Chapter Seven- Back to work!

Charlene
Charlene
Aug 22, 2017 · 6 min read

Week Twenty-Eight

This week I returned to Reading after visiting home in Doncaster. I had a lovely birthday week catching up with family and friends. Whilst I was looking forward to coming back to Reading after my previous visit, I was also sad to be leaving my family especially with the arrival of my new baby niece. This time around it didn’t feel as difficult to leave, that’s progress!

My first day back was set to be an exciting one. I was going to Reading Museum’s Store to photograph selected items for the exhibition. I was able to gain more experience in handling objects and I looked forward to exploring more of the collections.

Documenting objects at Reading Museum’s Store

We were focusing specifically on ceramics featuring animal motifs. I love ceramics and pottery so this really was a treat for me! We were required to document information such as the measurements of each object and any other important information which may be missing from the Modes catalogue.

We were later joined by Angela who gave us photography and lighting training. I found the training to be really useful and realised how important it was going to be to ensure we captured quality images. In the afternoon, Nitisha and I had a practice with our new photography skills and it felt good to be behind the camera! I looked forward to having more practice in the following week.

Behind the camera

The remainder of the week was spent at The MERL working through a lot of emails and general admin. I was kept up to speed with what I had missed whilst away, fortunately I hadn’t missed too much so I was able to keep on top of the work.

Week Twenty-Nine

I think I may be repeating myself, but I love that my job has so much variety!

I started the week at Reading Museum photographing one of the objects from the loan boxes, I was happy to see more of the collection. Speaking of which, I was given the musical task of playing a melody on the thumb piano. Now considering that I do a bit of singing in my spare time, I sort of class myself as being a musical person however in regards to playing instruments that really isn’t my forte!

Playing the thumb piano

I don’t think I did the thumb piano justice and I really am intrigued as to how it should sound. However, if you wish to do so, you can hear a sample of my musical masterpiece on this blog written by Reading Museum Manager, Matthew Williams.

This week I was also fortunate to attend two workshops with filmmaker Mike Paterson.

I have never made a film before, but I was about to learn how!

Unfortunately I missed Part 1 whilst on holiday, so I had to do my best to keep up with the terminology and what had been taught in the previous workshop. We went through how to produce a storyboard, covered the features of the camera, how to record sound and set the correct lighting.

Filming in the plough walk

The workshop was quite fun, it was almost like being on a mini film set within The MERL galleries! With the help of our expert filmmaker, we took the opportunity to make a film which we actually intended to produce at some point with Curator Ollie Douglas. We walked through the galleries, each taking it in turns to film and conduct an interview. We crossed the boundaries by literally going behind the scenes in order to get the best shots!

Later in the week, myself and Adam along with colleagues from both museums went to visit a school in Reading. We were asked to deliver a workshop to three year eight classes as part of their School Science Fair. I think most of us were quite nervous about this! However it was such a great opportunity to promote the museum and share the exciting digital projects we have worked on so far with part of the community.

I tried to mentally revert back to the 12 or 13 year old version of myself and it was tough given it was over ten years ago! I think pre-teens of today are different from even my time, and their interests may not be the same, however the hope was that we could educate and inspire them to visit their local museums and show that it can cater to their educational and social needs.

As I approached the school gates, I instantly felt those nerves bubbling inside, however I was enthusiastic and happy to be involved in this community project. Adam gave a presentation with some background information on the two museums which the students reacted well to and then they were split into groups whereby we were in charge of supervising a different activity station. I was responsible for the VR activity which I was happy about having now had a few attempts at the activity myself. We based the workshops around the theme of Reading Abbey, so this was also a great way to share some background history to students who may have never visited the site when it was open. Through delivering this information to the students, I was also increasing my own knowledge of the Abbey.

As to be expected, some of the students were quite hyper and keen to get their hands on the VR headsets! I realise how challenging it can be to keep young people engaged for a certain amount of time, and I definitely give credit to all teachers! I never thought that the teaching profession was for me and after today’s session, that still hasn’t changed! However I was very grateful for the experience and would do it again.

I had a lovely end to the week, which involved a meeting at one of The Royal Historical Palaces at Hampton Court! I was so looking forward to our visit, as I heard amazing things about this beautiful place. You can read more about our exciting trip on my special edition blog

Week Thirty

So it is approaching the end of another rapid month. July seems to have just disappeared before my eyes however I know that a lot has happened! My last week of the month consisted of mostly admin work and continuing with ongoing projects such as cataloguing. I was responsible for writing up the evaluation for our school visit in the previous week. As a result of the evaluation we are considering the next steps which could potentially lead to an individual project watch this space….

I also had digitisation training for the new project I will be starting in the archives in September, which I’m excited about! The project is set to cover themes ranging from digitising a selection of the controversial Mills and Boon book covers to poultry imagery! I had a good training session with Ceri who was able to advise me on how to use the programme, setting up the camera — which is often referred to as ‘The Beast’ — down to the infinite yet important details of how to save the files. I felt comfortable with what I had learnt and looked forward to officially getting started.

On reflection, I’ve had another fulfilling month and continue to grow which is important! As always the next steps are to continue to develop my skills, I have participated in a lot of workshops and it’s vital for me to make sure that I am putting at least some of the lessons into practice where relevant, even if I’m not able to use all of them. The next few months are set to be even busier as we are taking on more community projects and I am now trying to reschedule my work calendar to ensure I can fit all of these amazing projects in and make good use of my time. The clock is ticking and I intend to make the best use of my time…..

#digiRDG

Blogs from the #digiRDG project team tracking our experiences changing Reading Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life.

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Charlene

Written by

Charlene

#digiRDG

#digiRDG

Blogs from the #digiRDG project team tracking our experiences changing Reading Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life.

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