Thursday, 20 January 2011

Curator's trail

A new trail will be appearing over the next few days. Here is one of the first of the new labels, written by Sarah Riddle and describing some of her favourite objects in very personal terms.

The aim is to make our displays a bit more personal and to inspire a human feeling to some of our labels.

We will probably be looking for someone - a member, a child, a volunteer, a stranger - to produce a similar trail later in the year.

Hard at work

It is always good to see great striding minds hard at work, tapping away on their keyboards making the maritime world turn and advancing the Museum's cause. Just look at those empty soup bowls, the patterns licked off because of the deliciousness of Karen's soup; the coffee cups drained of their last arabica bean; the look of eagerness to get back to the drawing board written all over their faces.

Never let it be said that we did not  appreciate such commitment.

Monday, 17 January 2011

Curator's Cabinet

A new Curator's Cabinet has appeared on the second floor outside the Lecture Theatre. As it says on the header, it is designed to show off new additions to the collection (although we might cheat from time to time).

New items do not always go straight onto display and this will allow us to show them off on arrival, get press coverage and display our thanks to the donors. It may be a slightly eclectic display in future, therefore, but all the more fun as a result.

In this picture, Volunteer Jessica is mounting the first exhibition of artefacts recently collected from Margaret Dye in Norwich, all of which relate to Frank and his sailing. Jessica is presently working her way through the two trunks of slides we have received, trying to put them in some sort of order and work out what they show. It is a whole life story in pictures but sadly without a narrator.

Don't miss the great cartoon or the vinyl on the side of the case: a picture of our wonderful curator complete with white coat, glasses and cupid-bow red lips. Dead realistic.

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Origin of research enquiries for year 2010

by Geoff Douglas

Below is a list of the countries from which enquiries were received by the library in 2010. These are only the enquiries entered into the Research Enquiry System, not enquiries dealt with immediately over the phone or for personal visits to the library. In total 252 enquiries were received and dealt with, some received via the museum website, others via e-mail, snail mail, telephone or personal visit.

As you would expect most of the enquiries are of British origin, the rest are varied and from all over the world. Some of them were simple enquiries taking a short time to deal with, others were extensive and took a considerable amount of work. The break down is as follows.

Australia 15
Canada 8
Cayman Islands 1
Chile 1
Eire 1
France 1
Germany 1
Hong Kong 1
Isle of Scilly 2
New Zealand 5
Netherlands 1
Orange Free State 1
South Africa 1
Spain 1
Switzerland 1
Tasmania 1
UK 200
USA 9
Uknown 1

To put this into context, we have over 3000 records going back to 1988 including those from the old Maritime Museum. The yearly average between 1988 and 2002 was 33 per year, with one particularly busy year, 1999, when 137 enquiries were dealt with.

The yearly totals increased dramatically after the opening of NMMC:
2003 373
2004 319
2005 312
2006 288
2007 295
2008 290
2009 279
2010 252 (one for every working day)