Last week was the joy of Ignite London, the first to be held in the capital, egads you say? Surely theres been one before, but alas no, it wasn’t until the lovely and gorgeous Amy and Dan got their teeth into it, that the magic actually happened. (hopefully now there will be many more…)

It was a brilliant night, and even my determined not be a geek beau thoroughly enjoyed the evening, he managed to talk about going down a coal mine…so yes he might not be a museum webby geek, but he is a geek of sorts.

The speakers were awesome, particularly Matthew Baker’s fantastic lyrical rhyme about what’s so special about bacteria. Loved it. There was quite a strong cultural historic theme emerging too, which I greatly appreciated. You can find videos of the talks here.

But with such gold being shared in bitesized five minutes chunks it got me thinking about what on earth I could enthuse about in 5 minutes flat….
And to be honest, I got nothing, nada, kaput. I mean yes I’m stupidly passionate about museums, tea and david Attenborough ooh and chocolate, but are those really the making of a crowd pleasing talk? Not separately, but a museum about tea, run by david Attenborough addicted to cadburys might have some legs… but its not really on the same strand as The Sex Lives of the Great Renaissance Masters: How the Old Masters and their Mistresses Changed Art now is it?

So maybe I could go down the tin mining, regional heritage route? I am tin miner girl and a Geordie after all… but again, I get nothing. Its kind of rubbish that I don’t actually think I have anything interesting to say. So Ignite, was awesome and a discovered lots of new and very definitely interesting things, but it also pointed out that I have a distinct lack of eclectic interests at the moment. Phooey. Must try harder Claire, must try harder.

Its been a busy week this week, what with all the writing that has to be done, and learning how to be a ‘good researcher’ and develop my career…publish or perish…publish or perish…publish or perish…therefore writing, writing, writing.

But there has been a few sparkles in the sidelines particularly

Photographs of Lumiere

Between the 12-15^th Nov Durham was transformed by light! Now, I had the pleasure of being an undergrad at Durham, and growing up in the North East, Durham has always had an air of enchantment about it. Durham has always been a dark place, on a winter evening the mist rolls in over the river and the vennels, nooks and crannies between the fantastically old buildings become shrouded in mystery. There’s just something about walking through darkened cobbled streets. But last week it was different, there was light! So much light! My parents went and took some amazing photographs of the event, and they’re just too good to stay on my baby laptop, so up on flickr they go! Illuminating the Cathedral with pages of the Lindisfarne Gospel was inspired.

slideshow slideshow!

Since I’ve started my new job and re acquainted myself to life in London, my brain has been finding it hard to cope.  When I’m not at work, I have been wondering around in a daze.  It’s like my brain is conserving energy when it doesn’t have to actively concentrate on the all the new things I am learning in my new research role. And I tell you what I am learning an awful lot. So my brain goes into shut down at all other times.  I must look quite odd with a completely vacant expression on my face.  Usually I would be getting very excited about the prospect of all the new exhibitions that I can pog around in, but alas that has not happened, too much brain weakness for that. I’ve also recently become disillusioned with my Google reader feeds. Very disappointed, I can normally find something that sparks my interest, but not for a good few weeks has that occurred. What is a actually gone ‘dumb blonde’ to do?  Well there have been three things that have been keeping me sane.

Firstly: tea. I love tea. Yes it’s official.  Over the past few weeks I’ve been working really hard in my new job, meeting new people, learning new concepts, starting new research, and its all been a bit stressful.  My brain feels well and truly saturated.  But what is easing the burden is tea. It is brilliant stuff. I don’t know if it’s just a northern thing, but tea solves every problem imaginable.  I bought some beautiful Cornish tea, yes Cornwall makes tea, back in the Penzancian days.  A place called Tregothnan, http://www.tregothnan.co.uk/ and it produces some beautifully fragrant teas.  Not only that but the little specialist tea and coffee shop in Penzance (I’m actually beginning to miss Penzance, shush don’t tell anyone) that I bought it from also sells goods from the tea appreciation society and I got myself a nifty I love tea bag, which has been going down a storm in Camden, comments and praise a go go. So yes, tea is a fantastic thing.

Secondly: culture shock. This is a brilliant initiative fronted by (in my opinion the gods of the museum world- some Geordie bias there but hey) Tyne and Wear Museums. It is attempting to discover and record digital stories that have been inspired by North East Museums. My personal favourite being the inspirational stories arising from baking apparatus.   What with this, the Great North Museum grand opening and Museumnext, Newcastle is really beginning to show what its capable of in the museum world (rather than just being known for its greatness by the few)

Thirdly: wordr.  This is still very much in alpha, but its awesome. Its inconsequential, playful,  and its fun!  Twitter is 140 characters right? Well wordr, is you guessed it just one word (28 characters is that right?). Its amazing what you can express with just one word. I can track what I and others have been doing in a day and what mood I have been in a beautiful way (ok so beautiful is a bit strong but I am very much enjoying the freedom of single wordyness). A prime example is during the Mr (im not a racist, oh wait, actually I am a racist) Griffin on BBC questiontime last week.  Instead of going on a rant like quite a few (by quite a few take that to mean lots of) people, I was able to some up my feelings with one word ‘berk’. That makes me unbelievably happy. I’m also able to boast that I hold the position of the 1000^th word of wordr which is ‘gin’. Again this makes me happy, and for all the people who actually know me, this three lettered word expresses my personality quite aptly.   And what’s the most posted word on wordr to date? Another three letter word… tea.

Earlier this week on my way in to work I was faced with a big red bus. Nothing unusual there London is full of them. However this one was parked in the main quad of UCL right in front of the iconic (to past students at least) dome. So what is a big red bus doing in the middle of UCL? Goodness only knows I thought, but I took a picture of it none the less ( ive only been in London a couple of weeks, I’m still in tourist mode or just plain snap happy but stupidly don’t have the download usb cable). It wasn’t until later that I realised that it wasn’t just a bus. It was a bus with interesting billboards on it. Where you would normally see ‘zac effron’ or whatever the latest film poster is, there were museum objects and the destination of the bus was entitled ‘object retrieval’. I was still baffled, so I googled it and came up with this… http://www.objectretrieval.com/

So object retrieval is an interactive exhibition open to the public, a team of researchers from UCL will be exploring a ‘mysterious object’ from any and all routes (routes…bus.. get it?) – be it art, archaeology, biology or chemistry – so utilizing all avenues to gain information about an object from the UCL museum collections to try and gain a coherent interpretation of its past identity, biography, use.

First and foremost, it’s a really interesting attempt to look at single objects history using different means. So its likely to achieve a more rounded interpretation. Its also a good hook, a rather large London bus has been turned into a lab! Cool. But, and it’s a big but. I work at UCL and I had to google it, as I had no idea what it was about. Is that a good thing? Surely some marketing or something (and I mean more then a plain text PR blurb on the UCL website) should of gone out to gather interest? The website states its ‘It is open and free for everyone.’ But is it really? Its in the middle of UCL. who apart from students and staff at the university are going to be able to access it? How is it open to everyone, if its already in an inherently closed space? Would it not have been more inclusive if the big red bus was in a more open, welcoming and to be perfectly honest, in a place where normal people hang out? Like a tourist spot Trafalgar square for example, or even more down to earth a supermarket carpark? Ok so fair enough its using academics from the uni and it’s a uni artifact that’s being investigated, but surely letting people actually know about it would be a better way of it being ‘open and free’ ? hmm. I mean its great that UCL museums are actively trying to engage with the public, and maybe its just a blatent attempt to get more students to go and visit the UCL collections (when I was a student here I shamefully admit that I didn’t go to the museums on campus) I wonder how its actually going to pan out. I mean the website looks cool and is encouraging participation, but will anyone actually do it? It remains to be seen.

but if you do want to come and check it out go ahead its on from today the 15 – 21 October 2009
UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

map of how to get there

Now im not old by any stretch of the imagination. But today I was made to feel incredibly incredibly old. Why? Well because I was one of only 3 people in a lecture hall full (actually full- not one spare seat and people were even sitting on the stairs) who had actually used let alone heard of a microfiche. That’s outrageous. As some of you may be aware if you follow me on twitter, I started a new job last week. I’m now a researcher type person at UCL, in the Department of Information Studies. I’m currently doing some work on how academic communities use twitter but that’s another story. The great part about my job is that if I don’t understand something (which is happening quite often- info studies… is quite far removed from archaeology and museumy things, there’s a lot of lingo that I need to pick up and consolidate quite quickly), there is most likely a lecture about it. Yay! So off I went to the first electronic publishing lecture of the year. Now this is a Masters lecture, I’m only a few years older than the students in this class. In fact I did my Masters at UCL in 2006, so I know how they are feeling. But by gum. I wasn’t expecting to outdate them by like a century!

