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Digital Cultures 2014

On Monday I attended an interesting event in Newcastle, ‘Digital Cultures: Future Thinking and Innovation for Arts and Heritage’.

The post has ended up fairly long, so here are the top questions that I took away:

  1. How can I plan projects to make sure that I am thinking about the audience/end-user and how I can make it easier for them to find what they are looking for?
  2. How can our collections be used in creative ways, and how can I encourage this?
  3. How can online and offline work well together for us?
  4. How can I use digital to start conversations?
  5. How can I tap into the wealth of knowledge that Old Scholars and others will have about the collections?
  6. How can the material be used to bring together different groups of people, to create something new and see what emerges?

Here are a few points that I took away from each talk (as opposed to summaries of the talks).

1. Nora McGregor talking about digital collections at the British Library

  • When you have large amounts of data, ways of finding information that is relevant is crucial.
  • The British Library have made more than 1 million images available on Flickr, and Nora talked about the wide range of uses to which the images have been put, and about how crowdsourcing has been used to tag the images. There are more details on their blog. 
  • British Library Labs – encouraging people to work with their digital collections.

2. John Bowers from Culture Lab (talking about a project using a collection of natural history artefacts to create an artistic response)

  • Seeing objects as raw material for artistic response.
  • Using different senses, e.g. sound
  • A ‘living exhibition’ – creating the exhibits on site and working openly, enabling people to see how things are created
  • People learning by working alongside others
  • Curiosity, and finding the detours and interesting routes.

3. Annette Mees from Coney (which mixes theatre and digital in various settings)

  • Digital creates new ways of talking to people, and can expand the experience of the audience – conversations before and after an event.
  • It’s always about the audience
  • Creating live events that people can also engage with online.
  • Using technology to make inaccessible spaces accessible.
  • Start by asking what you want to achieve – who is the audience, what are they already asking about, what kind of experience, what stories are the focus?
  • People want things that they know how to use.
  • Working quickly and cheaply, getting feedback as you go along and telling people that you’re testing and developing.
  • The first stage of discussing a project is really important.

4. Martha Henson (a freelance digital producer) talking about the power of play

  • Games can be used in a way that is co-operative, and that is about the interaction between players.
  • Putting people in a situation is more powerful that just telling them about it.
  • Games must be fun!

5. Dominic Wilcox and James Rutherford talking about an installation they had done at the Sage

  • A map of sounds (again using different senses)
  • Using something that looks analogue as the technology is hidden.

6. Olga Mink from Baltan Labs

  • Enabling collaberations
  • Creating a space for experimentation
  • They engage with a wide range of sectors: industry; education; art and design; science and technology

7. Alan Smith from Allenheads Contemporary Arts

  • Digital issues in rural areas. Context in terms of location is important.

8. Irini Papadimitriou talking about digital programmes at the V&A

  • Annual events and monthly meet-ups that create an opportunity for artists, designers and members of the public to make things together.
  • Problem solving events, that bring together diverse themes (e.g. fashion and climate change)
  • Exhibitions created by an artist and group of participants.

9. Dr Noel Lobley talking about ethnographic sound galleries at the Pitt Rivers Museum

  • Bringing sound into galleries that are very object based.
  • Taking sounds out of the archives into the communities that created them, to get contextual information.
  • Links with composers and artists to create new work
  • Event with soundscape and a torch to explore.

10. Marialaura Ghidini from Or-bits.com

  • A mixture of online and offline curation, integrated together.

11. Panel Discussion

  • The curator enabling work to happen, rather than dictating what it will be.
  • Bringing worlds together that don’t normally meet.
  • Issue of how the languages used by different groups/industries/sectors translate.
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Expedition Recipes

Last weekend I was helping with the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme training expedition, and inevitably the conversation turned to food – what they had eaten (and how well or badly it had gone), what they would be eating soon, and what they might eat (some of the suggestions were worthy of a certain TV programme based in the Australian jungle). Inspired by this (perhaps inspired isn’t quite the right word), I found a Bootham magazine article from 1993, about the Basic Term Expedition. Basic Term was an introductory course to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and it seems that points were given for inventive recipes, some of which were included in the article….

Chocolate Apple Segments
It turned out the one Yorkie bar wasn’t enough to cover pieces of apple, so shelled Minstrels had to be added (apparently the shell of Minstrels doesn’t melt). They also learnt that melting chocolate directly in the pan risks burnt chocolate!

Fried Bananas
Best when cooked in a very greasy frying pan. For an extra challenge the pieces of banana could be laid North-South, to help with navigation after breakfast.

Chocolate Ambrosia
The ratio of rice pudding to chocolate powder was crucial.

As anyone who has done expeditions will know, any cooking done in a damp field when you are starving and have no other options tastes pretty good (perhaps not very crunchy pasta though)!

