Emerging technologies. Immaterial Matters?

 

A tweet from Lorcan Dempsey @lorcanD caught my eye this morning – it referenced an Ariadne article ‘Emerging Technologies in Academic Libraries (emtacl10)’ a new international conference for academic libraries held in April this year in Trondheim, Norway. The article is in fact a report from Andrew Walsh an academic librarian from the University of Huddersfield, England. Then I saw another tweet from @DigitalKoans about the value academic libraries offer to researchers being analysed to ascertain how what libraries do is beneficial to the research process.

Strikes me the word “research” itself implies that the researcher (party) has explored research materials (collection material) that are made usefully available (a library) to the researcher. This research was (I’m surmising) a means of exploring “how much” value academic libraries generate and therefore increase the potential and therefore value (tangible and intangible) of new research. Lastly I spotted a reference to ways to learning how to write good grant applications from Richard Urban @Musebrarian that I thought “ah ha!” and quickly retweeted the reference.

What struck me about the information in this Ariadne article was the radical changes occurring (impact and issues arising) at one part of the collecting sector and how different the working experience is in the other parts of the collecting sector. On occasion I have been asked to give a sense of what I think is happening in the collecting sector in Australia and I’m going to attempt to do so more here. I’ll come back to the second and third references on value and grant writing further along.


Image provided with a Creative Commons Licence from Jurvetson on Flickr

I’m going to break radical change (and issues) down into bite-sized chunks and use scenarios to think more broadly about the collecting sector and emerging technologies. The collecting sector is a very complex field to be working in and the word collecting is so widely applicable. To make distinctions in work practice and approaches it can therefore be important to see in what context collecting occurs and why.

 

Organisation Size

>> Small local volunteer supported collecting organisations

These collecting organisations can be found ALL over Australia and may have a library collection, an archive of primary materials, historic buildings, native or exotic trees, specimens, artworks or made objects. These organisations might be known as an historical society, a visitor centre, a cultural centre or a museum. Rather than focus on the name or type of the organisation I focus in on what is being collected and my thoughts wander back to why – what is driving this? Then I look at the scale, any public infrastructure, resources available (staff, recurrent budget or grant opportunities) and the services provided. Many issues are faced by volunteer based organisations, to name a few: secure and appropriate premises for keeping collection material, technical expertise to enable digitisation and practice guidance. Outreach supports are crucial for these types of organisations and good advice and support at critical times can mean the world of difference in terms of making progress and continuity.

The notion of emerging technologies might seem incongruent to talk about when organisations like this are faced with these bottom line issues. But… I have to say, I have been enormously impressed by the positive thinking, commitment and power to surprise of the volunteer workforce. In my limited experience working across the GLAMs I’m constantly staggered at the careful attention to core issues and the ability to clear some head space and explore social media.

 

>> Medium-large sized organisations with paid professional staff

These collecting organisations are established as regional, state and national entities often. The organisations may have a primary collecting domain but will often have adjunct and diverse other collections, e.g. a museum that has a library and an archive. It would be disingenuous to say that the same issues faced by volunteer organisations are the same for these medium to large sized collecting organisations. So to qualify this statement I’d say the issues may be similar but the capacity to resolve them and address the risks is greater in these organisations. This capacity arises from the fact that the organisations have been formalised as publicly funded entities, there is recurrent funding and people are specifically trained to undertake core collecting tasks.

The notion of emerging technologies doesn’t seem incongruent at all to talk about in the context of these organisations. What I really like about the collecting community though is that innovation, nimbleness and curiosity – isn’t – the preserve of the paid workforce and social media is increasingly a means of collecting practitioners in organisations large and small establishing new peer networks and drawing upon each others’ know-how (and ventures forth).

 

The Why: Sustainability and Relevance

In the base social/economic sense collecting organisations collect to provide resources for their community to exploit. When that idea is dug into a little more there are very specific reasons that collecting organisations collect and make their collections publicly accessible. What is behind this is the relevance to the community (there is an interest in accessing the collection) and that interest is sustained, i.e there is continued desire/need and therefore expectation.

This is where I’d like to draw attention to the second article – and that is the ability (and necessity in many cases) to be able to continue to demonstrate the sustained interest (desire/need) and relevance of maintaining a collection and providing access to it. It seemed extraordinary to me that after 20 years of working in this field I am still seeing reports like this emerging and I’m still inclined to respond with intensity when articulating and asserting the value I know so well that is generated through collecting.

 

Technology and Value


Image provides with a Creative Commons Licence from theplanetdotcom via Flickr

Australia currently has a hung parliament, one of the issues being debated was the National Broadband Network (NBN). Whatever comes out of the negotiations between the political parties here in Australia will be important for collecting organisations large and small in the longer term. The demand for online content (and by extension it is assumed virtual access to collections) isn’t showing any signs of going away. Opportunities for organisations large and small to secure funding and advice to digitise their collections is a prime means of making the most of this community desire/need to access content online. The pace and level at which this happens is where the sticking point is when the situation of these two collecting organisations is considered. I don’t have ready answers inexcept that I point back to: The Why and How. To sustain collecting and maintain relevance to audiences and user communities is about having a good understanding of what those audiences and communities desire/need and therefore will support with people power and/or $. Which brings me to the last tweet I mentioned with a link to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the US – which i explored a little and found some good sample grant applications to look at. While these resources are focused on the IMLS grants and US organisations, much of the same information required by the IMLS is the kind of information required by grant bodies here in Australia.

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GLAM Transmedia

A story becomes richer when it is experienced in multiple platforms. This is the underlying principle behind transmedia production — a technique increasingly being used by publishing, broadcasters, the advertising industry and now the cultural sector to promote a product, like an exhibition. Marketing and publicity are relying less on the traditional forms of advertising and are using stories to promote an idea. Museums and other collecting institutions have an advantage in using this strategy because they do not have to invent a strong narrative — history has already written the script.

