#AskACurator Questions
Sep. 21st, 2013 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anteros_lmcWednesday's #AskACurator event on twitter was really rather fun. I didn't even attempt to follow the tag, there was so much traffic, I just tracked the museums I usually follow. I had to be very restrained so as not to monopolise the National Maritime Museums curators :} I did ask them a couple of questions, one about the proportion of the NMMs collections that is still to be digitised. The curator replied
Which is pretty impressive by any standard! Someone also asked what the curator's favourite object was and he chose the Spanish naval ensign that I posted a picture off earlier in the year.
There was also a lovely question from someone (I suspect a fangirl ;) who asked:
To which the curator responded enthusiastically:
Needless to say that got my vote! :D I was also tempted to ask if the NMM had any plans to reprint Dressed to Kill but as that's not really a curatorial question I resisted :}
A great proportion... However in the last year we've digitised around 35,000 archive items!
Which is pretty impressive by any standard! Someone also asked what the curator's favourite object was and he chose the Spanish naval ensign that I posted a picture off earlier in the year.
There was also a lovely question from someone (I suspect a fangirl ;) who asked:
Would you consider doing an exhibition based on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels?
To which the curator responded enthusiastically:
Absolutely! Would love to do that. A 'Navy in Fiction' exhibition idea has been bandied about...
Hornblower, O'Brian, Austen, Smollett, and even James Bond - I reckon it would be great. Thoughts?
Needless to say that got my vote! :D I was also tempted to ask if the NMM had any plans to reprint Dressed to Kill but as that's not really a curatorial question I resisted :}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 11:42 am (UTC)i like the ensign picture too, which i hadn't seen. tis a good choice of favourite object.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 01:03 pm (UTC)On a more serious note, I'd have asked how we're supposed to keep a museum going afte losing 52% of our funding and 30% of our staff.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 10:16 pm (UTC)I'd have asked how we're supposed to keep a museum going afte losing 52% of our funding and 30% of our staff.
Museums, libraries, colleges, universities, it's the same all over. Culture, heritage and education is just being decimated. I know that there were quite a few questions about funding and access that sparked some debate.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 07:45 am (UTC)I can understand WHY it's the arts that are getting clobbered. Our local authority is losing 35% budget overall and there are only so many cuts one can make in departments where there is a legal obligation to maintain a service - education, social services, environmental health. The brunt has to be born by the departments that are not legally obliged to be there at all, like libraries and museums. But it worries me that museum are selling parts of their collections to cover the costs. It would be tragic to see the Nelson collection in Monmouth head off to Japan or America.
Navel ensign
Date: 2013-09-21 08:04 pm (UTC)http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/es1785~w.html
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/es1701.html
Maybe you know them already and I would DIE to see a ship showing such an ensign in real life :)
Btw: I would have INSISTED that they reprint 'Dressed to Kill' :) Just saying :)
Re: Navel ensign
Date: 2013-09-22 10:19 pm (UTC)Re: Navel ensign
Date: 2013-09-23 05:21 pm (UTC)Will check out the link! :)
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 02:36 pm (UTC)It is unbelievable that the NMM has not reprinted DtK. They could make good money form it. Maybe they never take a look at amazon?
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 10:22 pm (UTC)It is unbelievable that the NMM has not reprinted DtK. They could make good money form it.
I know! I presume that they own the copyright of the images, so surely licensing costs can't be a problem. I chat to one of the NMM curators on twitter very occasionally, perhaps I should ask him.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 05:13 am (UTC)Pray do. Maybe they are not aware that there are people out there who would buy it?
no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 12:51 pm (UTC)what unbelievably good fun it would be
we could offer them some consultancy - after all we can cover many essential aspects of my Lords Collingwood,Cochrane,Exmouth etc and many essential and inessential aspects of their counterparts in fiction
we may yet live to see it happen in some form- after all it is where there might jsut be some money to be made