The working life of Museum of London

LAARC has just started a new project - LAARC Volunteer Inclusion Project. The general idea is to create more space in the archive by effective, efficient storage, using the help of 30 volunteers a week.

As well as creating space for future archives, we are also promoting inclusivity and learning opportunities and shall be running specialist workshops for volunteers.

There is a new section of these blog pages specifically for the project so have a look and see what we’re up to.

http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/laarcvip/

As part of the project we welcome back the University of the Third Age (U3A) who shall be improving the archive for MSL87 - one of the Roman Eastern Cemetery Sites. This side of the project has its own website and can be found at:

http://laarcvipu3a.wetpaint.com/

And don’t forget our archaeology blog pages, where each month we run the object of the month competition. Click below to find out September’s winner

http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/archaeology

 Woo hoo! LAARChaeology is taking over!!!

Museum of London’s archaeological archive is the home of the Museum’s collection. The big warehouse in Hackney is the largest in Europe and 10km of shelving houses fascinating finds that have been unearthed in London. Clearly the archive is an incredibly important place but it faces a great threat…dust.

Dust, grime and dirt are all enemies at the archive and so it was decided that a big clean was needed to rid the space of its arch nemesis. The cleaning and clearing of the archives was scheduled for 16-20 June 2008. Staff, volunteers and members of the City of London Police rolled their sleeves up to give the archive its first deep clean since opening in 2002.

From Officers to Inspectors, all ranks were involved in the big clean over 2 days. How had the tables turned so that they were now the subjects of community service and why had they chosen the archive? These particular officers work for the City Police’s Specialist Crime Operations, where anonymity is of the utmost importance as there is a lot of covert work involved, and so this was the perfect opportunity to render a service to the London community whilst retaining discretion. Another officer added ‘The archives just fitted the bill and we wanted to see your coach!’ referring to the Lord Mayor’s Coach which is being temporarily housed at the archives whilst the redevelopment of the lower galleries of Museum of London is in progress.

From one genre of detective to another; Graham White from Southend-on-Sea, is a long-serving and dedicated volunteer at the archive with a qualification in Archaeology. Usually his job entails examining and documenting artefacts from previous digs which is of huge importance to the cataloguing system at the archive; yet, he is on the clean today and is very positive about the positive effects that it will inevitably have on the preservation of the artefacts of the building.

This optimism is shared by the two work experience students currently at the Archives. Sam Ridgeway, also from Southend-on-Sea, studies at Westcliff High School for boys and gained his work experience through Museum of London. Having already been involved with the archive for a week, the prospect of cleaning does not seem to have dampened his spirits - ‘well it certainly needed a clean!’ Dressed in their white boiler suits with dusters at hand, it seems that although unconventional work experience, this has not put off Nick Beaver who started as soon as the big clean did. Nick studies at Berkhamsted Collegiate School who helped him get in touch with the archive due to his interest in History and English. He doesn’t mind a bit of hard graft with the cleaning at all and is looking forward to a sneaky peek at exactly what goes on in the archives before returning home to Watford.

The clean up operation was a huge success with a horrifying amount of dust removed and the Museum’s collections preserved for a few more years to come. The yellow rubber gloves and masks have been put away until next time…

Check out our photos for a glimpse of the archive cleaning operation.

Myrofora Neoptolemou, Newcastle University Museum Studies MA student writes:

As part of my MA Museum Studies course, I had my two months work experience at the Museum in Docklands and Museum of London. An informal appointment in advance with Frazer Swift, the Head of Learning, to discuss both sides’ expectations, turned out to be very useful. I expected to gain for my placement a wide experience of museum’s operations/activities. Therefore Frazer wisely decided to split my placement into the Access & Learning Department for the first month and Early London History and Collections Department for the second. In this way he successfully satisfied my expectations as I could experience learning and curatorial job of the museum as well!

For the first moment it was clear that the museum respected its volunteers and is interested not only gaining from them, but also offering them experience that will increase their knowledge, develop their skills and be useful for their career progression. All the museum staffs were so friendly and helpful. Even I know I will soon forget the names, I am sure I will always have their smiley faces engraved in my memory! Good communication and relationships amongst the members of any organisation is of vital importance. It makes your work even more interesting, exciting and inspiring!

Kirsty Sullivan was my supervisor while working in the Access & Learning Department. Working with her it was just a pleasure! I was first involved in the evaluation procedures which sounds like a bit of boring paperwork. I found so useful to know what visitors think about the services and helpful for constantly improving them, trying to satisfy different people’s needs and expectations. In this way each visitor is faced as an individual, given the opportunity to express his/her opinion and feel crucial and valued as his/her voice is heard.

