19 March 2009

Just found the web presence for what seems will be an interesting and innovative Masters programme in 'Digital Anthropology' at University College London. From the web site:

"Digital technologies have become ubiquitous. From Facebook, Youtube and Flickr to PowerPoint and Second Life. Museum displays migrate to the internet, family communication in the Diaspora is dominated by new media, artists work with digital films and images. Anthropology and ethnographic research is fundamental to understanding the local consequences of these innovations, and to create theories that help us acknowledge, understand and engage with them. Today's students need to become proficient with digital technologies as research and communication tools. Through combining technical skills with appreciation of social effects, students will be trained for further research and involvement in this emergent world."
» http://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/digital-anthropology/about.htm

I've had it in mind for a long while that I should include in the course some material on ethnography / anthropology, not only because some basic knowledge of the discipline would be obviously useful when working on projects relating to museums of ethnography (British Museum, Horniman Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, the Cuming Museum, ...) but also because so many students have chosen to work on projects where ethnographic skills in data collection would be useful. Maybe for next year ...?

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27 February 2009

This may be of interest to you.

Although we've seen some small progress in recent years, it's disappointing to see that leadership and management positions in the museum and heritage sector in the UK still largely remain the inveterate preserve of middle-class white English males from the old universities. (I write, incidentally, as a working-class, non-Oxbridge graduate of rebel Scots lineage whose father came to England "to educate the Sassenachs".) This is bad for the sector, bad for the country, bad for women, bad for those from non-white and non-middle class backgrounds, bad for the public communication of and public understanding of heritage itself.

Under the lead of the Arts Council England, Creative & Cultural Skills and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Cultural Leadership Delivery Partnership was formed in June 2006 to spearhead the Cultural Leadership Programme with the aim of nurturing and developing world class, dynamic and diverse leaders in the the creative and cultural industries for the 21st Century.

The opportunities are there for all to grasp, and I'd therefore encourage you to consider a career as an IT / information professional in the museums and heritage sector. To start you thinking, I've copied below a couple of pages from the Cultural Leadership Programme website. In the immortal words of Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, "We are the ones we have been waiting for".

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Leadership

"I live and work in London, one of the most diverse cities in the world. Thirty per cent of Londoners are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, thousands more, like me, are of mixed heritage and the numbers are increasing every year. People are attracted to the capital precisely because it is so cosmopolitan. Such extraordinary diversity is what makes our arts and culture so vibrant and exciting, not just in London, but across the UK."

Lady Sue Woodford Hollick, Chair, Arts Council England, London

"The failure to recruit and develop a more diverse workforce has been highlighted by the Department for Culture Media and Sport as a potential problem for the future growth and prosperity of the creative and cultural sector. The underrepresentation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic leaders in the sector is a pressing issue that is evidenced by all the currently available data.
Some people have assumed that the lack of representation of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds within the sector is due to a lack of interest by ethnic minorities in careers in the creative and cultural industries. However, there is evidence of a high level of interest from BAME communities in working in the arts and cultural sector, and recruitment at lower levels in these organisations often reflects more closely the local working age BAME populations. The question is why are these individuals in entry-level jobs (administration and frontline) not progressing to higher levels.
In order to understand and address the reasons for under-representation in the sector and the limited progression into leadership roles we need to have a more information on the challenges faced by potential leaders from BAME backgrounds and sufficient data to set a baseline against which future progress can be measured. To help address these issues, the Cultural Leadership Programme and Arts Council England’s decibel initiative commissioned The Change Institute to undertake the first comprehensive baseline report on BAME leadership in the creative and cultural sector. It has been done with cross sector support from Arts Council England, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and Creative & Cultural Skills (CCSkills)."

You can download the full report and the executive summary from:

» http://www.culturalleadership.org.uk/knowledgebase/blackasianandminorityethnicleadership/default.aspa

Women in Leadership

"When the Cultural Leadership Programme hosted Women at the Top in June 2007 we had to move venues to accommodate over 200 women and men who had responded eagerly to the opportunity to explore the challenges for women in leadership. This is a subject which elicits strong, often contradictory, opinions. Whilst some lament the lack of female role models and a decline in priority actions, others list a stream of high profile women as evidence of progress. Surely both views cannot be right. But where is the evidence? The absence of hard data is a chink in the collective armour.
With an increasing reputation for innovative leadership development the Cultural Leadership Programme took the initiative to fill the critical gap in the sector’s knowledge base by commissioning the first independent report on women in leadership in the creative and cultural sector. This quantitative research creates a marker in the sand, setting a baseline for measuring future progress and testing those strong reactions that this subject will doubtless continue to engender."

You can download the full report and the executive summary from:

» http://www.culturalleadership.org.uk/knowledgebase/womeninleadership/default.aspa

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02 February 2009

Another year, another run of the module ... let's make this year's course even greater than the last! In the first instance may I ask all of this year's cohort to please sign up as 'members' and to create brief profiles of themselves. Then browse around the site to get a sense of the kinds of things we'll be studying, and read the assessment spec.

