Museums Lives: Oral history and the Natural History Museum
Lead Research Organisation:
Kingston University
Department Name: Sch of Humanities
Abstract
The Natural History Museum is a world-class repository of 70 million specimens and an international centre of excellence in scientific study with a rich tradition of informing the public about the natural world. Its staff have personal knowledge of the Museum's history, staffing, collection development, methodologies and exhibitions which constitute an important cultural resource, yet there is no sustained programme to capture these memories. Museum Lives aims to rectify this and to create a high-quality multimedia resource for scholarship, education and exhibitions that will enrich the historical record and add new dimensions to the collections which will attract fresh audiences.
Museum Lives grows out of the AHRC-funded New Perspectives project, in the course of which the NHM management has expressed concern at the loss of knowledge as Museum staff move on. Over the next five years, for example, 24 specialist staff will retire, representing 775 years of experience. While their publications concentrate on advancing knowledge in their specialist fields, their memories have value in disciplines such as science history, museum practice, sociology, management, politics, anthropology, geography and education. Kingston University, through the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and its partner the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences (FHSCS), has specialised skills to address this urgent need by capturing this information in ways that will maximise its value for the Museum, its public and the academic community. A KTF is the ideal means of transferring these skills.
Kingston FASS and the FHSCS, together with the Museum, propose a three-year KTF to create an oral history programme based on best current practice and tailored to the Museum's needs. It will draw on knowledge in the two faculties to ensure the outputs meet the needs of a broad range of stakeholders. The long-term aim is to embed the programme in the Museum's work so that preservation of knowledge on these lines becomes routine. Volunteer oral historians will also be trained, staff will receive help in recording their own memories and the project will stimulate the recovery of lost knowledge through themed 'witness seminars'.
The core project will create records relating to 50 interview subjects from across the Museum staff. This number reflects the exceptional experience of the subjects, the value of their knowledge and the quality of the multimedia outputs. For example, a curator's biography will be researched and he or she will be interviewed at length on camera, generating a searchable archive record and transcript. From this material themes will be identified for short films made to production standards suitable for educational and exhibition use -- often shot alongside specimens of which the curator has particular knowledge. Such films will be permanently linked to the specimens in the Museum's digital database and may also be used in connection with the specimens in public exhibition.
The oral history resource will be available in edited form for public viewing on the Museum website and will be designed to be capable of use in the Museum's public exhibitions and learning programmes. By adding a new human and cultural dimension to artefacts hitherto recorded primarily as taxonomic objects, this could be a powerful tool in engaging new audiences. The material will be available to school and college students working on projects related to the collection, and to artists, filmmakers, broadcasters, writers and poets who can use these stories as inspiration. The National Life Story Collection has been extensively 'mined' in this way, while the Columbia Oral History office has formed the basis for more than 1,000 books.
Museum Lives grows out of the AHRC-funded New Perspectives project, in the course of which the NHM management has expressed concern at the loss of knowledge as Museum staff move on. Over the next five years, for example, 24 specialist staff will retire, representing 775 years of experience. While their publications concentrate on advancing knowledge in their specialist fields, their memories have value in disciplines such as science history, museum practice, sociology, management, politics, anthropology, geography and education. Kingston University, through the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and its partner the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences (FHSCS), has specialised skills to address this urgent need by capturing this information in ways that will maximise its value for the Museum, its public and the academic community. A KTF is the ideal means of transferring these skills.
Kingston FASS and the FHSCS, together with the Museum, propose a three-year KTF to create an oral history programme based on best current practice and tailored to the Museum's needs. It will draw on knowledge in the two faculties to ensure the outputs meet the needs of a broad range of stakeholders. The long-term aim is to embed the programme in the Museum's work so that preservation of knowledge on these lines becomes routine. Volunteer oral historians will also be trained, staff will receive help in recording their own memories and the project will stimulate the recovery of lost knowledge through themed 'witness seminars'.
