have drawn up a short booklet for the Doncaster Elected Members in which I try to explain about the museum and its collections, what we do and why we do it.  These are my thoughts on the later and you are welcome to use them or screw them up and throw them in the bin depending on how worthwhile you find them.  They are, of course, specifically related to Doncaster and its collections.

The reasons why we have a Museum or an Art Gallery are much the same today as they were a hundred years ago:

To give access for ordinary people to works of art, both fine (paintings, sculpture, prints and drawings) and decorative (any other work of craft e.g. ceramics, jewellery, glassware, silverware).  People cannot afford these beautiful and thought-provoking works as individuals, but together we can.

To help and encourage people to understand the world around them and how it got that way, through either human history, natural history or a natural science like geology or palaeontology (fossils).  A museum does this by displaying and interpreting real things that have survived from another age.  They encourage people to take control of their own learning, allowing them to choose what they want to learn at the pace they want to learn it.

To preserve the collections for future generations.

• Objects form a unique link with the past, and through these survivors, people and communities can form a connection with times that have long gone but which still influence the present.  This can engender pride in the place that you live – for example, the Museum Service has collections relating to the railway and coalmining industries.
• More recent objects can help to form inter-generational links.  The world that we live in moves so fast that museums allow grandparents to show their grandchildren the things that they grew up with and used, but yet would never see now.  Many school children flatly refuse to believe that televisions ever came without a remote control – let alone colour!
• The natural history collections allow visitors to get up close to the natural world.  As a real object they are also able to see the size, something they are unable to do in books or on television.  For instance the ‘Fish in the River Don’ display at the Museum & Art Gallery is popular with angling fathers who show their children what they are trying to catch and the growling brown bears as they go into the museum are very popular with our younger visitors.
• The collections help with research and the growth of human knowledge.  Two examples come from the natural history collections.  The birds eggs collection has been used to measure the effect of pesticides on the thickness of the egg’s shell.  By using museum collections like ours researchers were able to go back into the past and determine that pesticides were indeed reducing the thickness of the shells.  What was thought to be the fossil of an Icthyosaur from 200 million years ago has just been identified as a new species.  We are awaiting confirmation that it is a new genus (family). This makes it of international importance.

[Doncaster Museums & Galleries - see www.doncaster.gov.uk/Leisure_in_Doncaster/Museums_and_Galleries/Museums_and_Galleries.asp]

Carolyn Dalton
Museum Manager
Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery

Museum Interactives

Interactives at Goole and Skidby

At East Riding Museums we are great believers in the power of interactives.  Janet Tierney, the Goole and Skidby curator, has spent a considerable amount of resource (over £50,000 worth of mainly HLF grant) in having them installed at Skidby Working Windmill and Goole Museum.

As unreformed constructivists (which really dates us as children of the sixties) we believe that:

• We have to focus on the learner not on the thing being taught
• There is no knowledge independent of the meaning attributed to experience, i.e. constructed, by the learner (sorry Plato)
• Therefore learning is an active process centred on the learner, not a passive one directed by the teacher
• The crucial act of learning is mental – hands on experience may be necessary for learning but on its own it’s not enough
• Learning is best when it’s social
• Learning only takes place within the context of what somebody already knows
• One needs time to properly assimilate knowledge, a brisk march round a museum achieves little
• Motivation is crucial – learning must be enjoyable and have a considered purpose

Bearing all these constructivist nuggets in mind, we commissioned our £50,000 worth of ‘brains-on, hands-on’ interactives for Skidby and Goole.  They had to be robust enough to withstand incessant, punishing use without the benefit of regular maintenance (too expensive).  The ones for Skidby were designed to explore the processes of the mill and the techniques employed in agriculture, domestic setting and village life.  The ones for Goole explored the processes of a working dock.

    

We were particularly keen that the interactives should reinforce the themes of the displays.  However, for the minority of the audience who have difficulties with written English (some migrant workers particularly in the Goole area, and young children and adults with basic skills issues), the interactives could be used to communicate core messages without the need to read exhibition text.  They had to be entertaining enough to encourage people to engage with them, and also be absorbing enough to slow people down so they took much longer than they otherwise would have done to move through the museum.  We hoped this would allow enough time for real learning to take place.  Each interactive also had to convey at least one idea of educational value – instead of merely allowing the participant to have a rare old time bashing things!  Finally, they had to be designed in such a way that a family or a group of friends could gather round, making the educational experience a social one.

The interactives have been a great success with young and old alike, although a small number of them have had their efficacy muted by Health and Safety concerns about the danger of trapped fingers and the like.

Highlights include:

At Skidby

• The ‘nonsense machine’ (the most expensive at £4,000) which demonstrates how pulleys, a vibrating tube and an Archimedes screw transport grain around the mill
• A pump device which shows how a blast of air can turn sails
• A fully working scale model of the mill, the sails of which can be turned by human breath
• A balancing table where children weigh sacks of flour, grain and feathers

At Goole

• A ship loading game which reveals the catastrophic results of loading a ship badly
• The ‘Aire and Calder diver’ which demonstrates buoyancy
• The ‘Humber Keel’, a three dimensional jigsaw of a canal barge

Numerous other interactives at both sites are all enthusiastically used and reinforce our belief that well designed interactives are a crucial part of a museum’s visitor offer – although one is still often shocked to see children marching past our shiny new interactives to engage with the simple delights of the drawing table!

[East Riding of Yorkshire Museums - see www.eastriding.gov.uk/cs/culture-and-information/about-the-museums-service/]

Nial Adams
Principal Museums Officer
East Riding Yorkshire Council