The CAN Outreach Blog has asked the directors of two production companies specialising in this area how cultural organisations can adopt this communication style on a budget – Nathan Anderson, of Envelop Entertainment, and Jennifer Wilson, of The Project Factory. Ms Wilson says the key to a successful transmedia strategy is to ensure messages on both platforms are consistent but not interdependent. One of the most recent projects she has worked on in this field is designing a game for the ABC’s animation series The gradual demise of Phillipa Finch by artist Emma Magenta. The game is designed to be played on all smartphone devices. Ms Wilson says the player does not need to have watched the television show to play the game and vice versa.

There are exciting possibilities for museums to develop transmedia stories within the exhibition space using a mix of mobile devices, print media and public programmes. Ms Wilson suggests institutions could develop their exhibitions by integrating apps into the experience — using augmented reality to contextualise the object, offering more information about its history through collection access and to transform the artefact into the subject of interactive games.

Augmented reality applications are readily available to download for free on smartphones and can be used to enhance the museum viewer experience. Mobile augmented reality browsers Junaio and Layar take the museum experience into the virtual space. Sydney-based mobile and online innovation company, MOB Labs, has been experimenting with the Powerhouse Museum’s historic photographs using Layar. Ms Wilson is excited by the possibilities Junaio offers. Reality can be augmented by altering the longitude, latitude and altitude points in the mobile phone. For example, holding the phone up to view an Egyptian mummy in a museum can transport the viewer to a pyramid outside Cairo.

Mr Anderson set-up a transmedia production company and studio in early 2009 to meet this growing trend of cross-platform entertainment. Game development is particularly significant in television and film industries, with soap operas starting to use online games. Museums, galleries and libraries are increasingly needing to compete with mainstream leisure activities, like sporting matches and television, so they are turning to developing games to deepen the audience’s experience with the story or product. This has meant games are flooding the market making it a highly competitive medium.

The Tate Britain developed iPhone game Tate Trumps that encourages players to think about its art collection from a different perspective. Players build a deck of cards from the Tate’s collection of artworks. Players can choose to play one of three games – mood, battle and collector – using the principles of ‘paper, scissors, rock’ to see which artwork out plays the other. Viewers can play the game in the gallery or at home. Mr Anderson says the game met two main principles of a successful campaign – crossing over into the real world and creating a social experience.

Museums could adopt a similar campaign to that of the History Channel / foursquare partnership. Using the principles of play, foursquare takes participants to the site of the Gettysburg address. Mr Anderson believes this is more powerful than the documentary screened on television. On the flip-side, foursquare may not have enough participants in Australia to support this type of project unless it became part of a specific school program.

The ABC has recently experimented with alternate reality games which sit on the boundary between education and entertainment. Sam Doust developed a web-based documentary and game based on a leading atmospheric science researcher who whistleblows on the philanthropic project Bluebird. This project was viewed as having limited success as there were a small number of viewers but each one was highly engaged.

For those interested in this field, there is a site with a collection of blog posts on transmedia production.

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One website for Victoria’s collections: Georgia Melville

Victoria will lead the way in taking responsibility for making its state’s collections available on one website. With the support of Museum Victoria and the State Government, the Victorian branch of Museums Australia is designing and building a website that allows galleries, libraries, historical societies, archives and museums to upload their own collections to the site. It will function in a similar way to Collectish but will be only available to publicly accessible collections. Georgia Melville is project managing Victorian Collections and offers some insights into the development phase of the initiative.

Victorian Collections is a free and easy to use online cataloguing system being developed by Museum Victoria’s team, and project managed by us at Museums Australia (Victoria). Once developed, the aim of the system is to assist community museums and galleries, keeping places and historical societies, sporting, church, military and other community groups in the state of Victoria to record their local heritage and culture, and ensure their collections are well-documented for the future. Victorian Collections is especially aimed at groups wanting to take that initial step from manual to digital cataloguing and all records will be password protected and securely and permanently stored online. This is possible thanks to funding received from the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development and in-kind support by Museum Victoria and DELL.

VicCollections2
The MA (Vic) Victorian Collections Team – Laura Miles, Peta Knott and Georgia Melville. Image courtesy of Jon Augier / Museum Victoria

Each participating group will most probably have a publicly accessible organisation page comprising contact, location and collection details. We then plan to link this page to any catalogue records that the group wishes to make public. Website visitors should also be able to search the online catalogue by organisation or across the entire Victorian Collections catalogue by region, keyword or theme. Publicly available catalogue records may also include functions to tag and comment on items to encourage dialogue between the public and collection organisations. We also hope to include a forum space for organisations to discuss their collections and seek advice about cataloguing methods.

VicCollections1
The MV ICT Victorian Collections Team – Frank Radocaj, Tim Hart and Forbes Hawkins. Image courtesy of Jon Augier / Museum Victoria

Tim Hart, Forbes Hawkins and Frank Radocaj from Museum Victoria’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Department are currently developing the software component of Victorian Collections, which will be available to community museums and other collecting organisations by mid 2011. Meanwhile, Peta Knott and I from Museums Australia (Victoria), under the guidance of Laura Miles, our Executive Director, are providing training and advice on different aspects of cataloguing to interested organisations in preparation for the online system.

Further information about the project is available which over the coming months will be regularly updated with ongoing project developments and cataloguing advice. Please feel free to contact Peta or I at anytime on (03) 8341 7344 or info@victoriancollections.net.au

Georgia Melville

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Redeveloping Culture Victoria: Simon Sherrin

Culture Victoria relaunched its website earlier this month so that it can be more easily indexed by search engines and viewed on mobile devices. Victorian Cultural Network (VCN) Manager Simon Sherrin shares the redevelopment process with CAN Partners. He offers insights into best practice for putting collections online and makes suggestions on how Victorian organisations can work with Culture Victoria.

What was the main reason you redeveloped the Culture Victoria site?
There were a couple of reasons. A lot of the content of the site was contained within Flash, and it wasn’t possible to directly link to an object within a particular story. For example, you might be browsing the site and Herbert Schmalz’s “Too Late” particularly moving. You can direct a friend straight to that image by sending them the URL. On the old site, if you wanted to share that with a friend, you could only give someone a link to the story, and tell them to click on the images link and look at the 5th, sorry, 6th image in the slideshow.

In addition, the Culture Portal providing our cross-agency search was closing on the 1st of July, giving us a deadline for getting that functionality up and running.

We are also expanding the ways that you can access and explore our content that wouldn’t have fitted with the old design.

What is the benefit of using HTML over Flash?
As a general rule, it’s easier to make content accessible with HTML than Flash. It’s also easier for Google and other search engines to index your content. For example, with the old version of the site, we had 161 pages in Google’s database. While Google hasn’t finished crawling the new version of the site, there are now 3680 entries in Google’s database. By the time it finishes, we’ll have over 4000 distinct entries. The upshot of that is Culture Victoria results will appear in more search results. The ability to directly link to objects will, hopefully, increase the amount of external sites linking to Culture Victoria, which will improve the rank of our pages within search engine results.

How has the collections search been improved?
The previous version of the site didn’t have collection specific search results. Cultural organisations in Victoria are now offering the collection search on their own sites, for example:
• NGV Collection,
•Museum Victoria Collection,
•Geelong Gallery.

Initially we’ve been working with the core Victorian Cultural Network (VCN) partners to provide OpenSearch formatted result sets from these searches. This allows us to query their search engines and display those results as separate to website results. We’ll be adding collection searches from them as their OpenSearch responses come online.

Are there plans to separate the collection search from the web search?
Beyond having collection search results on their own tabs, we don’t have any immediate plans to separate collection search results and web search. That may change as the number of Victorian organisations providing OpenSearch increases.

Do you have any future plans for Google Maps within the site?
Over the next couple of months we’ll be adding geo-location data to our stories and objects. Combined with a Google Map, users will be able to see stories and objects related to particular cities and regions.

How will CV Partners upload content? What type of material will this be?
We have developed online software (story builder) that allows partners to directly upload content. We will moderate uploads initially until we are comfortable with the process. Currently we have 16 metro-regional content partners who are developing an exciting range of stories about their collections and activities. Subject range from Aboriginal culture, Burke and Wills expedition, choral music, RSL collections, textile manufacturing, through to Victoria’s distributed craft collections.

Do you have plans to build an iPhone or iPad application for CV?
We are working on making all the content on the site available on smartphones and other mobile devices. One part of that was re-encoding videos into H.264. We’re also looking at how we can use the location-aware nature of those devices, to highlight near-by organisations for example.

As for plans for a specific iPhone/iPad app, yes, yes we do, but we’re going to play that close to our chest for the moment. ;-)

Do you have any advice for an organisation starting to research putting their own collection online? What are the main issues they would need to take into account?
There are two pieces of advice I’d give to an organisation putting their collection online. The first is that all the data you use should feed out of your collection management system. That’s not to say the website is accessing the collection management system database directly, but rather any change made to an object record should appear automatically in the online collection. Separate systems will get out of sync almost immediately.

The second is that all images/videos of collection items should all be stored at their original resolution, which should be as large as possible. Disk space is getting cheaper and automatic resizing of images for a website is straight forward.

With hindsight, would you do anything differently?
The only thing that I’d do differently would be to have briefed the graphic designers about one or two weeks earlier.

How do you measure web traffic? Do you compare notes with your Partner organisations in terms of how people come into the site?
We use Google Analytics to measure visitation to the site. We also use Google Webmaster tools, which gives more information about who’s linking to the site and also how our pages appear in Google’s search results. We don’t have a problem with comparing notes with our partner organisation if that’s useful to them.

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Possum skin cloaks can be found on CAN

Possum skin cloaks offer a vehicle to learn about Aboriginal people’s stories and their connection to country. The Collections Australia Network (CAN) has been building an online database of possum and wallaby skin cloaks and rugs. The designs and motifs etched onto the cloaks pass on stories about a community’s ancestors.

In this video, artist Vicki Couzens explains her designs while telling the story of her grandmother’s country in Victoria’s Western Districts. When Ms Couzens made the cloak, she wanted to connect to the spirits of the Gunditjmara Tribe. She wanted to get to know her ancestor’s land and create an awareness of the unseen. Ms Couzens offers an insight into the culture and meaning behind the possum skin cloak revitalisation project that began in 1999.



Over the last 12 years, five women have worked hard to bring the tradition of making possum skin cloaks back into Aboriginal communities. The work of contemporary Indigenous artists Debra and Vicki Couzens, Lee Darroch and Treahna Hamm have been acquired into public collections — the cloaks have been recognised as artworks that tell stories about their ancestors. Cultural Collections and Community Engagement Manager Amanda Reynolds and Koorie Heritage Trust Curator and artist Maree Clarke have supported the revitalisation project so that communities are able to make their own connections to country.

The Collections Australia Network (CAN) invited the collecting organisations that acquired traditional and contemporary possum skin cloaks to upload the catalogue entries onto CAN. This means that by searching ‘possum skin cloak’ or ‘wallaby skin cloak’, researchers, curators and the general public can discover where the cloaks are cared for and learn more about the cultural stories behind them.

This project evolved while planning a trip to the Albury City LibraryMuseum. Collections Co-ordinator Bridget Guthrie was keenly promoting the four cloaks in the Museum collection by artist Treahna Hamm. Albury has the largest number of cloaks in its collection of any cultural organisation in Australia. This not only reflects the Indigenous tradition in the Riverina area but also the strength of Ms Hamm’s career as a contemporary artist who depicts trade routes in pre-settlement times, as well as sharing country, totem and personal markings.