The core project will create records relating to 50 interview subjects from across the Museum staff. This number reflects the exceptional experience of the subjects, the value of their knowledge and the quality of the multimedia outputs. For example, a curator's biography will be researched and he or she will be interviewed at length on camera, generating a searchable archive record and transcript. From this material themes will be identified for short films made to production standards suitable for educational and exhibition use -- often shot alongside specimens of which the curator has particular knowledge. Such films will be permanently linked to the specimens in the Museum's digital database and may also be used in connection with the specimens in public exhibition.
The oral history resource will be available in edited form for public viewing on the Museum website and will be designed to be capable of use in the Museum's public exhibitions and learning programmes. By adding a new human and cultural dimension to artefacts hitherto recorded primarily as taxonomic objects, this could be a powerful tool in engaging new audiences. The material will be available to school and college students working on projects related to the collection, and to artists, filmmakers, broadcasters, writers and poets who can use these stories as inspiration. The National Life Story Collection has been extensively 'mined' in this way, while the Columbia Oral History office has formed the basis for more than 1,000 books.
Organisations
Publications
Hawkins S
(2012)
Whose Story is it Anyway? The Challenges of Conducting Institutional Histories
in Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies
| Description | Museum Lives (ML) recorded 53 substantial oral history interviews of Natural History Museum (NHM) staff at all levels from carpenter through research scientist and senior curator to former director and across disciplines from lepidoptery and botany to palaeontology and mineralogy. These interviews range from two hours to eight hours in length, run collectively to approximately 250 recorded hours and embrace considerably more than 1,200 years of personal experience of work at the museum. Without the ML project this hugely valuable research resource relating to individuals and an institution of global cultural and scientific importance could not have been created, and the knowledge it captured would have been largely lost. Recorded on video, with full transcripts and, together with more than 20 related short films, this archive is preserved as a searchable record embedded in the NHM's collection management system. A selection of the interview extracts and short films representing about 5 per cent of this archive has been made directly available to the public through a dedicated section of the NHM website http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/science-facilities/cahr/projects-partnerships/museum-lives/index.html. This dedicated ML site has proved of lasting interest to the public and continues to attract more than 25 views per day on average, or 9,000 annually. A significant technological development for the NHM was to link clips from the interviews directly with the collections database. The web offer also seeks to draw in scholars, teachers and others with a deeper interest into accessing the full ML archive, which is made available to researchers and members of the public via the Museum Archives staff. This large resource is accessed on average once a month, and has been used by, among others, novelists, historians of science and those interested in the institutional history of the NHM. As part of the ML project the NHM and Kingston University hosted, in association with the Royal Society, a two-day conference under the title 'Science Voices: Scientists speak about science and themselves'. This took place at the Royal Society headquarters on 12-13 May 2011 and included papers and presentations by project participants Prof Brian Cathcart and Dr Sue Hawkins as well as by ML interviewee Prof Paul Henderson CBE, a former Director of Science at the NHM. About 80 attendees heard these speakers identify findings and discuss lessons in oral history practice. Accompanying the conference was an exhibition of short films derived from the ML archive. The conference programme, with audio recordings of contributions, is here: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2011/06/science-voices-scientists-speak-about-science-and-themselves/ Dr Hawkins went on to publish 'Whose story is it anyway: the challenges of conducting institutional histories', Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies, 27 August 2012: http://www.jcms-journal.com/articles/10.5334/jcms.1011207/ And in 2013 she was involved in AHRC Research Network project AH/K005901/1, as part of which she organized a workshop, featuring two ML interviewees, on the use of oral history in researching the lives and activities of women scientists. |
| Exploitation Route | The key is for researchers of all kinds to make use of this resource. The sectors below are only a selection. For example, researchers interested in the management of institutions would find a great deal to exploit in the ML archive. the potential of the archive was discussed in Prof Cathcart's paper at the Science Voices conference: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2011/06/science-voices-scientists-speak-about-science-and-themselves/ Besides research exploiting the interviews, there is room for further oral history work at the NHM, though funding would be required. The Kingston University team having largely moved on, this would be something for another institution to take up. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| URL | http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/science-facilities/cahr/projects-partnerships/museum-lives/index.html |