That aside it was a very interesting lecture. The historical development of electronic publishing was discussed. I hadn’t really thought of electronic publishing at all. ever. Even though I use it every day and have used it for a very long time. You tend not to think about the general things that you take for granted and use on a daily basis. The fact that these everyday objects develop and then decline has really passed me by. But when you think about it, we as a culture, are obsessed with technological upgrades. So from microfiche and microfilm to floppy disc, to CD to a memory stick and now bypassing that all together the cloud.

But when these objects are superseded by another, is it really a decline into Obsolescence (vocab points for me)? There’s a lot of hype about the Electric Revolution. Things may have been superseded by, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger equipment/applications/things but some are making a come back! The Polaroid for example http://www.the-impossible-project.com/ is it just nostalgia? Or are the things that were once forgotten, coming back round again, just like fashion.

Do we need to be instantly-gratified? Do we have to be immersed in digital culture? What’s wrong with a tape deck, a corded phone, and a book? I for one am going to hunt out my ghetto blaster, put on my run dmc shelltoes and take my photo, and then wait for the film to be jolly well developed.

(image from http://mechanicrobotic.wordpress.com/)

A tannoy announcement in Marks and Spencer pricked my ears last week ‘Marks in Time, It’s your heritage’.  I think that’s fantastic.  I’ve grown up with Marks and Sparks, it’s always been there, and i trust it.  My I even worked there a long time ago.   What I found interesting is that they have made a really big deal of their 125year anniversary. And it seems the public have embraced it too.  And now there’s an exhibition. It aims to celebrate the role M&S has played in British cultural history from the beginning and looking towards what M&S will have to offer in the future.  And there’s a website!! Full of lovely images and interesting facts, for example Marks and Spencer’s employees in 1941 raised £5000 to buy a spitfire for the war effort. I like it. Its nice to think that shops like Marks and Spencer realise they do play a large role in people’s lives and it has a responsibility to share its archives and its history with the public. Well done M&S!

Details of how to visit the exhibition can be found here…

I’ve been back in Newcastle for a few weeks, whilst i sort out my London living and working arrangements.  I’m immensely proud of where i come from, and it is always i fantastic feeling crossing over the Tyne bridge, i know I’m home. To me the Tyne is a major part of my heritage. However I watched a rather thought provoking programme this week called saving Britain’s past. This particular episode was about Covent Garden market.  The neighbourhood surrounding Covent Garden, the ones who lived, worked and breathed Covent Garden had a fight on their hands.  The government in the 70s had scheduled the Market to be rehoused and Covent Garden to be demolished. A shocking tale when you think about how iconic Covent Garden is to London now, and how many thousands of tourists go to visit it every day. The outcome of the fight, unsurprisingly, was that the locals saved Covent Garden. But the irony is that it’s not their Covent Garden anymore. They feel excluded, and that loving sense of community that was once thriving, no longer exists. There is no camaraderie there, what remains is sadness.

Today’s Covent Garden is not their heritage, it’s not what they fought so hard to save, yet it is ‘our’ heritage, Britain’s heritage, part of Britain’s past. But is that the point? By saving the building, yes the building is saved, but what about the people, the way of life, the community? Is that not the heritage that we should be trying to save? Is it just one or the other?   The programme shows how passionately the local community fought for its right to survive and to save its historic buildings, but who now regard their triumph as at best a Pyrrhic Victory.  Would it have been any better if they had just let the developers demolish the site?

It made me think long and hard about what heritage means, and to whom. Its an interesting concept.   ‘Heritage’ normally refers to objects, buildings or places associated with past public and private memories and traditions. But really do Heritage objects represent things we pay attention to because they’re still meaningful to us, not always because they tell us about the past but because we use them to tell stories about ourselves.   So does heritage actually have anything to do with the past? Or is it simply one way we use to make meaning about our lives?

