UMIS 2011 Conference papers now online

You might remember me blogging about the 2011 UMIS Conference “University museums: new rules of engagement?” towards the end of last year. The papers from the conference are now available on the UMIS website, so if you didn’t get the chance to attend you can still check out what the speakers presented.

While you’re there, why not take a look at the Revealing the Hidden Collections website, which was launched at the conference. It’s the result of a partnership project between UMIS members, and enables you to search Scottish university museum collections.

In Celebration of the Bard

In case you didn’t know, 25 January is the birthday of the poet and song writer Robert Burns. Emma and I decided to mark the day by attending the Surgeons’ Hall Museum’s lunchtime event on “The Medical Times of Robert Burns”. Folksinger and storyteller Phyllis Davidson used song, stories and poems to link the medicine of that period to the events happening in Burns’ own life, for example, the births of his children, dental problems (yes, Burns really did write an “Address to the Toothache”!) and the ideas for healthy living that weren’t able to prolong his life beyond 37 years. Being poorly in the 1700s was not for the faint-hearted!

He really did have a full and interesting life! Check out the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum website to see some of the key dates in his life and a sample of his many poems.

While we’re on this literary theme, readers of the blog might be interested in this item on the Fast Track section of the BBC news website. The mystery paper sculptor of Edinburgh is a really uplifting story. How lovely to read of someone making these beautiful objects and presenting them as gifts to various cultural buildings in Edinburgh, including the Writers’ Museum and the National Museum of Scotland.

February Insights and Ideas Cafe looking at Philanthropy

It’s almost time for the first Insights and Ideas Cafe of 2012. This is a joint venture between us at Museums Galleries Scotland and our colleagues at Creative Scotland. It’s a creative café style meeting place for researchers, practitioners and policy makers. The events take place on the first Thursday of every month, with each café focussing on a different topic.

The February event is all about Philanthropy, and speakers include Barclay Price from Arts and Business Scotland, and Randy Klinger from the Moray Art Centre. If this sounds like something you’d like to attend, check out this web page for the full details and booking information. We’d be really pleased to see you there.

If you aren’t able to come along in person, you can follow the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #insightscafe.

ALMA-UK Economic Impact Toolkit Workshops

I just wanted to blog to alert readers to an opportunity coming up in February. We are holding workshops on 22nd and 23rd of February to introduce people to the economic impact toolkit developed for museums and archives by ERS. These are being organised in partnership with the Scottish Council on Archives. Attendees will be introduced to the toolkit and will then have the opportunity to try using it themselves. Please take a look at our website to see the full details and booking information. The workshops are taking place in Edinburgh and Perth, so we hope to see you there.

The toolkit was commissioned by ALMA-UK, which is a voluntary cross-nation partnership, dedicated to enhancing the public value of archives, libraries and museums UK wide. It is the only group that gathers the principal strategic bodies for archives, libraries and museums across all four home nations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, in equal partnership and voice.

Twitter Two (as the owl said!)

Once you have decided to set-up a Twitter account you have two options.

A. to lurk (watch other tweets before embarking) or B. to dive right in.

It’s down to personal preference, in the next few paragraphs I will give a crash course in Twitter basics and leave you to weigh up if you are Type A or Type B, this week.

The 140 characters (or less) you broadcast to the world are also directly sent to Twitter streams – list of tweets you will see on your account – of your followers. How do you get followers? Friends and family are the obvious audience for your tweets so you might like to use Twitter.com option of searching your contacts to see who is already registered on Twitter. If you start to follow them, they will be notified and can then decide if they wish to return the compliment and follow you back. Some people out there auto-follow (an option found in settings), meaning they will be automatically followed by anyone who follows them. Personally, I think this is unwise as your stream will get cluttered with all sorts of people and content which you may or not be interested in, but will certainly have trouble reading through.

Follow people and organisations that you like, for example @MuseumsGalScot and it is almost an unwritten rule to follow @StephenFry. For celebrities, Twitter has a blue authorised badge (see below), thus Twitter have authenticated this is the correct person.

When you start looking you will discover that many people, companies, brands and even animals have Twitter accounts, some official some unofficial. I heard a rumour that the flying hippopotamus at National Museum of Scotland has a feed, does anyone know it?
Start following as many tweeps as you are interested in. If you check Type B above, start sharing your news, ideas, links, pictures and possibly even your location, but please ease up on the eating tweets, have you ever called a friend and told them you are having a bagel?

You will start to notice some shorthand in the tweets, here are definitions:
RT – Retweeting from someone you follow – it shows your support, agreement, or a desire to share. You can add some text if the original tweet is less than the 140 characters, usually include “>” to indicate your words.
MT – Modified-Tweet – if the full RT is too big and you wish to modify, please don’t lose the meaning of the original tweet
DM – direct messages can only be sent to people who follow you and vice versa. If you put a ‘d’ at the start of your tweet then the @handle only they will see it
Tweeps – people on Twitter
tw….. – in general if you read a word with tw at the beginning it is highly likely to be related to Twitter, e.g. twibbon (Ribbon), Twestival (festival)
# – hashtag is there to follow a specific topic. e.g. MGS conference was #MGSconf and everyone who was tweeting about it was asked to include the # in their tweets. Follow live events or conversations e.g. #FoM12 (Festival of Museums 2012)
#FF – Follow Friday started as a way to acknowledge good people you follow and think others in your stream should be following. Happens on a Friday!!
Search facility on Twitter is there to help you identify things like #FF to see who is the bees-knees to be following and can also help find any organisation or event which has a name that wont fit on @handle, e.g. Festival of Museums or @FestofMuseums

Get signed up, Type A follow @MuseumsGalScot and Type B tell us who you are and why we should follow you.

The next blog will cover more advanced tools like archiving, Twitter clients, searching,  lists, what to tweet, and some of MGS #FF people.