| Description | Since 2011 the public has been able to access about 5 per cent of the ML archive directly online at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/science-facilities/cahr/projects-partnerships/museum-lives/index.html. On average more than 25 people do so per day, or 9,000 annually, giving them a new form of insight into the lives and work of leading natural historians and others working at this globally-important institution. The full archive has been accessed by a variety of people, including for example novelists, but beyond reporting use it is too early to assess impacts. The ML project has been the subject of articles in Museums Journal, Evolve (the NHM members' magazine) and Kingston Review (published by Kingston University). Prof Cathcart also discussed the project in a BBC Radio 4 report coinciding with the Science Voices conference in 2011. The Museum Lives team participated in two EU-funded evening activities, based at the Natural History Museum London. These two public events called "Science Uncovered" attracted about 8,000 visitors. The team showed clips from Museum Lives and introduced visitors to the filming and recording equipment. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2011 |
| Sector | Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Title | Archive of oral history interviews of Natural History Museum staff |
| Description | Museum Lives (ML) recorded 53 substantial oral history interviews of Natural History Museum (NHM) staff at all levels from carpenter to former director and across disciplines from lepidoptery to palaeontology. These interviews range from two hours to eight hours in length, run collectively to approximately 250 recorded hours and embrace considerably more than 1,200 years of personal experience of work at the museum. Without the project this hugely valuable research resource relating to individuals and an institution of global cultural and scientific importance could not have been created, and the knowledge it captured would have been largely lost. Recorded on video, with full transcripts and, together with more than 20 related short film, this archive is preserved as a searchable record embedded in the NHM's K-Emu collection management system. A selection of the interview extracts and short films representing about 5 per cent of this archive has been made available to the public through a dedicated section of the NHM website. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2011 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This dedicated ML site has proved of lasting interest to the public and continues to attract more than 25 views per day on average, or 9,000 annually. A significant technological development for the NHM was to link clips from the interviews with the collections database. The web offer also seeks to draw scholars, teachers and others with a deeper interest into accessing the full ML archive, which is made available to researchers and members of the public via the Museum Archives staff. This large resource is accessed on average once a month, and has been used by, among others, novelists, historians of science and those interested in the institutional history of the NHM. |
| URL | http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/science-facilities/cahr/projects-partnerships/museum-lives/in... |
| Description | "Science Uncovered" NHM events |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The Museum Lives team participated in two EU funded evening activities, based at the Natural History Museum London. These two public events called "Science Uncovered" attracted about 8,000 visitors. The team showed clips from Museum Lives and introduced visitors to the filming and recording equipment. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | BBC radio 4 interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Prof Cathcart discussed the project in a BBC Radio 4 report coinciding with the Science Voices conference at the Royal Society in 2011. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Kingston University article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an article: Cathcart, B.J. (2009) 'Living History: the prisoner of war who became a Japanese butterfly hero', Kingston Review, Autumn/Winter no, pp. 13-14. Kingston Review is a magazine circulated to the wider Kingston University community, notably alumni. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | NHM magazine article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The ML project was the subject of an article in Evolve( the NHM members' magazine). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| URL | http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/science-news/2011/05/10/arts-humanities-and-oral-history--new-... |
| Description | Natural History Museum article 2 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Harvey, Julie, (2010) 'Museum Lives: recording 70 years of Museum experience' Waterhouse Times, no.68, pp.14-15. Waterhouse Times is a Natural History Museum publication. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | Science Voices: Scientists speak about science and themselves: 2 day event at Royal Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | As part of the ML project the NHM and Kingston University hosted, in association with The Royal Society, a two-day conference under the title 'Science Voices: Scientists speak about science and themselves'. This took place at the Royal Society headquarters on 12-13 May 2011 and included papers and presentations by project participants Prof Brian Cathcart and Dr Sue Hawkins as well as by ML interviewee Prof Paul Henderson CBE, a former Director of Science at the NHM. About 80 attendees heard these speakers identify findings and discuss lessons in oral history practice. Accompanying the conference was an exhibition of short films derived from the ML archive. The conference programme, with audio recordings of contributions, is here: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2011/06/science-voices-scientists-speak-about-science-and-themselves/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |