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Museum Lives Oral History and the Natural History Museum Nadja Noel

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Curators, Collections and Collections Databases The longer youre here, the thing you realise is that these are not just objects, theyre peoples lives.

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Knowledge is leaving the NHM 5 Years 24 Specialist Staff 774 Years of Knowledge

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Human interest not just science exhibition displays Working at the NHM Key scientific discoveries Ollie Crimmen and his Speedos River Thames whale stranding London Blitz

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The Project Plan Archive-research for humanities academics. Enriching collections data in EMu Online resource Public offer Year 1 Planning Training Copyright Year 2 Interviews Editing Web design Year 3 Interviews Short films Web dev

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Oral History and Film

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Project Delivery- What workedand what didnt

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Digital Asset Management Theres a lot of it

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Digital Asset Management and some more

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Still more

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Documentation and workflows Rights Interview scheduling Editing Content authorisation Asset management Web publication Review

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The Content-Why its worth it PeopleThe object The location The story

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Why was EMu used? Repository for interpretation No dept-centric boundaries Familiarity with interface Close association with specimen/collections information Integrated digital asset support

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Sustainable documentation Align project with current procedures Training Dont add a burden for future users Communicate with technical partners What happens when things break? Abstraction between data & presentation

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Challenges Difficulties of extracting tacit knowledge Production standards Managing digital assets-costs!

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New Possibilities The collections database Public Offer Legacy

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Plan B

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Questions?

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