a new future for our past?

I came across this today from one of my RSS feeds and thought it posed some interesting questions relating to the use and reuse of heritage buildings. The Michigan Theatre, built in 1926, was once an impressive building on the site of the garage where Ford built his first car prototype, according to www.detriotfunk.com . It was saved from demolition in the 1970s but was gutted and is now used as a car park. Looking at the pictures on either website you can see the amazing interiors and details of the former theatre which was described as a jewel and had 10 foot chandeliers.
While the reuse of a building deemed to have heritage significance is best practice, I don't think this is what any professional in the heritage industry would like to see.  Ironically there is now probably greater access to this building than there would have been when it was a theatre. I have such mixed feelings about this building and its treatment, but it is an interesting urban environment to explore so I thought I'd share it.

(from Wikipedia)

an interesting exhibition

I found this interesting article during last week which made me stop and think, like a pebble in the road I wanted to have a closer look at. Its an apron exhibition at the Vandergrift Museum in the US.  All the aprons were sourced from people who lived or had lived in the Vandergrift area and it was great that not all of them were domestic aprons. There was an anatomy and Dairy Queen apron, and a Christmas apron. The aspect of the exhibition I liked the most was that the exhibition wasn't just about the aprons and the technical side to their creation, it was predominantly about the stories behind them, the interpretation.

Bringing together what seems to be an ordinary, everyday object can start people talking about so many different things - for example the changing to domestic life and the role of women, arts and crafts skills, changes in clothes; just to name a few of the more obvious ones.

The interpretation of objects is the important aspect of having a collection of objects, without it the objects are meaningless and storerooms would resemble junkrooms.

Delicious and Library Thing

Well this week's exercises have had some surprising results, I didn't expect much from the two sites but was pleasantly surprised. I had previously looked at Delicious before doing this training and thought well that's a waste of time, who wants to create a favourites list online? Having a look at the suggested examples gave me a better understanding of the benefits of the site such as tagging, finding other sites people have listed and finally being able to access my favourites from any computer. Its actually pretty interesting seeing where the threads in the form of tags take you, although sometimes you can get so lost you don't know where you started from but I guess as in many things the journey of discovery is the most important thing. I also looked up some of the blogs I'm following and saw what they listed (and pinched a few, but they're there to share so its ok).  Just heard from GozzieHoon that Delicious will be no more, aww just when I was getting into it.

Library Thing was also interesting to explore. I set up an account (for the purposes of the training) and added a few books to play with the site's features. I already have an account with Goodreads which is very similar. However there are some benefits I saw with Library Thing over Goodreads is that you can add tags, helpful if you want to find other books in that genre, there is a local element that shows where the nearest libraries and bookshops are and there are actually links to other sites if you look up an author. I've added the books to my blog (which was a bit frustrating, but now I have learnt a new skill) so you can see the random selection. To defend Goodreads I like the format of that site better as you don't have to go to another page to see other people's reviews.

I think both sites have benefits in a professional library context, however I think its the first time where I can't see a benefit to a heritage institution, unless they use Delicious or an equivalent to link to other sites that are similar.

really wiki(d)

I have to say that looking at the suggested sites didn't really do anything for me so I went on a quest to find out what museums are doing with wikis. The results are interesting.
One of the blogs I've stumbled on is Museum Next which is all about the use of technology in museums - yay. One post features an exhibition which uses ipads to provide information via Wikipedia on the featured artists. http://www.museumnext.org/2010/blog/what-can-the-ipad-do-for-museums. I really like this idea as its easily updated and can link to other sites if you want more information. Coincidentally I found another blog post about this same exhibition from the host museum - the Brooklyn Museum.
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2010/10/14/bklynflow-on-github/

Another museum with a more local focus is the Amersham Museum in England which wants people to add their information about the place much in the same way as wikipedia works, although this is controlled and you have to apply to get the password to upload information. I think this is a great idea which got me interested in wikis again as a tool to connect people and information. I'm finding professionally there are people in the community who know about objects in a museum/local studies collection that staff don't necessarily have the knowledge, so instead of putting in a can you help ad in a newspaper, a wiki could help to expand the knowledge of the collection, while making it digitally accessible. Also people contributing can also provide their own stories about using/seeing the object used or background information on a photo. The Science Museum had this in mind with their object wiki where you can look up an object in their collection for example: http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wiki/Vespa_Sportique_Scooter
or this one where people have added their memories of using the object (might bring back some memories of people out there):
http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wiki/Macintosh

A new site is www.nowandthen.net.au where Collections Australia Network (CAN) have teamed up with a local museum in Mallala, SA for a trial wiki which "utilises wiki technology to allow local communities to record, explore and share information about their history and life today. All members of the public are invited to contribute and edit entries on particular communities and the places, people, events, organisations and things that make them unique."
The Our Page In History run by the WA State Library Foundation is along the same lines as the now and then site as it is digitising the collection and asking people to contribute their knowledge.  Or perhaps this is a little off the track of wikis?