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A week in Bootham Archives

So what goes on behind the scenes in the archives? To give you a taste, here are a few of the things I was involved in last week…

  • Trying out the software for a new catalogue of the archives. I’ve spent a while playing with the software, seeing how it works and seeing how best we might use it. It’s very exciting to get to this stage, as it’s been a long time in the planning! Next week I’ll start to put the first ‘proper’ records in the catalogue. Eventually the plan is to make the catalogue available online, along with some digitised records, such as photographs – watch this space…
  • I’ve also been discussing the records retention policy with our administration manager. Each year it evolves slightly, especially as more of our records are now just held electronically. Making sure that we don’t have a big gap in the archives for the first part of the 21st century as a result of electronic records not surviving is a challenge. There’s lots of discussion in the archives sector about digital records. Part of the problem is that software and hardware very quickly goes out of date. Someone can find some photographs from their schooldays fifty years ago, and there’s a good chance the photographs will be in good enough condition to look at. If someone finds digital records fifty years from now, there’s a good chance that they won’t be able to look at them.
  • We often use images from the archive for greetings cards, and it’s time for a new design, so we’ve been choosing a new photograph and I’ve been designing the card.
  • I’ve been continuing with the research for a project about the First World War, linked with the history department. We’re hoping to be able to track a number of Old Scholars who were involved in the war in different ways. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading through the magazines from the period, which had a lot of news about what Old Scholars were doing. I’ve been struck again by how powerful the stories of individuals are – events that can seem distant and inaccessible come to life when you read letters and start to see the individuals behind the numbers.
  • I’ve also been researching Old Scholars who died during the First World War for a researcher who’d seen the ‘Subtle Resistance: Scraps from a Bootham Diary in the Great War’ play (the play was written by Morven Hamilton and performed by Bootham students).
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John Firth Fryer 1840-1914

John Firth Fryer

Today (28th February) marks the 100th anniversary of the death of John Firth Fryer, Bootham’s headmaster between 1875 and 1899. He started as a pupil at the school in 1854, and apart from a year at the Flounders Institute at Ackworth training to become a teacher, he remained at the school until his retirement in 1899. During his headship, he oversaw changes including teaching becoming departmentalised, permission being granted by the committee for the hire of a piano for practice during leisure time (which rapidly became the purchase of two pianos, hymn singing on Sunday evenings and the introduction of concerts), and the end of earlier customs such as no plates at breakfast or tea. Unfortunately his headship finished with the fire in 1899 which destroyed much of the school.

He seems to have been a keen footballer for a while, according to his obituary (in ‘Bootham’ magazine, May 1914): “When, however, the game [football] was sanctioned and John Ford himself gave the initial kick…in September 1862, no one proved a more enthusiastic player than J. F. Fryer, until an unlucky kick under the knee temporarily incapacitated him and made it undesirable for him to keep it on.”

His poem about football, ‘A Lay of Modern York’ was reprinted with his obituary in 1914, and its ending is particularly poignant considering what would follow later in 1914. Here are the last two verses:

“Thus onward speeds the conflict,

With various fortune blest;

First one side – then the other –

The poor ball gets no rest!

First to left and then to right,

Now here, now there, the ball is sped.

Anon one side the victory sees

An then its hopes are all but fled.

In short, so various is the scene

In this so happy, playful strife

As not remiss to represent

The strange vicissitudes of life.

 

Would that all strife as harmless were as this,

Would that all sanguinary war would cease,

All kingdoms of the happy earth rejoice

Beneath the reign of universal Peace.

The man of war his sword to ploughshare beat,

His deadly spear to pruning hook would turn;

Nations in battle fierce no more would meet,

No more with rage against each other burn;

And thus no longer war, but Peace delight to learn.”

J. F. Fryer

4th November 1862, 20, Bootham, York

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James Backhouse and West Bank Park

It’s really good to hear about the West Bank Park Heritage Project (http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/NEWS/11029965.Heritage_centre_and_community_cafe_plan_for_York_park/?ref=rss), particularly as the Backhouse family had Bootham connections. The James Backhouse who first set up the nursery sent his son, also called James Backhouse, to York Friends Boys School in Lawrence Street between 1834 and 1841 (the school in Lawrence Street moved to Bootham in 1846, and later became known as Bootham School). The younger James Backhouse sent his sons, James and William, to Bootham (James between 1874 and 1878, and William between 1876 and 1880).

James Backhouse

 

Photograph: James Backhouse, born 1825, at York Friends Boys School 1834-41.

 

The youngest James Backhouse (grandson of the first James Backhouse) wrote an obituary for his father, James Backhouse (son of the first James Backhouse) in ‘Bootham’ magazine in May 1903, and it talks about everything from York’s first station to an underground cavern! Here are some extracts…

“On the introduction of a railway into York in 1839 the business premises were transferred to Fishergate, and later still to their present position at Holgate, one mile away. The original Passenger Station building, which may be spoken of as little more than a wooden shed, outside the City walls, was, in a very brief time rebuilt within the walls upon the old garden site. This new erection, when in the course of time a further new and enlarged station was required, became the North Eastern Railway offices. It is said that when the first station was opened, one porter attended to all the luggage and issued all the tickets. Today about 450 officials and porters are required to cope with the traffic of the seven different railway companies which run their trains to York.”