Possum and wallaby skin cloaks, possum and wallaby skin rugs and a platypus skin cape in collections across Australia on CAN
*AIATSIS – Drawings of the Maiden’s Punt (1853) and Lake Condah (1872) possum skin cloaks not accessible on CAN

*Albury City LibraryMuseum: Four possum skin cloaks made by Treahna Hamm and the Indigenous community

*Australian National Maritime Museum: Treahna Hamm’s Dhungala (Murray River) Creation Story, 2006

*Australian Museum: Possum-skin cloak, Maureen Reyland (Mor Mor), Commonwealth Games revitalisation project, 2006

*Koorie Heritage Trust: Ten possum skin cloaks not accessible on CAN

*Museum Victoria: The original Maiden’s Punt (1853) and Lake Condah (1872) possum skin cloaks and work by Lee Darroch are part of Museum Victoria’s collection not accessible on CAN.

*National Gallery of Australia: William Barak drawings depicting Indigenous people wearing possum skin cloaks in 1824
Badhang (possum skin cloak), Michael McDaniel, 2008

*National Gallery of Victoria: Possum skin cloaks by contemporary artists Euphemia Bostock, Treahna Hamm and Lorraine Northey-Connelly

*National Museum of Australia: Collection of possum skin cloaks and works on paper

*State Library of Victoria: Tuuram gundidj possum skin cloak by artist Vicki Couzens, 2004

*South Australian Museum: Wallaby skin cloak and rug

*University of Ballarat Art and Historical Collections: Possum skin cloak made by university students, 2002. The story is based on Eugene Von Guerard’s painting ‘Barter’ (1854) which depicts the exchange of possum skins between indigenous peoples and white settlers.

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Rebranding the State Library of NSW

SLNSW_logo
There has been fierce debate across the globe about the future of libraries in recent months. Fox News recently announced libraries are a waste of money and should be closed and the Chicago Public Library has come out fighting against this claim. There is a long trail of online articles on this issue so the CAN Outreach Blog decided to interview the design agency responsible for rebranding the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) to hear their thoughts on the public’s perception of libraries.

Catnew
Cat Burgess, Frost Design

Vince Frost and Cat Burgess, of Frost Design, believe people are consuming information in new ways and libraries can be part of that. While libraries are in the knowledge business, they offer an experience that search engines cannot. They believe Google cannot replace the physical form. Librarians are enthusiastic and passionate about their ability to facilitate research. When Frost Design was given the brief of redesigning the State Library of NSW’s identity, the first question they asked themselves was – ‘Do they need a rebrand?’.

VinceFrostPortrait
Vince Frost, Frost Design

Environmetrics were commissioned to carry out qualitative and quantitative research with focus groups of existing and potential users. The psychographic tests came up with two main profiles – academics and researchers who are looking for information and don’t care where it comes from. The library’s branding does not influence this demographic. The other group are culturally motivated, seek out interpretive information like exhibitions and public programs, and so are heavily influenced by the brand. They would like to visit the library but were intimidated and put off by a perception that the library is only a destination for academic pursuits. Once they were actively engaged they found the library welcoming. So the rebrand needed to focus on this second group.

Frost Design’s biggest challenge was not to undermine the strength of the brand while giving it an open, accessible and contemporary feel. Mr Frost came up with the concept of ‘a sense of surprise’ which was conveyed through the logo. Mr Frost believes online does not have the same respect as the onsite experience and so the goal was to encourage discovery in the library.

Links of interest
‘Which Future for Libraries?’, Metafuture.org
‘The Future of Libraries’, ABC Radio National, 30 June 2010

Tips for designing library websites

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Outreach builds audiences in children’s museum: Jane Cush

JaneCushrestinguponsidewalkNewYorkNov09
After a visit to the Boston Children’s Museum last year, gallery director Jane Cush has decided to target three year olds as the organisation’s new audience. Ms Cush, who runs the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery (GRAG), believes they are the ones who feel the least inhibited in a gallery environment. Older visitors often say they feel alienated by art or do not understand what it means. By inviting young children into the gallery, it has the opportunity to interact with parents. Ms Cush tells children there are no rules in the gallery except not to trip up old ladies or touch the artwork. Often school children tell each other to be quiet in the gallery but she insists that they should feel at home and loves hearing them babble on about something they have discovered in an artwork in the gallery.

Ms Cush brought back a list of ideas on how to build a community after a two-week Museums and Galleries NSW fellowship at the children’s museum last year. Her detailed report about her experience can be found on the MGNSW website.

She arrived home feeling that GRAG needed to engage more with youth. ‘We were just paying lip service really. Now, amongst several strategies to develop audiences, we are looking at how to engage more with mothers and babies. Outreach was already set-up but now we are drilling down.’ Ms Cush said. ‘We have also beefed up the information day for teachers at the start of each semester, and every exhibition now has an interactive children’s programme.

Boston Children’s Museum focuses on supporting marginalised or under-represented groups. It has sensitively developed programs that empower those who participate without drawing attention to the fact that they are in need. For example, the Museum runs a teen ambassador programme which mentors teen students to work with migrant families who visit the museum. The scheme invites bi-lingual teenagers to join the program – looking at the positives rather than focusing on the fact that they themselves usually come from poorer migrant families. If the students stick with the ambassador program for two years, various Boston companies sponsor them with a US$5000 scholarship to go on to college. There is no dedicated children’s museum in Australia but many of Boston’s initiatives can be applied to institutions offering edu-tainment.

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Journeys – where history meets geography: Asa Letourneau

Journeys1a
My name is Asa Letourneau. I work at Public Record Office Victoria, in the Online Access team. I contribute to the team across a range of initiatives including online exhibitions, social media applications, and website development.

In early May this year I put a call out to all of PROV asking if anyone would like to put together a team for the App My State Hack Day. It was pretty short notice (the Hack day started in 3 days!) but fortunately I got a yes from a colleague, Abigail Belfrage, who works in Online Business Development at PROV.