RSS -really super system

After setting up the feeds for my favourite and new favourite websites I couldn't wait to see if there were any new updates. Here's some of the ones I subscribed to:
I added two of the suggested ones from Google reader which were on design and architecture,
http://design-milk.com/
http://weburbanist.com/
two from the Powerhouse museum - object of the week and photo of the day (a great use of getting the collection out there to everyone in webland),
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/imageservices/
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/blog/
as well as a few others on museum and crafty themes
http://www.museummarketing.co.uk/
http://thecraftyminx.com.au/

I really like the idea that you don't have to keep on looking at your favourite websites, only to find that there's nothing new - I used to do this and get frustrated. So having the information come to me is great, its like getting mail everyday (or not depending on the website but that's ok)- good mail, not bills. Also as a test I decided to subscribe to a site which I get weekly emails from just to see how they are different. I'm glad I did because I was missing out on so much content which featured on the website that they didn't include on the email. Another good feature is that the info on the posts are included in the list of new items so if it doesn't sound interesting you can just skip over it.

So based on this test for a week I think I can extrapolate a result and say that RSS feeds are useful in my work life as a better way of letting people know what's happening or what's new and exciting in your library/museum/other than sending/producing newsletters. So with as much effort as writing an email (with a bit of thought to the content of course) all the people out there interested in your museum/library/place can get updates without the need to wait for enough information to put out a newsletter. 

I can see the following benefits from RSS feeds:

• information comes to me and I don't get frustrated that I'm constantly checking sites which aren't updated as often as I look at them
• a mailing list doesn't need to be maintained by a workplace to send out newsletters
• depending on the workplace it may be easier to write a blog post than design/input information into a newsletter template

To summarise there are benefits to both the end users of websites as well as those creating the content. That's got to be a good thing for everyone who is time poor at work/home.

Museum/heritage moments

After reading this story from The Guardian, which I found on Global Museum, that talks about local museum funding and the importance of local museums; I thought about the museum/heritage moments of my life. The one that comes to mind first is obviously the Propert pink caravan as the museum moment of my 2007 visit to the National Museum. On my latest visit, perhaps due to much of the collection being stored during the refurbishment, my museum moment came from a touring exhibition from WA. The exhibition was Yirwarra Kuju: Canning Stock Route and consisted of paintings of artists living along the old stock route. If you get the opportunity to see it, go for it as it gives an interesting view of Indigenous history, life and art in a very remote landscape.

Locally my favourite object at the WA Museum is the buffalo who is part of the Museum's heritage collection. This is due to it being among the early museum exhibits still on display and the way the exhibition objects are displayed. The buffalo is an object that a lot of people remember on their visit, no matter what their age and it is fascinating to see an animal that big up close. Check it out next time you're in the museum.  In Maritime museum Shipwrecks Gallery its definintely the Batavia exhibition which I saw for the first time in primary school. The exhibition and story behind this shipwreck is interesting, blood thirsty and tragic and is an important part of WA's history. A book on the subject is
Hugh Edward's Islands of angry ghosts : murder, mayhem and mutiny : the story of The Batavia.

Unfortunately I can't find any images of these exhibitions to inspire you to visit, but here's one of the museum facade from the James Street in the cultural centre.

WA Museum

My question to you all in blogland is what are your museum/heritage moments?

Maybe you haven't had one yet so I encourage you to get out there and find out about something you already enjoy - there'll be a museum somewhere in the world for you.

Flickr

After agonising over finding an image for the past week, today I finally had a breakthrough and found one partly due to something GozzieHoon said to me yesterday about my favourite place in Perth. While I don't have a definite favourite, here is an image of somewhere I love in Perth. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dinlin47/3570429682

The image shows the magical time of the change in light late in the day as shown in the photo when the colours of the trees are enhanced and the undergrowth is in shadow. 
Hunting around on Flickr I looked at some of the cultural institutions' images under The Commons which is a great way of sharing these items from the collections, such as the Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian lantern slides from the turn of the 20th century.
Sphinx

modern image of the Sphinx

I also liked how people have posted similar images in their comments which shows the changes over time of these places. I had seen these images before in Archaeological Diggings magazine and looking at the images I imagined how amazing they would have been to an audience, I'm thinking Europeans, who wouldn't have seen anything like it. The craze for all things Egyptian continued in decorating and fashion design took off in the 1920s and 1930s, after seeing images like these. Also due to the archaeological finds occurring at the time such as Tutankhamen.

You can see the influence here in one of the Powerhouse swatches.

Another thing I love about the lantern slides is the tinting, a light wash over the image to suggest the colours. Not quite the true life colouring we expect from today's latest technology but back then it would have been very evocative for the viewers.

So after all this I can see the benefit of adding images from library and cultural heritage institutions to better allow access and as a way of utilising a web service, rather than storing images on their own website. I guess the only issue is with copyrighting and that seems to be sorted by the Creative Commons.