“About 1859 the careful observations made during his previous botanical excursions bore fruit in another way. He constructed in the Nurseries his well-known imitation Mountain Tarn and surrounding crags, on purpose to shew how Alpine plants might be artificially cultivated. His success in the cultivation of these plants was largely due to a scientific knowledge of soil requirements and other local conditions necessary to the growth of each species. As pioneer of a new departure in Horticulture the fame of his work soon spread, and hundreds visited York to witness the novel sight of this Alpine model, correct in every detail, and no mere accumulation of material.”

“Another monument to his memory at York Nurseries is an underground cavern, so arranged and artificially lighted that filmy ferns, which are by no means easy subjects to deal with, flourish there in great perfection; though denizens of various parts of the globe.”

Good luck to the West Bank Park Heritage Project!

  1. James Backhouse’s obituary is contained in ‘Bootham’ magazine, Vol I, p280-284.
  2. The photograph is taken from an album presented in Silvanus Thompson in 1874, held in Bootham School Archives.
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Sledging in 1981

Inspired by the Winter Olympics and the dusting of snow at home this morning (now replaced by lots of rain), I had a look through the photograph scrapbooks and found these two photographs of the Junior House outing to go sledging at Terrington in 1981.

Sledging 1981 1 Sledging 1981 2

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Centenary of Physics Opening

The physics laboratory at Bootham is 100 years old this week, if you go by the official opening date. It was opened on 27th January 1914 by Professor Silvanus Thompson, a well-known physicist who went to Bootham between 1858 and 1867, and was science master between 1870 and 1875 – look for the blue plaque on Bootham. According to the account in ‘Bootham’ magazine (Vol VI, March 1914), when the building was declared open, it was “received with loud and prolonged cheering by the pupils.”

Physics opening 1Physics opening 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silvanus Thompson went on to make a speech on ‘The Place of Science Teaching in Schools’ which was reported in ‘Bootham’. With all the debate about curriculums now, it’s interesting to see a perspective on what should be taught, and why, from a hundred years ago.

Here are some of his points about what should be included in the curriculum:

  • “Chemistry, because a little knowledge of it would save them from many absurdities of thought.
  • An intelligent understanding of the principles on which machinery was constructed and on which it operated. He had no doubt that a considerable percentage of the boys in Bootham School would in the future, as they had done in the past, enter into industrial life where machinery was used.
  • A fair grounding in physics, which dealt in detail with the properties of matter. There was a vast difference between the lives of the people in the age before steam engines and steam boats were introduced.
  • Astronomy…would give them a sense of the proportion of things.
  • Geology was a thing they might study with great advantage, without going outside their own country.
  • A study of human physiology might not solve the problems of life, but it was useful so far as the great laws of health were concerned.
  • By a careful study of the sciences they got training in measurement and accuracy which could not be got in any other way.
  • Classification and verification were necessary in everything, and science would teach them that.
  • As well as science, they should learn history – he did not mean the learning of dates, and the accounts of battles of great generals and admirals. There had been too much of the beating of the big drum in the past. What he meant by history was a true account of the progress of the human race.
  • In addition they could not separate history from economics, for economics was the experience of the past classification.
  • It was also necessary to learn geography.
  • Mathematics must not be overlooked.
  • With regard to languages, they should above all learn some language which was not too closely akin to their own, and he believed educationally the best language to learn would be Greek.
  • In conclusion, the speaker said they should in addition to all those things he had enumerated cultivate their hobbies, for they were well worth cultivating.”
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Rowntree Society at Bootham for Residents’ Festival

It’s lovely to work with the Rowntree Society on an event they are organising for York Residents’ Festival this weekend (25th to 26th January 2014). There will be lots of Rowntree activities for all ages including finding out how quickly you can pack a box of chocolates! The Rowntree family were closely linked to Bootham School, and you can find out more about Quaker education in the exhibition. The event is in the Recital Room (entrance through 45 Bootham) and is open from 10am until 4pm on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th January. Check the Rowntree Society website for more details.

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Christmas Bells

Term has finished, with all the Christmas events the end of term brings, this year’s ‘Bootham’ magazine has just been posted, and the school is quiet. From my office I can hear the Minster clock chime. So it seems appropriate to end this Christmas series with a drawing of ‘The Christmas Bells’ from the ‘Extra Christmas Number’ of The Observer from 1873.

bells cropped

The editor finishes his introduction to the issue by “wishing Contributors, Artists, Poets and Readers

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

20 Bootham, December 11th 1873”

140 years later, I would like to send the same wishes to everyone reading this.

  1. The Observer, Vol XII, p735. The image is signed SPT, almost certainly Silvanus Philips Thompson, who was a pupil at Bootham School between 1858 and 1867, and taught at the school between 1870 and 1875. He went on to become a well known physicist and there is a blue plaque with his name on Bootham.
  2. 20 Bootham was later renumbered as 51 Bootham.