With some trepidation but buoyed up with a healthy dose of WE CAN DO THIS!! we turned up to Box Hill TAFE for the Hack Day (really a weekend which neither of us could totally commit to because of children and lives etc…). Anyway we teamed up with two complete strangers (web developers/coders) and between the four of us came up with the concept behind Journeys. We wanted to build an app that overlays historic records over a contemporary landscape — bringing the past into the present. The rest is history. We ended up winning the Hack Day and had just enough of a taste of the dizzying heights of minor celebrity status to push on and make a go of it for the main prize — the App My State Open Competition.

What followed over the course of the next 12 days was a lot of blood, sweat, tears, Google waves, Skype calls, Tweets, numerous emails and, God forbid, a face to face catch up with the whole team. We made the competition deadline entering our very BETA BETA app Journeys (which is still so BETA!). Here’s some choice words from Abigail that she wrote for the App My State entry application and the Journeys site respectively.

Journeys is a website devoted to mapping digitised cultural collections such as maps, data and images. Utilising Google Earth functionality, it has a ‘tour’ feature that allows users to virtually fly over landscapes, populated with images or maps relating to that landscape. A user in the site can create a map by layering historical records over the contemporary landscape. People can learn about geography through history, and history through geography and, with the opacity functionality, experience a map merging into the landscape. Journeys can be a powerful research tool for learning about places, communities and individuals around Victoria.

We even gave the team the name Mappster. We are a team that began as strangers (and now are good friends) who busted a mighty move at the App My State Hack Day 8 May 2010, building Journeys in less than 24 hours. Emboldened by Journeys’ win on the day, Mappster resolved to grow the app, and enter it in the App My State competition 12 days later!

Who is Mappster?
Abigail Belfrage, content & design. History and archives nerd, budding geek. Dreams about maps and mapping in her spare time.
Asa Letourneau, content & design. web2.0 junkie
Nguyen Ly, coder & UX junkie who thinks sleep is overrated! By day he’s a professional .Net enterprise applications developer.
Gregor McNish, an old programmer trying to keep up rather than getting sucked into management.

While we didn’t end up winning the App My State Competition, we did learn an awful lot from the experience, met some great people and produced something that we are now going to take further. Even the team is still together! Despite Journeys being a private venture, we have started using the skills and knowledge acquired to promote similar projects back at PROV and feel confident that a culture of mapping historical records will grow from strength to strength.

So there you have it. Journeys: where history meets geography and where people can engage with historical records in a truly interactive way.

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Irish Professionals in Australia: Connecting CAN Partners

Richard Reid is curating the much-anticipated Irish in Australia exhibition for the National Museum of Australia. It cuts across a wide range of themes but the Collections Australia Network (CAN) has decided to focus on the success stories of Irish professionals to showcase the collections of its CAN Partners. From notorious bushranger Ned Kelly in Victoria to celebrated South Australian mineowner Charles Hervey Bagot, this story travels across the country from first settlement until the end of WWII. Our CAN Partners have provided the Outreach Blog with some fascinating and inspiring stories about Irish settlers. Australia boasts the world’s largest population of Irish descendants per capita outside Ireland, offering many more stories that can be found in collections across the country. CAN has worked in partnership with the National Museum to assist in collection research, as well as help promote our Partners’ collections and the national exhibition which opens on St Patrick’s Day 2011.

Irish_Google
Google Earth image mapping organisations holding material relating to Irish professionals in Australia.

Western Australia
Durack Collection / State Library of Western Australia collection on CAN
Durack 6
The Durack family surveyed land across the Kimberley, Western Australia in 1882-83 that would be fit for cattle. Michael Patrick Durack, the eldest of four sons was sent in 1886 to the head-station, Argyle Downs, arriving just in time for the Halls Creek goldrush. As a pastoral entrepeneur, Durack developed overseas markets for his cattle from the Philippines and Brazil. He became a leader of his community as justice of the peace and in 1917 entered State parliament as a Nationalist member of the Legislative Assembly for Kimberley. Under his guidance, Argyle Downs was known for looking after its Aboriginal employees.

This passport was issued to Tommy Chrongen 4 August 1904 by Michael Patrick Durack stating the bearer was returning to his native country for two moons holiday and for anyone on the way to assist with food and transport if required and bill to Argyle Downs Station.

South Australia
Kapunda Historical Society collection on CAN
Kapunda_bagot
Kapunda has the distinction of being the oldest copper mining town in Australia – the birthplace of Australia’s commercial mining history and key to the early development of South Australia. In 1842, Charles Hervey Bagot’s youngest son discovered an outcrop of copper ore in Kapunda. Bagot’s management of the mine hauled South Australia back from the brink of bankruptcy and helped finance the construction of some of the most impressive buildings in the State. The town gave the Captain Bagot a sterling silver cup on his retirement and departure back to England for his role in the mine’s success, known as Bagot’s Cup.

Doctor Matthew Blood was the first official doctor at the mines and first resident general practitioner in the district. He also became renowned as an enthusiastic amateur photographer. Blood was mayor of Kapunda when the Duke of Edinburgh visited the town and the mines in 1867. In 1859, the Reverend William Oldham took over the management of the Kapunda mine from his retiring friend of many years and ran Mine Rifles Company.

Queensland
Discover Eumundi collection on CAN
Samuel_Kelly_portrait
Samuel Kelly left Ballydrain in Northern Ireland in 1871 with his family when he was just five years old and developed a taste for the working the land in Geelong. When Samuel was sixteen his family decided to return to Northern Ireland and he stayed on to forge his future in becoming a pioneer in the Eumundi area. fire in his belly and a sparkle in his eye, the young twenty year old man started his career by transporting felled trees by bullock and by water to Pettigrew’s Mill at Maroochydore. The timber industry was flourishing and within a short period of time he purchased 20 acres of land for herding his bullocks. Kelly turned his attention to grazing and dairying, leaving the operation of the bullock teams to his three sons. Over the next forty years was an active member of Caboolture Divisional Board, now known as the Maroochy Shire, the dairy industry, school, farmers’ co-operative, community hall. He even set up a butcher shop. The Eumundi Discovery Centre has an extensive collection of settler stories like this one of Irishman Samuel Kelly.

