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Created: 12 September 2012

For those of you who are members of ICOM (International Council of Museums) - there's a feature about the evaluation training I delivered for ICOM Croatia and Muzeoforum (Slovenian Museums Association) in the August ICOM e-news.

Here in the UK, the Museums Association's Museums 2020 consultation is taking place - what should museums be like in 2020?  Amongst other things, I think they should be repositories for former technologies - the knowledge about techniques, equipment and machinery which is now "outdated".  We might well need those technologies again in the future.  In the "Curious Case of ...." exhibition at the Hancock in Newcastle (part of Stories of the World for the Cultural Olympiad, curated by young people) is a wicker fish trap from the Caribbean.  This traditional design had fallen out of use, but is now being used again as a sustainable method of fishing, as the young fish are too small to be trapped.  We need to retain these examples of technology for when our current high-tech methods cease to be viable.

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Created: 14 July 2012

To Budapest for a Kuratorium meeting of the Museums and Visitors Foundation.  An opportunity for a Turo Rudi - curd cheese with chocolate on the outside and sometimes apricots or hazlenuts in the middle, which sounds weird but in fact is very good. It's been culturally important for Hungarians since 1968.  Read all about it [Link removed 12/12/23 as no longer in existence.].

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Created: 19 June 2012

Nicola's presentation at the Museums + Heritage Show was well received as a practical how-to guide with plenty of hints, tips and links for working with an independent evaluator.  Those who attended seminars at the show will already have received the link from the show organisers to download presentations; Nicola's is in the Visitor Insight strand, curated by the Visitor Studies Group.

Every now and then there's a surprise.  The AP Lite Arts Professional newsletter arrived in my inbox and in the "From the Archives" section there's a link to the piece I wrote for AP back in 2008 about the family tree project at Woodhorn.  Visual poet Ira Lightman created animated family trees - it was alll about encouraging people to use the archives to start doing their family history.