Visit to Birmingham

On Friday I took annual leave and travelled up to Birmingham to look at the Staffordshire Hoard. We took the coach and then waited in line for almost 3 hours to see the display. Was it worth is? Yes. The items were lovely; such amazingly intricate patterns.

But, we thought Birmingham Museum could’ve stepped up to the plate in better form. Two criticisms: firstly, finances and secondly, crowd movement.

In order to keep the hoard local a lot of money needs to be raised. Yet the museum shop had no Anglo-Saxon themed merchandise. Considering the crowds of people willing to travel long distances and queue for hours it should follow that we’d want to buy a souvenir of this “one off, must do thing to tell your kids about”. I wanted to buy a book and look at the usual Celtic jewellery. My companion expected to take home a cheap mug. What a wasted opportunity to raise funds.

Crowd movement within the display room was also a problem. The items were in a largish room, in short rectangular cases. We thought they let too many of us in at a time. This meant we were 3 or 4 deep around each case and had to wait ages to get near enough to see. We thought the use of long cases would’ve spread us out. Also, if there had been information provided (about the find, about Anglo-Saxon life, etc) say on the walls between the cases, this would also have spread us out, or at least distracted us from the frustration of not being able to see. Arguably this would also have encouraged us to linger, rather than keep moving, but we couldn’t move anyway. Another idea we had was if they provided a staff member at each case to tell us about one or more of the items, after their short speech we’d’ve felt that we’d done that case and there would’ve been a natural progression around to the next case.

After seeing the Hoard a trip to the British Museum was in order, to once more look at the Sutton Hoo exhibit. The sword hilts and bosses are identical to those from Staffordshire. It will be interesting to see what the experts make of this new find.

AfL 2009 conference

On Saturday I went to the annual Archives for London conference to hear about London’s history of riots and rebellions. As usual, it was excellent. The speakers were all knowledgeable and engaging. It was the perfect way to spend a miserable, cold English October day.

Mashup mania

Something that came out strongly at the SoA conference this year was the fear and caution with which archivists usually approach digital access of their material via the web. And then the Australians do this – a Mashup competition held by the Government 2.0 taskforce. Unsurprisingly, seeing as Adrian Cunningham is on the taskforce, the National Archives of Australia is participating by making some of their material available. But what? Catalogues? Actual images of historical government records? Other participating archive repositories include the Australian War Memorial, Powerhouse Museum (who also have a member on the taskforce) and State Libraries of both Queensland and New South Wales.

Mashup Australia aims to be a practical demonstration of the benefits of providing easily accessible information created by the Australian government. The ‘About’ section of the site reveals that similar contests have been held in America and the UK. The UK Power of Information Taskforce ran a competition last year called “Show us a better way”. The Taskforce was looking for better ways for public information to be communicated.

US banned book week 2009

America is currently observing its annual Banned Book Week. As organiser, the ALA has lots of well organised information and links on its website (including the titbit that Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls was declared non-mailable by the U.S. Post Office in 1940). The week allows people the opportunity to reflect on their current freedoms, especially the freedom of expression. I think everybody should do this and feel a little upset that the UK doesn’t have a similar occasion.

While looking through the ALA site I discovered that fighting censorship is part of the US Library Bill of Rights. Two of the six articles in the Bill are directed toward ensuring freedom from censorship:

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfilment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas

Kudos to that.

So I checked out the “10 most frequently challenged books of 2008”. Top of the list (consecutively since 2006) is And Tango Makes Three, a cute looking book about gay penguins. According to the BBC this is based on a true story. Number 2 is the His Dark Materials Trilogy, and the only entry on the list that I’ve actually read.

Anglo-Saxon treasure

What an amazing thing! Anglo-Saxon treasure has been found in Staffordshire. Samples from the hoard will be on display at the Birmingham Museum from tomorrow until October 13. Not a very large window of opportunity for people to organise a trip, but great that the chance is there. Pictures are available on flickr. Some of the items look a bit squished. All of them look amazing.