An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 21 The second speaker was Sarah Mc- Cann of Little Road Productions Ltd who told an interesting story about engaging students from Dundalk Insti- tute of Technology to build a website for Aiken Bks museum and producing a one-hour documentary, Aiken Bar- racks Behind the Walls. The documen- tary, aired on LFM, was recorded in the Aiken Bks museum with Sgt Riccardo Lucchesi and Pte Peter McGuiness; both are volunteers in the museum and, coincidently, were students on the course. The documentary was well received within the Louth area and brought some military-related stories of the barracks to the wider public. Next up was Paul Doyle, former registrar at the NMI and the inaugu- ral keeper/manager of the National Museum of Country Life in Castlebar. Paul spoke about management and governance, telling the students: "Most of the work is done before you get to exhibition." His first exercise was to get the students to write mission statements for the museums they worked in. He told them it was es- sential all organisations should have a mission statement for their museum and that this should be short, outline the museum's purpose, and be easily understood. He also said: "You need governance of the museum; not so much a board of directors but someone in governance so that if a volunteer or staff member leaves, the museum can still function and operate the same way when a new member joins." (Most mili- tary museums are the responsibility of the bks/post commander.) The next speaker was Brian Crowley, curator of the OPW's Pearse Museum at St Enda's Park, where Pearse lived and ran his innovative Irish-speaking school, Scoil Éanna, from 1910 to 1916. Brian's topic was Collections and Col- lecting. "Collections should be selec- tive, focused, organised and have a public focus," he said. "That is, how will we display and what would be the publics' interest in it." He also explained how each museum should have a col- lections policy that lays down what the museum should collect and how, e.g. donation, loan or purchase. "You can't tell a story by displaying everything – less is more," Brian said, explaining why selecting a few items to tell individual stories that will capture the imagination of the audience is preferable to putting all donations on display. One of the students, Capt Larry Scanlon (3 Inf Bn), who curates the Stephens Bks museum in Kilkenny, agreed, saying: "Most WWI medals look the same, but if you manage them, each set tells a story of that soldier." Sarah Steer, an interpretation planner and researcher at Tandem Design, was up next to speak about Display and Interpretation. Sarah went through the six principles of interpre- tation defined by Freeman Tildan in Interpreting Our Heritage (1957). Describing museum visitors Sarah used a great analogy: "You have dip- pers, who have a quick look around; paddlers, who take a good look around; swimmers, who take in a lot and go all around; and the rarest breed, divers, who immerse themselves in everything and spend all day." She also went through a brief layout and design of a museum, covering light, displays and signage, telling the students: "I cannot stress how impor- tant the laying out of text is on display boards, and to make sure they are at the right height – eye level." Judith Finlay, Registrar NMI, then guided the course through the Seven Steps to Practical Museum Documen- tation, which is a standards framework for excellence. The Heritage Council's Museum Standards Programme uses the UK's Museum Documentation Standard, 'Spectrum', which is also an internationally recognised best practice for museum documentation. This system is constantly evolving and the current version, Spectrum 5.0, contains 21 key elements, which Judith explained clearly. Judith then brought the class through the 12 stages of the life of a museum object, starting with cata- loguing, numbering by parts, and fin- ishing with displaying. She said every object always has a 'home' location on the shelf so it can be traced. "By cataloguing and photographing each object you help preserve it by allowing for fewer 'hands on' as it can be viewed and shared online," Judith said. Sven Habermann from Conserva- tion Letterfrack in Galway spoke on his specialist subject, Collection Care. His light-hearted discussion on a tough subject, preservation preventative conservation, which means creating the right environment and mainte- nance for an object to reduce any risk of damage, was very well received. He explained that objects decay physi- cally, for instance by being dropped or touched, and chemically, by things like detergents or sun bleaching. He also discussed temperature and humidity as these can cause the most damage to an object through the formation of mould or rust. The best parameters, he said, are 18°C and 55% relative humid- ity (+/-5%) but must remain constant. The next speaker was Dirk Staat, Judith Finlay, Registrar National Museum of Ireland Sven Habermann from Conservation Letterfrack

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