Victoria
Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation collection on CAN
Niven_historyofBallarat
Francis Wilson Niven left Dublin for Victoria with his wife Elizabeth Close in search of gold in the 1850s. After limited success, Niven purchased a small lithographic plant for ￡40, and despite having no practical knowledge of the art, taught himself lithography. Soon he was able to import one of the earliest known commercial steam lithographic presses into Australia. He produced the beautiful History of Ballarat by W. B. Withers and The Cyclopedia of Victoria which provides an extraordinary resource of historical and biographical information, now in the Central Highlands Regional Library collection. Niven & Co also produced mining plans, maps and panoramas of Ballarat that contributed to extension of the mining industry. This is the first issue of the first edition of the History of Ballarat published in 1870, with the coloured title page and colophon F.W. Niven Steam Litho.

Tasmania
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery collection collection on CAN
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Martin Edwards was convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment on 17th August 1819, and transported to Van Diemen’s Land, when he was 19 years old. His crime is not certain, but it was possibly forgery. He is listed in convict records as an assistant teacher in a school in Dublin but he was also described as a labourer. He became a fairly prominent landowner and businessman in Launceston, Tasmania, within two years of the expiry of his sentence, and was regarded as a ‘gentleman’. The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery have photographs of his premises taken by Frank Hurley and the original land grants.

This map of Launceston, Tasmania 1856 is a land survey map showing the land grants for Martin Edwards at the corner of Wellman and Arthur streets and on the corner of Brisbane and Charles Streets.

ACT
National Gallery of Australia collection online
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Sidney Nolan, Death of Constable Scanlon, 1946, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of Sunday Reed 1977

Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series is a significant part of the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. It can be accessed through the gallery’s own collection search, on the CAN database and through Picture Australia on CAN.

Ned Kelly won the hearts of the common people by reacting against the unscrupulous squatter practices of forcing small selectors off their land. He justified the thievery by playing up to his Irish heritage and claiming that he, and others like him, were victims of their establishment and anti-Irish police – even though 80% of police were Irish at the time. and his brothers were forced to resort to stock stealing and other unlawful activities just to survive. Glenrowan, the hometown of the Kelly family and the place where most notorious bushranger had his last shoot-out, boasts a striking seven metre high statue of Ned Kelly with his rifle. At Stringbark Creek, Kelly shot two of the four policemen dead including Constable Scanlon which became the subject of one of Sidney Nolan’s paintings began his best known series of works based on Ned Kelly and the bushranger legend in 1945, which were exhibited in Paris in 1948. These two artworks are part in the National Gallery of Australia.

Northern Territory
Katherine Museum (secondary material not online)
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In 1909, Timothy and Catherine (O’Keefe) O’Shea arrived in Port Darwin ready to start prospecting for gold. They found their way to Pine Creek where they built a home and pegged down the rights to the Enterprise Mine. O’Shea then went on to build a billiard saloon, a hotel and worked on the railway line from Pine Creek to Emungalan from 1917 to 1926.

Timothy O’Shea is pictured standing beside his wife on their wedding day with very dusty shoes. They had walked from Tralee to Killarney in Ireland to the ceremony in 1907. He hired his suit, hat and gloves for the occasion. They went on to have six children.

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The Eco Museum in Fairfield

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Fairfield Museum and Art Gallery Director Cedric Boudjema

An Eco-Museum is being developed in Fairfield as a strategy to represent the most diverse municipality in Australia. When director Cedric Boudjema took on the Fairfield Museum directorship in November 2008, he saw the need to collaborate with the community to build a more reflective collection. The Fairfield City Museum and Art Gallery collection was primarily objects from white settlement yet the municipality is Australia’s most culturally diverse — 52 per cent of the population is overseas born and home to more than 50 nationalities.

He borrowed the ‘eco museum’ model, developed in France in the 1970s, with its main aim to preserve tangible and intangible heritage. Mr Boudjema wanted to record the objects migrants arrive with in Australia. He is also interested in what happens to a language and culture when it is influenced by living in another country. ‘The Uruguyans arrived in the 1960s and when they came, they played the drums. Now they play with Australian kids and it is no longer just for their community,’ Mr Boudjema said. ‘I want to look at how a group of people manage this transformation process when they arrive in a new place.’

One of the first major exhibitions, Fairfield has developed, using the ‘eco museum’ philosophy looks at traditional costumes from 50 migrant groups. Curator Janise Derbyshire is working with Mr Boudjema to develop the exhibition and public program using the whole municipality as its exhibition space. Photographer Danny Huynh is taking portraits of each of the communities wearing their traditional costume in front of their houses (to become part of the exhibition). Textile workshops will invite different nationalities to share their techniques. The costumes will be on display in as many locations as the museum can develop partnerships with so that it can make the shire a living museum.

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Image by Danny Hunyh, Hmong community (Cara Yang, Bruce Yang, Sarsha Yang, Pa Yang & Madelin Yang), Courtesy of the artist / Fairfield City Museum and Art Gallery

Not only is Fairfield Museum taking its collection into the community, it is also inviting communities to borrow the objects. The Museum will teach those interested about how to care for the artefacts and then encourage them to use the collection items as part of their own customs. This philosophy was developed by Julian Spalding while he worked at the Glasgow Museums Service. Another example of this practice is at the Albury City LibraryMuseum. They act as a caretaker for the community’s possum skin cloak so the Elders can collect it from the Museum and take it to schools or wear it in ceremonies. Mr Boudjema said, ‘the living heritage museum is about this accessibility of the collection. The collection is no longer destined to the museum only but to the communities.’

Cross-pollination is the idea that underpins the Collections Australia Network’s (CAN) strategy. It values sharing methodologies, resources and knowledge between the gallery, library, archive and museum sectors. Fairfield Museum uploaded a selection of objects from its collection onto CAN last month.