This also links back to Geevor, the ex miners fought long and hard to save Geevor from the scrap man and lovingly turned into into a small scale heritage centre. Then the museum pros came on board, and used the line of ‘protecting their heritage’ to turn Geevor into a full functioning museum.  But who was that for? Was it for the ex miners? Or was it for the 40 thousand tourists who came this year? Who’s heritage is being preserved?

Another example is something i read in the Evening Chronicle, the local newspaper in Newcastle about  The Rising Sun Country Park, in North Tyneside. 40yrs ago it was a working pit which at one time employed 1700 coal miners. Its now a park enjoyed by families, dog walkers and cyclists.  A history walk was organised by the Friends of the Rising Sun Country Park, to give walkers a chance to learn more about the regions mining heritage.  All well and good, a valiant attempt. However, the ex miners who had been invited to speak, didn’t turn up. In the end the walk was saved by a chap attending the walk who’s father had worked at the colliery.  What’s interesting is that the miners did not turn up for the event. Why not? To be honest im not really surprised. I doubt i would want to go to the place where i had worked for most of my life, to be reminded that the once thriving industry, no longer exists, and is now a vast expanse of grass lands for people to walk their dogs.  Again it comes down to an interpretation of heritage. The Friends of the park, thought they were helping preserve the heritage of the miners, but really were they just looking for validation that turning an ex colliery into a park was the right thing to do, and not surprisingly the miners weren’t going to support that.  This is just my interpretation of events however (I don’t know all the facts, only what was reported in the newspaper) but i have had a fair share of experience working with miners, and they are very complicated and fiercely proud people. If the idea for a heritage walk didn’t come from within the mining community, then it is unlikely to be supported. Again this comes down to peoples interpretation of heritage. Perhaps heritage isn’t about the past; perhaps It is about meaning making in peoples lives and if its no longer relevant to peoples lives then it is no longer heritage? Hmm….

This week I have had my eyes open to the differences between digital identity and real identity. I believed that my digital identity is pretty much just an extension of my real identity. I portray myself online in the manner in which I do in everyday life. I assumed that everyone else was the same.  But the more I try to believe that I have one true identity, digital or not, this may not actually be the case.  It appears I have several identities both online and in real life. How many me’s are there? Or am I me, just on different platforms?

I have been off to London for copious amounts of flat hunting before I start my new job in October. A hectic few days of looking at all sorts of flats, meeting potential flat mates and walking for hours definitely puts a strain on the senses. I discovered during numerous viewings that I was changing my behaviour and my conversation to suit the surroundings. I hadn’t realised that I was doing this, until my friend (bodyguard in case of undesirables attacked me- I’ve been in Cornwall for two years, I need to reacclimatise to the hard London streets) pointed out that I was especially restrained in one of the viewings.  This was because I didn’t want to terrify them with my excitable bubbly nature.  Needless to say, I wasn’t particularly comfortable in the viewing and couldn’t see myself living there, so I shall not be moving in to that flat. That particular environment made me uncomfortable and I changed my personality for that cause. Does changing your behaviour mean you are changing your identity? Do I do that on a regular basis and not notice? I thought I was me, through and through, and never changed my identity to suit different environments, people or scenarios. But now I’m not so sure.  It is also the case that potential flat mates that I emailed in the digital world, sounded just my cup of tea on paper (online paper) but in the flesh were not the same, for either better or for worse.

So this got me thinking, it is only when we feel comfortable that we are our true selves? Does the online world give us that comfort? We get to hide behind a screen, are able to give opinions, and consider ourselves equal to all in sundery, while in real life, we are more likely to shy away from confrontation, and look up to people who are more experienced and know more, and look down on the lesser beings? Does digital media afford individuals with new ways of expressing, exploring, and asserting our identity in a way that can not possibly be achieved in the real world? Or is it just offering an extension of the real you, me, us? Or more probably do we have different identities for different environments??

The more I think about it, I have begun to dissect my behaviour and my identity both in digital spaces and in real places. It seems on occasions I actively choose to split myself depending on who and where I am, not majorly but perhaps sufficiently enough for there to be a notable difference.  But is that actually an identity change or just a change in behaviour? In essence I’m still me, aren’t i?