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18 July 2008

I guess that's it for the current year. Teaching finished, assessment over, results out. You've been a great class this year, with some fantastically promising work from so many of you--thanks for making this, for me, a great first run of the course ... and for putting up with my madness when enthusiasm sometimes got the better of me.

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03 June 2008

I wish I had the time to profile many more of the projects delivered by this year's students. Up to my eyes in marking, I can give brief mention to only an indicative few (so please don't feel slighted if I fail to mention yours).

And the first I'll highlight is Ioannis Pomonis's superb mini re-creation in Second Life of London's Natural History Museum, captured in the YouTube video, right. Ioannis was also a member of the team that, on my Virtual Reality course, created the quite remarkable reconstruction in Second Life of the Tower of London on behalf of Historic Royal Palaces. This is quite outstanding work, Ioannis--congratulations!

Also worthy of honorable mention are, among others:

• Zaki Husein's map-based review and recommender site for London's museums, not only locating museums and galleries clearly on a map but also, with user-generated reviews, providing museums and galleries with valuable feedback on their exhibitions that otherwise they might never have from their visitors. Really impressive start, Zak!
• Patrick Inebe has also got off to a great start with his songs and stories of the Kuman of Uganda. Some great storytelling, with English transcripts, and some wonderful video clips. Great work, Patrick--and I really do hope that you'll continue to maintain this site and see it grow.
• Iqra Khan's wiki for GCSE History students and teachers, motivating and empowering students to actively participate in a community of learning.
• Parminder Singh Mahi's dramatic reconstruction, through user-generated content from witnesses and participants, of the 1979 Southall riots in his community web site.
  
• It's often hard to draw the fine line between what clearly counts as culture or history or heritage and what is arguably something else. Kofi's stories from asylum-seekers hovers over that line but, to my mind, valuably gravitates towards the area occupied by the Museum of London's exhibition Belonging: voices of London’s refugees and by heritage web sites such as Refugee Stories. There are exhibitions that celebrate the cultural histories of Britain's immigrant communities and there are exhibitions that record the stories of refugees who have settled in Britain; but a chunk of important social history, largely ignored today, risks being lost entirely with the passing of time. And that (after some renegotiation) has become the focus of Kofi's work: the stories of active asylum-seekers who, in limbo while awaiting the Home Office decision on whether they will been granted leave to remain in the UK, will live precarious and unnatural lives in this country. It is their stories of flight, of arrival, of anxious interviews with immigration staff, of endeavouring to cope both with painful memories and with the challenges of day-to-day life as refugees in Britain, that when recorded will constitute an important and valuable documentation of an otherwise hidden history.
  

I've in general been very pleased with the projects delivered in this first year of a new course. Although in many cases the implementations have been rudimentary--very little more than a basic 'proof-of-concept' (and this is an issue that I'll have to address with next year's cohort)--the conceptualisations have frequently been excellent.

On the downside, I'm afraid, there have been some few projects that are very poor, evidencing little thought and little effort, and suggesting that these students do not really care about their work. This persuades me that I'll have to better formalise a pre-project consultation process for next year.

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10 May 2008

I'm beginning to see previews of projects; and some of them are looking immensely promising.

Karen Janssen has her oral history prototype up and running (viewable by invitation only for the present; see screenshot, left), and it already has the makings of an important and valuable resource for social historians of the Second World War ... as well as a fantastic 'memory box' for future generations of young people in Holland.

Mairi Stobbart's "Ewell Past & Present" also already looks good in prototype, and will hopefully turn into a vibrant virtual community of people keen to share their memories and digital memorabilia of Ewell.

On Friday Ashley Ward and I popped over to Tower Hamlets for a meeting with members of the management committee of THACMO, Harry Cumberbatch, Sidney Millin, Hazel Roach, Philip Morgan, and Fabian Tompsett. Ashley, for his project, is preparing a feasibility study and report on the use of locative media for a multimedia walking tour of the Power Writers--"Discovering and Celebrating Five African Writers who came to London in the Eighteenth Century"--in Tower Hamlets: Phillis Wheatley, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, John Marrant, Olaudah Equiano, and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. Part of THACHMO's 'Health Through History' strategy, this is an important project both in helping African and Caribbean Londoners feel immense pride in their cultural heritage and also in bringing into public view a history that is little known to Londoners in general.

Last but certainly not least, Dawit Atnafu has been mailing me draft extracts from his report on his Ethiopian history project. There's not space to include all of it here; but the short extract below gives the gist. As a powerful response to the contemporary negative portrayal of Ethiopia that "seems to recognize and associate Ethiopia with poverty and famine",

"The most crucial aim of the project is to get the people and the youth interested in the history so they can contribute and learn at the same time. This platform will also cater for Ethiopians living in foreign countries, who know very little history of the region. Although this project will not be able to solve all the issues above, it will provide a platform where anybody can contribute their version of history or culture as well as from other credible sources. The project can be deemed successful if users, especially young Ethiopians in foreign countries as well as in Ethiopia, get involved in enriching the platform with relevant contents and gain knowledge and understanding of their history whether by the process of research conducted before contributing or by browsing the contents submitted."