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Crafty ways to communicate: Catrina Vignando

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Craft Australia is using social media as a gateway to its collection while it researches how to put the collection on its own website. The peak body uses Flickr to host part of the National Historical Collection and is systematically digitising images dating back to the 1960s. Another Flickr set is trying to crowdsource funding for image preservation.

General manager Catrina Vignando has been experimenting with the opportunities the Internet has to offer Craft Australia since 2003. Their first foray into Web 2.0 was with open access journals and online forums – the former provided a place for researchers and practice-based artists to be published with academic rigeur. The forums offered a chance for artists and arts workers to form a community and share ideas.

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Ian Mowbray, Spine Platter 2, 1988, Flickr / Craft Australia, (c)

One of the most successful projects is the National Forums that are held every two years. Ms Vignando set them up to overcome the issue of geographic isolation and to open-up possibilities to connect with international audiences. right way: the future of indigenous craft uses the Ning network to host conference videos and discussion forums. Youth@craft·design: Creating and making a living in the arts today was the focus in 2006 and in 2004 Craft Australia looked at contemporary craft in a digital future.

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Museum Victoria deploys citizen scientists

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Victorian school students will participate in a citizen science project that allows them to learn about their State’s fauna later this year. The Biodiversity Snapshots program will provide students with a tool that can be used on a mobile device like a smartphone or laptop. The tool will include a simple field guide to common species and a way of recording observations of species they see around them. The observations collected will be uploaded into a central database where they can be analysed as a classroom exercise or sent on to be used by researchers as part of the EarthWarch Institute’s ClimateWatch program.

The mobile learning kits are being developed for the school syllabus by Museum Victoria and will be incorporated into school assignments. Museum Victoria is basing the kits on 300 species from its natural sciences collection – focusing on marine, possum and geological species. It will avoid dangerous fauna like venomous snakes. The data collected will also contribute to the Museum’s natural science collection level description.

Museum Victoria Collection Information Management Systems Manager Ely Wallis has been managing the initiative, in partnership with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the Atlas of Living Australia (a biodiversity data management system). The Museum started work on the project last November and will be launched mid this year.

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As quick as a Flash?: Funding an online journal

A Melbourne-based photomedia artist made a one-off donation to the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) to set-up an online journal. This was to cover the set-up costs and the first four issues. Monash University Museum of Art exhibition curator Kyla McFarlane took on the role of editor and commissioned well-known arts writers to produce high quality, long-form articles. The online journal — Flash — would be quarterly and take on the personality of a traditional academic periodical. CCP will publish the fourth issue in July and then will need to seek out a new funding source. The donor is not happy and is withdrawing their support so the team is currently working on the last scheduled issue.

CCP director Naomi Cass believes there was an expectation that the editorial would focus on the private donor’s colleagues and friends. This has caused a problem as Ms Cass and Ms McFarlane were not prepared to compromise the integrity of the arts writers or the Centre. As they contemplate the future of Flash, they are assessing the success of the journal. What would they do differently? What are they proud of? To what extent should they be influenced by Web 2.0 and traditional forms of publishing? Should they offer the online magazine in a print-on-demand format?

They have jotted down the successes and challenges of Flash for the benefit of anyone looking to set-up their own online journal or wanting to support the continuation of Flash.

Success
1. Ability to attract a wild mix of writers outside the photography discipline in an online format
2. High quality editing rather than relying on open-source
3. Long-form articles provide a really good read. passionate and authoritative articles
4. Beautiful interface
5. Broader reach than a print journal

Challenges
1. A quarterly journal has made it difficult to gain momentum on the Web
2. It has not been able to start a dialogue with the photography community
3. Small budget has compromised the number writers that could be commissioned
4. Small budget has restricted ability to build on opportunities the online journal offered
5. Functionality of WordPress

Email Naomi Cass if you would like to offer support.

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Convergence: Albury City LibraryMuseum: Carina Clement

Carina Clement talks to CAN about the benefits and challenges of cross-pollination within the new Albury City LibraryMuseum facility. As the Cultural Programs Team Leader, she has been working with the team to fine tune the convergence process — from collection policy and education right through to professional development and infrastructure. This is an edited transcript of an interview made at the LibraryMuseum in late April. Ms Clement’s slides from a presentation are also embedded into this article for those wanting to learn more.

When we first started the plan for the building, it was always going to be a co-located library and museum. Then we were asked what facilities we could share — what synergies are there between libraries and museums? So I think we started looking at what models were out there and state libraries were certainly one of those models, in that they have collections that are not just books and electronic resources, they have objects, artefacts, photographs and maps, etcetera.

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Albury City LibraryMuseum

They had that whole range of resources. They have exhibition spaces. They curate exhibitions so that was done in one of their models. In the local government area, in Australia the Parramatta Heritage Centre, was another of our models in that it’s a museum, a community art space, a local studies space and they have integrated interest information. They have integrated staffing so that was one of the places we looked at.

Puke Ariki, Taranaki in New Zealand was probably the model we followed most closely, and that opened in I think 2003. Like us, they have been on a long convergence journey and have continually changed structures and services. It is a library, a museum, touring space, tourist information and has two restaurants. It’s in New Plymouth, North Island in New Zealand. It’s brought enormous economic revitalisation to the waterfront. We’ve had some apartment blocks built across the road that I think probably having this cultural facility here, there was a more of an impetus to build those buildings.

Beyond co location to convergence: Designing and managing new model public library spaces and services

Collection policy
So when we started our research we were looking at what models were out there. We were also asking ourselves what were the synergies between libraries and museum. Collection management was certainly the first area that we looked at. At that time we had a museum manager, a library manager, and an art gallery manager. The museum manager accepted a range of objects and documents into her collection, and the Library Local Studies collected documents, maps and photographs. So we thought, well, wouldn’t it make sense that we dealt with the local studies in the museum collection as one so that we’re not double collecting.

