Nick Poole's Page

Two meetings in the last couple of weeks - one with the Portraiture SSN in the magnificent Board room at the National Portrait Gallery and the other one toay up at the Museum of English Rural Life - has convinced me that Subject Specialist Networks are, quite frankly and without exaggeration, brilliant. Why? Because they get on with it. Both the Portraiture SSN and the Rural Museums SSN have just taken the money MLA gave them and done really good, solid, interesting work with it. They've develo… Continue

I've had a number of chances to hop back onto my hobby horse about Digitisation recently - most notably when a very senior politician at a meeting recently leant over to me and said 'of course, the priority for museums has got to be digitisation and making things accessible on the web'. No. No no no. Stoppit. No.It has absolutely, categorically GOT to stop now. Think about it this way - most of the big problems we're facing at the moment originate with the absolutely insane rate of acquisition… Continue

Tuesday I went to the launch of the AHRC and EPSRC funded Science and Heritage Programme at the Institute of Education in London. See http://www.heritagescience.ac.uk for more info.

Entitled 'Managing Material Change', I missed day 1 on Monday, but day 2 just blew me away. I was a fascinating mix of climatologists, conservationists, the editor of Nature, cultural heritage people and conservators. Highlights of the day was Heather Viles of… Continue

Had a really exciting couple of weeks, mainly because of a series of conversations with the team at the newly re-launched Culture24 (formerly known as the 24 Hour Museum).

It started with their re-launch at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. James Purnell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport gave a thoroughly invigorating keynote where he spoke about the need to move from mass-broadcast and content creation towards more intelligent and market-driven approaches to… Continue

I've been thinking about 'where' diversity happens in museums this afternoon - mainly because of a letter someone sent me to comment on.

The letter was about the UK Museum Accreditation Scheme and the need to ensure that minimum standards for museums promote diversity. It was fascinating - at least partly because it was like watching two world collide.

In the blue corner, we have a well-established, articulate and impassioned diversity lobby. The best summary I have heard of t… Continue