Quite a few people choose to have more than one digital identity, maybe one for their work or academic life, and one for their social life. Some people try to keep these identities separate, for example a person may choose to keep their digital identities divided for different groups of friends, colleagues and relatives and many also try to separate their digital identities from their real personas. To be honest I don’t see the point of that, in essence im still me what ever platform im on, so why should I try to keep them apart? I have nothing to hide. For me the majority of people know me from more then one environment, so they can perceive a better picture of my true identity.  But when placed in a scenario like a flat viewing where contact has been made in the digital space and then transferred briefly to a real encounter, how does this affect my identity and their perception of it?

Rather a lot of question marks there, and not really any definitive answers. But its worth thinking about, I think.

As a goodbye treat from Geevor I was allowed to descend down the Victory shaft, where the public aren’t allowed to venture. I’ve waited patiently for two years, and boy was it worth it! Thank you very much Bill for being my expert guide.

We travelled down to 3rd level of Victory, which is about 300ft (90metres) and saw the top of sea level in the shaft, the majority of the network of mine tunnels are now flooded when the pumps were turned off after closure in 1990.

With some incredibly low ceilings and with my willies well and truly breached we made our down through mine workings that spanned over 300 years.  This experience was absolutely amazing and it really hits home what the miners did down there, and how good they were at their jobs. It was fantastic to finely truly understand what it would have been like to work down here.  I was amazed by the colours and the textures of the rock and the workmanship of the miners. My geologist type boyfriend came with us, and he was in his element looking at funny looking rock formations and collections of ‘sludge’.

So all and all a very fitting end to my time at Geevor Tin Mine.  Thank you!

Today’s my last day at Geevor! My time here as flown by! It only seems like yesterday I arrived smartly dressed, bright eyed and bushy tailed and excited about the project ahead. The smart clothes went out the window straight away! (there is no place for shirts and heels at a mine on a cliff edge).

I have certainly left my mark at Geevor, mostly dents in doorways where I have banged my head so many times, earning my title as possibly the clumsiest person in the world. I’ve also brought my special brand of endless enthusiasm and my extreme tea and cake eating abilities to Geevor.  Especially with the girls in the learning team, hopefully Claire S will carry on this tradition with style.

I’ve loved working here, it hasn’t been easy and yes I have ranted and raved, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and can not thank the University of Exeter, Geevor and KTP for giving me this opportunity.  I have made some good friends and even more great colleagues, I have so many thank yous I’m not even going to begin, but I thought I’d leave you with some of my best bits….

• The Blog! I love it! it shows a side to Geevor that you don’t get to see when you visit! A behind the scenes look at the goings on at Geevor. It also gives you an insight into the sense of humour of the staff, Bill’s posts make me laugh so much.
• Flickr and Twitter- brilliant tools that are encouraging Geevor to interact with the outside world, and for you guys to interact with us! Some of the photos on the Geevor Flickr group are truly inspirational.
• Banging my head on one of the new cases in the Hard Rock Museum a week before the grand opening and getting concussion. Nick T being more concerned that I’d got blood on the case, before tending to the egg shaped lump on my head and taking me to hospital.
• Bringing an ethos of ‘tea?’ to the learning team. What on earth did you do without me and tea?
• My endless enthusiasm, no matter what gets thrown my way.  I am excited by everything and love the potential that Geevor has. I hope this pro active and opportunistic mentality sticks with Geevor as the go from Strength to Strength.
• And finally, the website! It was hard going and I’ve done my best with the resources and time available! Its not bad for someone with no web experience what so ever! Dress the miner seems to be going down well, and my favourite is the whoosy image thing (lightbox that does cool things to see the image better).  As I said in a previous post on the Geevor blog, there are so many things I would like to develop and improve on, but I now leave it in Geevor’s capable hands and look forward to watching it grow.   I hope you like it.

And where am I going? What am I doing next?

Moving back to London that’s what!? After two years in idyllic Penzance, I’m moving back to the big city,  back to UCL! Im gong to be working on a project call Linksphere looking at virtual learning environments and social media.  I get to geek out basically, looking at how/if academics are using blogs, twitter, wikis and facebook.  Yes I am a nerdosaurs.  I’m very excited about it.  but it doesn’t mean I will forget about Geevor. .. I’ll be keeping my eye on you….