We’re actually dealing with it as one collection where there may be secondary sources, like a map. We don’t have to decide, oh, no, does that belong in the local studies collection, or does that belong in the museum collection. Well, no, it belongs in the Albury City Heritage Collection.

When we were looking at the design or the thought for this building, we started thinking how it could become that hub of library and museum convergence. If you’re a serious researcher, you could get a book off the shelf and also be able to look up the catalogue. To do that, obviously everything needed to be on one catalogue. Then we started thinking, well, what about the gallery collection.

Merging databases
At that stage we didn’t actually own our library catalogue. We were part of a regional library service. We’re no longer. So we didn’t actually own that library data. So we couldn’t at that stage move towards one consolidated database. We had to look at building a search engine, at that stage, across three separate databases: the library catalogue, the museum catalogue and the art gallery catalogue.

The first step was because we owned the data for both the gallery and the museum we were able to merge that data into the database. We put in a grant and were able to develop a search engine that operated across LIBERO, which is a library catalogue, then the other two.

We employed a collection manager Jim McCain to manage the process. He dealt with some of the entrenched issues associated with the different fields used in galleries, libraries and museums. He was able to develop the search engine to search the fields across the two databases. Now that we own our library data, we can look at one consolidated database.

Staff restructure
We started working under a converged management structure in 2006. We’ve had three staff structures since then. So every two years we change our staff structure, 2006, 2008, and we just changed it a couple of weeks ago, 2010. And we learn as we go along.

Outreach and Public Programs
We have an educationalist. She’s got an education and visual arts background. She has four staff under her who had some specialties in museum, library, and visual arts so they’re able to work across all program areas. Whilst they have specialties in particular areas, they have flexibility that they can take a tour of school kids to the art gallery even if their specialty is library. We’re able to package programs to incorporate all of our venues and we’ll have one staff member to take that tour.

Audience development
Audience development probably was another major thrust and why we went towards convergence quite aggressively. We really thought that it was very much about providing new opportunities for audience.

In this facility we wanted our traditional library users to come in and not just use our library, but find out about museums. They may not be museum attendees, so when we developed the design brief for the building, we made sure that there were spaces where exhibitions could occur. So it’s really important that we have those wide spaces where we can have some exhibitions and we can flow and bleed some of those areas into each other.

We’re still working out through areas on how to flow a bit better. We have had signage, and we’ve taken it away, and we need to put it back. It works well, that audience development by stealth almost. But we could do it better. Certainly the attendance for this building has been grand for a regional center. We have about 20,000 visitors a month, which is pretty good for a regional center, compared to the old museum, which had 9,000 a year.

Challenges
In terms of things that haven’t worked well, you’re working without those established boundaries and alongside people with professional knowledge. We came to convergence and popped people into positions they didn’t necessarily have the skills and background for. So we moved immediately from having, as I said before, having a library manager, a museum manager and a gallery manager, to having an operations team leader and a programs team leader.

So we moved from three service or facility management positions to two that were across the library, museum and gallery. An operations manager was responsible for collections management, customer service and information management. And my role as programs team leader was responsible for exhibitions, programs and outreach and collection development, so we split out collections.

People floundered. There wasn’t enough change management support. We started implementing the structure at the same time that we moved into this facility. It was all a bit stressful. There were elements of the structure that weren’t working. There wasn’t enough focus given to collection management. Michelle and I, as library trained people, have gained museum qualifications in the last three years and we have a number of other staff also undertaking museum studies at different levels, which is great. Skill development is really important.

There was a demand for programming, and so we put our energy and effort into that. We probably didn’t put our energy so much into curating our own exhibitions or into developing our own collections. There were some staff who probably, from some of the professional areas we had on board, who didn’t buy convergence at all. And I think that and they seemed threatened. If you don’t like change, you leave, or you become very, very, very bitter and you get forced to leave.

Anyway, we changed in our models a few times. Since we’ve put much more focus on collection management. We realise in some areas that that professionalism, that professional knowledge is really important. And so now in our most recent incarnation, which is only a month or so old, we’ve gone back to specialists who manage visual arts, libraries and our heritage collection.

So we have acknowledged that but we still have the convergence. We realise that probably you need someone to be responsible for facility, not responsible for certain functions in the facility, so that facility management.
You need someone ultimately responsible for the library museum and the gallery. We didn’t have that previously. We had someone responsible for the bits of the library museum and bits of the gallery. But there is still converged programming and converged exhibitions within the collections area.

We received quite a lot of industry flak, particularly from the visual arts area. I’ll say that. There was a real feeling because we didn’t have a director of the gallery or a position named a curator, that we had downgraded the gallery. I think that in the library museum industry looked at us with interest. Not as aggressively as the visual arts sector did.

CAN interviewed Carina Clement at the Albury City LibraryMuseum on the 28th of April 2010.

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A story of beauty, connection and healing: Lee Darroch

The possum skin cloak revitalisation project has become central to the healing process in many communities across Victoria. Contemporary artist Lee Darroch says when a person puts a cloak over their shoulders, their spine stiffens with pride. She sees the cloaks as an opportunity to help communities develop a stronger understanding of where they came from and learn their ancestors’ stories.

In 1999, Darroch first became fascinated with possum skin cloaks after seeing the original Lake Condah cloak (1872) in the Melbourne Museum. It is only one of two original cloaks remaining in Australia and there are six cloaks in collections in the United States and Europe. Over the last ten years, Darroch has worked with sisters Vicki and Debra Couzens, Treahna Hamm, Maree Clarke and Amanda Reynolds to not only teach but also make contemporary cloaks that have been acquired by major collecting institutions across the country. The Collections Australia Network (CAN) is working with these women to upload the cloaks into the national collection database so they can be accessed by curators, researchers and the general public.

This is video interview was made at Lee Darroch’s studio on Raymond Island, Gippsland where she has started making possum skin cloaks for babies and children.

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