Museum Diversity Traineeship
I began my role as a Museum Diversity Trainee back in January 2017.
This was a collaborative project between Reading Museum and The Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL) named #digiRDG: Town and Country. The project was funded by Arts Council England and aimed specifically at those who hadn’t received any formal training within the heritage and museum sector but had an enthusiasm to work in this field.
My background is in Design (Surface Design for Fashion and Interiors to be precise) and I’d left my hometown of Doncaster to take on the role. After completing my Bachelor’s degree, undertaking a number of internships and part time roles within retail, I managed to secure a permanent job working for a Fine Art Publisher and supplier of giftware for the heritage sector. It was through this experience where my interest for working within museums really developed. I’d been involved in one side of heritage and now I wanted to see what happened directly inside the museum world and this fantastic opportunity came along!
Expectations
Prior to starting the traineeship, I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect from the role. I knew that I would be exploring a number of different areas and working within not just one but two museums, which was exciting. One was a local authority museum and the other run by the University. I wasn’t aware of all of the areas that existed and certainly had no clue of what career I would choose after completing the traineeship, so I was going into this completely open to learning and experiencing as much as time would allow. I also knew that the #digiRDG project was about diversifying both museum’s audiences in a digital way.
When I first heard that the project wanted to diversify their audiences, my first thought was how I would personally make an impact being of Caribbean descent. The traineeship also involved observing some of the BA (Hons) Museum Studies modules, which I later discovered would enable me to not only sit in the lectures and seminars but contribute to the classes by participating in group discussions and presentations. Prior to starting the role, I hadn’t imagined I would be allowed so much input due to the fact that I wasn’t an actual student! I was grateful for the opportunity and it certainly helped to revive my presentation skills, build my confidence and most importantly provide ground knowledge in a subject area unknown to me.
The Project
The immediate team consisted of myself, another trainee, Nitisha Ramrekha- Heeramun, our Project Manager, Adam Koszary and Marketing Manager at The MERL, Alison Hilton. We were affectionately known as the ACE (Arts Council England) team!
Throughout the entire project I worked tightly within this core team of four, whilst also working with the wider team at both museums. In the first six months, I spent a specific amount of time shadowing in different departments, with the intention of choosing my favourite area to further develop my knowledge in for the last half of the project. One of the first tasks involved assisting the Public Programmes team with the administration and setting up activities for their Friday Fledglings group which was an outdoor based activity for toddlers in The MERL’s garden.
Later on in the year I spent some time working with the archives and library team based at The MERL, getting involved in various digitisation projects from bound volumes of The Hogarth Press to Mills and Boon dust jackets! It hadn’t crossed my mind that I would get to work on digitisation projects when taking on the traineeship, however it actually turned out to be one of my favourite areas.
At Reading Museum, I helped to organise the photography for Reading Museum’s website revamp and selected the best imagery for various sections of the websites. Due to being a creative person, I enjoyed this task and, again, on entering the traineeship this wasn’t something that I thought I would be doing.
Later in the year, I helped to catalogue the artwork from the Reading Abbey Quarter: Then and Now exhibition. This task was one of the most challenging for me, as it involved not only learning how to use a new programme which was the cataloguing database, Modes, but also researching and writing about a completely new subject area. At the end of the project, not only had I developed cataloguing skills but I also gained knowledge of Reading Abbey which I found to be equally valuable.
The Skills
As mentioned earlier, one of the key aims of the #digiRDG project was to reach diverse audiences through incorporating digital methods. This involved contracting a number of professionals within various industries ranging from film and photography, blog writing to 3D printing and much more, including running practical workshops to upskill staff. Through participating in such workshops staff had the opportunity to incorporate these skills into their daily work routine and in turn benefit the public.
One of my favourite new skills was learning how to take 360° photographs of the galleries to put into virtual reality headsets that were taken to family events such as The East Reading Festival and The Berkshire Show. These skills later enabled the #digiRDG team to create resources to help make the museum more accessible friendly. For example, we uploaded the photographs onto Google Maps to help visitors with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) to know what to expect when visiting the museum for the first time.
Another skill I developed was audio recording, which I was able to use for further tasks throughout the project. The initial purpose of the audio recording training was to enable the #digiRDG team and volunteers from The MERL and Reading Museum to interview visitors at The Berkshire Show on topics including their relationship with the countryside and the town, and more controversial issues such as Brexit.
Alongside the digital skills, I developed project management skills as a result of this traineeship. In previous jobs, I found comfort in acting in support roles which I’m still happy to do. However, the traineeship pushed me out of that comfort zone and enabled me to unleash my potential by stepping up and taking leadership with some projects. This involved reviving Reading Museum’s Pinterest account to publicise their online catalogue to a wider audience — this task helped me to learn so much more about their collections! I was also encouraged to organise a 3D Printing workshop for families at The MERL.
Challenges
The traineeship was a new venture for both museums and I don’t think there had been an official “guidebook” to follow or example from other institutions to learn from. There were obvious ideas and aims for what the traineeship and the #digiRDG project would entail, however the intricate details were still being structured and it was a matter of learning on the job for everyone. Thankfully we had a Digital Auditor to help set us on our way and introduce us to key contacts as well as an Evaluation Consultant who created a Logic Model which would help map out the main aims and goals of the project and how we were going to achieve them.
Whilst we now had a Logic Model to follow there were still challenges we faced along the way. We were quite ambitious as a team and there were so many community projects and experiments we wanted to try, but time wouldn’t allow.
In the beginning I was very enthusiastic to get involved in everything, especially being new to the sector. I also tried my best to ensure that I could spend an equal amount of time at each museum within the week. However, it didn’t always work out as planned. Most times it really just depended on what project I was working on at the time and what was more of a priority which directed my decision on which museum I would be based at for most of the week.
Technology vs. RBC
I found it very interesting working at both a local authority museum and one run by the university. Reading Museum is governed by the council and they had fairly strict rules in comparison to the university. For example, I found it difficult at times to complete work easily because the council would block access to certain websites — this became an issue when needing to share files or to conduct research. Things that I would take for granted such as the use of USB sticks for transferring data was also a big no no! My official desk was based at The MERL, so I would rely on having a permanent member of staff at Reading Museum to allow me access to use a computer each time.
Whilst these weren’t major issues in the grand scheme of things, there were notable differences between the two organisations. Nevertheless I can gladly say that I’d developed good relationships with both sets of colleagues at each institution which certainly contributed to making the role a pleasant one.
5 months on…
It’s crazy to think that it’s been 5 months since completing the traineeship and leaving Reading. It has been one of the best jobs I’ve ever had to this date. I was certainly sad to leave Reading as it became a second home to me and it was also sad to say goodbye to colleagues who became friends.
I currently live in Birmingham working in another project-funded role within the arts sector. I thoroughly enjoyed the traineeship and it’s thanks to that experience that I was able to gain another job so quickly.
If I could do it again, or if there was more time I would have tried to find a way to reflect more of my culture into the traineeship, as it has often been said that the Black and Minority Ethnicity are underrepresented in not only this sector but many other sectors too.
I think traineeships are a great idea for those who may want to enter into the sector but don’t necessarily have the educational background. I think this is a representation of how life goes sometimes, oftentimes people will decide to have a change of career later in life and opportunities such as these are a great way to assist in gaining that required experience.
I made a sacrifice for my career by moving a way from family and most of my friends for a period of time. I understand this isn’t something everyone will choose to do and it was by no means easy, however it was an amazing learning experience and hopefully will lead to great things for my future.
