I asked the museum professionals who follow me on twitter:
“How did you get your start in museum”
Here are the responses, as well as other tips. I hope it helps somewhat.
(via email): I am visitor services manager at museum in Philadelphia. I was actually recommended by the previous VS manager.
I am seeing a number of people with [...]
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Mar 27
Getting the Start in Museums
Mar 27
Simon Jenkins’s Article
There is so much quote-worthy in this article by Simon Jenkins that I’m just going to choose one and tell you to read the rest. The following quote is in regards of the 2003 National Museums Directors’ Conference on selling objects as part of collections management.
This proposal was disregarded. “Saving for the nation” has become code for [...]
Mar 27
Handheld Sign Language Guides
This comes under one of those “why didn’t I think of that” ideas. The Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth has just got 12 handheld devices that show sign-language video about exhibits and artefacts.
The only improvement I could suggest would be introducing GPS and location-aware software so the device starts the sign language video dependent on [...]
Mar 27
GYAH!
Tamayo Museum for the Contemporary Arts in Mexico has an interesting marketing strategy.
Jesus.
(via trendsupdates.com)
Mar 27
Oh Come On: Museum has Credit Crunch Exhibition
Museum Presentism is multi-faceted. It can mean the actions of museums for short-term gain or without long-term vision. It can also mean that history is pushed to the corners for exhibitions of Right Now.
The Museum of American Finance has an exhibition entitled “Tracking the Credit Crisis”, documenting finance from 2007 to 2009.
Awesome.
There’s so much going on [...]
Mar 27
Wallace and Gromit at the Science Museum
For some reason, I tend to give science museums a lot more leway in criticisms, due to the fact that they tend to walk a parallel path to other history based museums (Well, certainly in the UK).
There is something that makes sense and doesn’t make sense to me about this: the Science Museum in London [...]
Mar 27
Guest Post: Ingrid Murnane
Museum recruitment needs change!
I’m recently qualified with an MA with distinction in Museums and Galleries, with a specialism in history of textiles. I can’t get a job for love nor money. There are many, many post-graduates like me in the same position: newly qualified, with nowhere to go. I know we are in a recession [...]
Mar 27
ArtFriday
If you want to be part of ArtFriday and have your work displayed on here, drop me an email pete(at)newcurator.com and I’ll give you instructions. The only rules are that It has to be something I can display and link to as I can’t offer hosting and it has to be recent/the latest thing.
On with [...]
Mar 25
Visions of the Future
I like to think that newcurator.com always has the future in mind. Every post and article or weird thing I uncover is either presented as “Imagine what this will be like in a museum” or “This is the beginning of a greater trend”. So wondrous things like augmented reality to more fundamentals like deaccessioning policy [...]
Mar 24
Museum Game on the Wii
I had hoped that Majesco Entertainment’s game ESCAPE THE MUSEUM (via blogs.smithsonianmag.com) would be about a curator’s ambition for job satisfaction.
Apparently, the scenario is that you are curator Susan Anderson and you’re in the museum during a large earthquake. Everything is thrown onto the floor and there are puzzles to solve in order to save objects [...]
Mar 24
Quote of the Week
I know of web teams that have one person per 30,000 pages. I know of web teams that don’t even know how many pages they have. I know of web teams that don’t even know how many websites they have. Is that quality? Is that management?
Giraffe Forum (via useum.tumblr.com)
Something to think about when your museum website [...]
Mar 24
Guest Post: A. D. Jacobson
Contemporary American museums are in a precarious spot. They have freedom that commercial galleries don’t have and, as a result, show some amazing work that just could not end up in any but the biggest galleries. While they are not beholden to the needs of the consumer market, they too often are focused on what [...]
Mar 23
Theoretical UI: The Holographic Shadow
I’m a big alternate/augmented reality nut, as many of you may have guessed. I look at every development in wearable computers and think it won’t be long before our relationship to information is going to change. I think about how we find, pull and manipulate information and how museums are going to have to adapt [...]
Mar 23
The Monday Catch-Up
The Smithsonian Latino Museum opens and Dresden Museum expands… In Second Life.
This surprises me since I thought SL was pretty much dead because it was always empty and full of 3D billboards. The quote of “100 million a month” is clearly an over exaggeration.
Paul Orselli thinks about Slack Spaces in America.
Also links to this article [...]
Mar 23
UNESCO and The Jelling Stones
I seem to have developed quite a fondness for runes in stone since my post on TeknoMagi.
The Jelling Stones represent the birth of Denmark. The inscription on them talks about King Harald’s unification and Christianisation of the Danes (That’s Harald Bluetooth, namesake of the technology). When it comes to national monuments, this is up there [...]
Mar 23
Google Street View and the Tate
Google Street View Car in Bristol by byrion. Used under Creative Commons.
This is both cool and tragic. Google Street View in the UK was announced a few days ago. For those who don’t know, this means Google drove around in a car with a massive amount of cameras on the roof that takes pictures every [...]
Mar 23
Call for Guest Blog Posts
The last time I did this there was a great reaction and I had enough to cover my trip to Poland.
Now, museum news is pretty slow. Every other story being about museums closing or laying off staff or slashing budgets. This isn’t really “museum” news as it’s happening to everyone. It seems my usual sources [...]
Mar 22
The NewCurator Twitter Acquisitions/Disposal Policy
The NewCurator twitter account will follow:
1) People who work in or with museums or directly related to the museum industry
2) Artists, Arts Organisations and Galleries
The NewCurator twitter account hopes that the accounts it follows will act as a definite list for people interested in these fields, so will aim to follow as many os possible. [...]
Mar 20
ArtFriday
Here’s the New and Improved ArtFriday. I think we can call this experiment a Win. The ArtFriday social network is coming along nicely. People are using it and making connection. If you are an artist of any kind and want to join in, send me an email (with maybe a link to something you’ve done) to [...]
Mar 18
Selling Intangible Museum Assets
I called it.
The Queens Museum of Art has a giant replica of New York circa 1992.
You can now “buy” the buildings in the model and are given a “personal deed”.
“We’re in a real estate boom,” said David Strauss.
