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Chemistry For Conservators 02

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Audiences waited seven years between ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’ for the continuing adventures of Sigourney Weaver IN SPAAAAAAAAACE, so two years ‘twixt instalments of my journey through the International Academic Projects ‘Chemistry for Conservators’ course is nothing to complain about. So there. This course was not intended to crank out a newly-minted Conservator at its conclusion, rather it was aimed at people like me with rusty GCSE Chemistry who wish to understand more about the application of basic scientific principles in a museum context. Similarly the purpose of this series is not to analyse in any particular depth the format and delivery of the course, but to outline what’s involved along with any musings and highlighting some of the… highlights as we go. The TLDR version (how frightfully hip and with it) is that I very much enjoyed this course, and while I wouldn’t say it gave any earth-shattering new insights it was a fascinating exploration of the chemical principles underp
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Creepy Creepy Museum Dummies

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(N.B. for the really creepy bit skip ahead to the bottom...) My first museum sported a ploughman dummy which, after repainting by a volunteer, resembled a boiled Nigel Mansell. I remember well (usually around 3 a.m.) the feeling of removing his flat cap and discovering there was NOTHING underneath, the face ending in a sheer cut through moth-eaten expanding foam. (N.B. I refer to the dummy, not the volunteer. I'm not in the habit of touching volunteers' headgear).  There are broadly two schools of thought regarding the value of museum dummies (that's in the exhibitions, not staff). They can be either valuable interpretive assets which breathe life into a display by giving a sense of past people's interaction with their world, or... they're effing creepy and OH MY WORD WHY WOULD YOU EVER PUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN YOUR MUSEUM KILL IT KILL IT! I have a real soft spot for museum dummies - admittedly to a great extent out of a love of the absurd rather than a desire to
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Ho Ho Ho, Goodwill To All Curators etc

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Realised a couple of days ago that this blog's been running for a year now and has reached a whopping dozen entries, whoopee! At the time of writing I'm knee deep in writing business plans, activity plans, interpretation and design reports and an awful lot of funding bids for my day job, but I've been fortunate enough to find time now and then to keep the family photos scanning project ticking over.  Rapidly approaching scan 10,000, it was very appropriately festive, though completely co-incidental, this week to reach Christmas 1987. To nicely round off the year then here is the author getting stuck in to some serious present opening. And wondering when we can change the wallpaper. Stay tuned for yet more intermittent blogging in 2022. In the meantime - Merry Christmas!
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Chemistry For Conservators 01

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  ‘Chemical processes underlie many of the practices and techniques used in conservation. From environmental control in preventative conservation to practical conservation and restoration, chemical interactions take place between the object and the outside world. These interactions may be harmful or benign, and need to be understood in order that they be controlled’. (Introduction, Chemistry for Conservators IAP) Everything is going to fall apart. Entropy’s gonna git ya! At least, that often felt like the central theme of the ‘Chemistry for Conservators’ course I undertook in 2021. The good news is the course also tells you how to, like, stop that happening. As a Curator I’ve been fascinated with how objects are preserved (‘for future generations to enjoy’ is how that phrase usually ends when writing funding bids), which is just as well as looking after the precious things is kind of fundamental to the job. This art, which is actually a science, is called... Conservation. PAY ATT
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Domestic Digitising Doings 07: Scanning Without A Scanner

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Apologies, the blog’s gone by the wayside a bit lately, what with most of my time being taken up with my day job managing the redevelopment of Glencoe Folk Museum in the Highlands. There are a few articles in preparation, including a series on the Chemistry for Conservators course I completed earlier this year, but in the meantime here’s a placeholder quickie returning to one of my favourite topics – digitising film negatives. Walk towards the light! Or rather, don't as you'll knock the light off the table ya clumsy get. STILL ON ABOUT SCANNING 😒 As a break from digitising my own family’s archive (9,000 scans and counting…) my good lady recently unearthed a small batch of her family photos taken in the early 1980s. I was intrigued by these because it took a while to recognise the film format. It turned out to be Kodak 126 film (the 126 deriving from the images being 26.5mm square) This was introduced in 1963 in cartridge form, a more user-friendly way of loading a camera tha
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Domestic Digitising Doings 06: Sliding to a Halt

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It’s not that I’ve been too lazy to update this blog – oh no indeed! Far from it as a matter of fact. A good Curator is adept at prioritising tasks to ensure the best work is done in the best time so in the last, ahem, four months I’ve simply been working on more time-critical endeavours. Like, erm, digging a pond. And catching up with my hobby of sitting down. And drawing naff cartoons. So there. I will not be giving up the day job. Thanks for asking.   In amongst this there’s been a major funding bid to submit, a conservation-based chemistry course to get stuck into (more in a future blog…) and, last month, a museum to re-open. I know, I know – excuses excuses… Anyway… BACK AT THE SCANNING. What’s going on with the project to digitise my family’s slide collection? Well it’s kind of, erm, done. Yup. 6,451 transparencies all scanned and catalogued, a chronicle of family activities between the early 1960s and 2000. Boom. Done. Oldest and most recent slides. Each is presented
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Policy, Polido

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Bit busy lately writing a major funding bid for my day job so there's not been much progress with the digitising of my family negatives. However, the mountain of job specs, tender briefs, budget spreadsheets and myriad other supporting documents I've been accumulating for this application has made me consider how much paperwork even a small museum can generate. I'm thinking particularly of ...museum policies. Policies, policies, policies. Museums have policies for everything - a policy for what you collect, a policy for looking after the stuff you collect, a policy for cataloguing the stuff you collect, a policy for training people to look after the stuff you collect, a policy for disposing of things you no longer collect, a policy for engaging visitors with what you collect, a policy for making sure what you collect doesn't get stolen or go on fire or get wet, a policy for planning what you're going to do with the stuff you collect over the next five years, a polic
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