In addition, I attended several sessions for primary and secondary schools, groups with special educational needs, families, toddlers (under 5’s) and carers and adult tours. I feel so lucky because the museum has full programmes of various events and sessions such as storytelling, drama and object handling. Schools sessions were designed to be relevant to the National Curriculum. The freelancers, who led the sessions, catered for different classes’ needs and used their prior knowledge to be flexible and adapt the sessions’ structure.

My work experience coincided with the opening of the Jack the Ripper and the East End exhibition. I was interested in creating the exit evaluation questionnaires of this temporary exhibition and I was given the chance! I had never developed a questionnaire, but with Frazer’s and Kirsty’s co-operation and step by step advice, I managed to put together a questionnaire which matched what the members of the project team wanted to find out. Then Frazer edited it and cut down a lot of questions. He has plenty of experience in evaluations and he respects the time taken by the museum’s visitors to fill in a questionnaire! The last step was interviewing people and getting a sample of 100. This was a challenge! I tried to be smiley and kind with the visitors while asking whether they would like to help the museum evaluating the exhibition. I tried being smiley even after people refused, which was not the easiest thing, I have to admit! It is amazing how different people feel about the same artefacts and how they react alternatively to the messages communicated in the exhibition! The whole activity was very informative and useful and I found it was an enjoyable experience thoroughly!

The London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre has one of the most successful volunteer programs within the Museum of London. Since opening in 2002, we have had over 400 volunteers of all ages, from various backgrounds and from all over the world, come and assist us in making London’s archaeological more accessible.

But it’s not all about packing objects and creating databases. Although improving the conditions of the LAARC material is a necessary task, it’s equally important to have some fun and enjoyment out of volunteering as well as learning new skills. One way in which we do this is by offering volunteers a chance to create displays relating to the site they’ve been working on.

The first of these can now be admired outside the Ceramics & Glass store at Mortimer Wheeler House. For the past 6 months, three of our long serving volunteers have been improving the accessibilty of 1986’s excavation at the site of the former Royal Mint (MIN86). The majority of its finds relate back to the medieval abbey, St Mary Graces (1350 - 1540) which stood on the site.

 A combination of private research and important archaeological artefacts from the site as well as personal favourite items (including 3 LAARC object of the month winners!), volunteers, Chris Chadwick, Sybil  Hunot & Pamla Lamb created and arranged the first of what looks set to be many excellent and informative volunteer display cases.

Next time you’re passing the stores up at Eagle Wharf Road, be sure to take a look at their work and see what they’ve put together for yourself. You can let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Emma Ramsey recently volunteered for work experience at the Museum of London, and this is her account of her week:

“When I first decided to undertake work experience at the Museum of London, I was simply hoping to learn more about the Roman invasion of Britain and other periods of early history. So I was pleasantly surprised to come away, not only with more historical knowledge, but also with a good idea of what goes on in a museum behind the exhibitions and displays.

On Monday I began by sorting the entries for the London’s Burning exhibition poem activity, and typing up the audio recording of the Great Fire of London study day (held on 6 October 2007). I never really knew a great deal about the Great Fire before, but having listened to the recording of the study day for a good part of the week I feel as though I would have a good chance at Mastermind with ‘London in 1666′ as my chosen subject! Or at least, I was able to reply to an email sent in by someone asking what caused the fire at the end of the week.

On Tuesday afternoon I visited the Guildhall amphitheatre on a guided tour with the Roman curator Jenny Hall. This, coupled with my time spent in the Conservation lab on Thursday and Friday, taught me a lot about the methods of preservation used for wood and leather.

I also had the opportunity to see the Transit room on Thursday, where I got a sneak preview of some of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ items to go on display at the Museum in Docklands in May. [A note for readers: the Transit Store is a temporary storage room for objects either about to be installed in an exhibition/gallery or that have just been taken off display and are about to be sent back to their permanent stores.]

During the week I was also able to visit the costume department and sit in on a meeting about the events planned for National Archaeology Week. I also had the task of putting visitor comments from the Outside Edge exhibition at the Museum in Docklands into an Excel document in order to record its success. I always had plenty to do and it feels as though the week flew by. I would thoroughly recommend this work experience to anyone who is interested in history and how it is preserved as it really gave me a great insight into museum work and taught me skills that I would not learn at school. It was a thoroughly enriching experience, and I am grateful to the Museum for giving me the opportunity.”