I've yet to see--and I really look forward to seeing--what I expect to be equally fantastic work from Patrick, Wayne, James, Colette, and the others.

Well done, guys! I'm really proud of you all!

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29 April 2008

Many thanks all those students who turned up yesterday for the forum. The panelists enjoyed it as much as you did! Mia wrote back to me today to tell me that she's blogged the event on the Museum of London web site; and she has had some very complementary things to say about you guys:

"Some of the students talked about their projects, and I was impressed by the technical range and the thought that had gone into them.The students also asked some really good questions and made some insightful comments, some of which showed a real appreciation of the complex ways in which museums interact with ‘representative’ communities and how the authoritative voice and collecting policy of a museum can operate - not necessarily something I’d expect from computing students, even though I was one once!Selfishly, I’d love to hear some more questions from them and other students; and perhaps get some answers to our questions."

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25 April 2008

... meanwhile, elsewhere in the university ...:

Museum memories to be treasured for ever
Kingston University has won a £260,000 grant to launch an oral history project with staff at London’s Natural History Museum. The grant, from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will allow a team of Kingston experts to record the memories and experiences of curators, collectors and other specialists working at the world-renowned institution. Dubbed Museum Lives, the three-year programme of interviews will produce a detailed historical record and create a host of multimedia resources for the museum’s exhibitions and education work

Read the full story at:
» http://www.kingston.ac.uk/pressoffice/latestnews/2008/april/11-Museum-memories-to-be-treasured-for-ever/index.php

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08 March 2008

You might be interested in this--a great example of a location-based heritage system--if you're ever down in Southampton:

http://HiddenHistories.org.uk

Hidden Histories uses the revolutionary new concept of Street Radio developed by Hive Networks to make the treasures of Southampton's Oral History Archive available in the public realm of the city. Street Radio is a totally new way of experiencing the city. The system utilises wireless communication technologies such as WIFI and Bluetooth in combination with FM radio to create captive ‘puddles’ -- specific places where particular stories and themes can be heard. By 'narrowcasting' audio files (broadcasting using very weak radio transmitters with a range of about 10 meters) a selection of stories from the OHU can be heard along 10 nodal points from where byte-sized stories are transmitted. These nodes link together to form a media rich walk that transports people through the changing life of the city.
The walk begins in and around the proposed ‘Cultural Quarter’ on Above Bar Street and the Civic Centre complex. Audiences are able to experience the walk through FM radio receivers and Bluetooth enabled mobile phones.
The Oral History Unit is an almost hidden jewel in Southampton’s culture and heritage department. While well known and highly regarded in the international Oral History expert community, it is literally unknown outside Southampton otherwise. For more than 20 years the OHU has been recording the life stories told by the people themselves. Through the voices of common people it offers a window back into time: on the "tale end of the Dickensian age" as one interviewee puts it himself, where men had to queue every day for work at a shed at the entrance to the docks, to the hard life on the passenger ships and tug boats, an oral history is told that does not conform to the clichés and stereotypes of the official versions produced by todays media industry. The unsung heroes of historical moments such as the sinking of the Titanic or famous journeys of ships such as the Queen Mary are telling their own stories from the insiders perspective. Lesser known stories such as the secret social life on ships, the achievements of women in the heavy industries during WWII, and the troubles of immigrants from Asia and the Caribbean surface in this archive. While many of these stories tell of trials and tribulations they also shine with humanity and joyful moments.

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07 March 2008

Those of you who are planning to undertake oral history, or community memory, or digital storytelling projects might well be interested in the free timeline-based Web 2.0 application, OurStory (http://www.ourstory.com) either standalone or, better, embedded in your own bespoke application (e.g. Web 2.0 mashup with, for example, Google Maps). OurStory is intended specifically as a tool for representing and managing personal histories; but in principle might, for its timeline capabilities, also be used for more straightforward historical narratives.

That apart, some much needed and fairly major redesign of the site today, creating a sub-menu of topics for Syllabus and integrating into it pages from the 'Technologies' section.

Finally, thanks to Patrick and Ioannis for adding their project details to the project list page. What about the rest of you, then?

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06 March 2008

Well done, Karen, for being the first to add your name and project title to the project list page!

I'm initiating a 'Student of the Week' section to highlight the student who has made the most significant contribution towards the evolution of this wiki. Start contributing, folks!

Finally, I've added an 'Employment' page to post not only current job ads, but also to exemplify in general the kinds of IT jobs that are on offer to suitably qualified candidates in the culture and heritage informatics sector.