I had a go at making a film today. Maybe more to come!
Monterey Bay Aquarium
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

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Kiana Khansmith

if i look back, i am lost
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

#extradirty
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Three Goblin Art
almost home

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
styofa doing anything
Sweet Seals For You, Always
YOU ARE THE REASON
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Misplaced Lens Cap

tannertan36

roma★
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@jonathanmuseum
I had a go at making a film today. Maybe more to come!
At @national-trust (@nationaltrust) #penshawmonument today. A wonderful icon for #suderland. Who remembers the Toy Dolls video filmed here in 1983?
Today I spent sometime trying to understand Rievaulx Terrace. An amazing manmade landscape designed to give views of Rievaulx Abbey in the valley below. I have a couple of questions which I am pondering! Firstly - today we view the abbey through the trees, looking along ‘vistas’ which frame the picturesque scene, but when it was built was it an ‘infinity lawn’ with a wide open view of the sky and landscape? I also wonder if the abbey itself was carefully and selectively demolished to make the ruin more romantic? If not how did some of those arches and buttresses stay upright?
I’ve been a little quiet lately. Don’t worry I’ve move to Scarborough and beginning a new life working for the National Trust. More to follow soon!
Nice weekend in #Cornwall! Plenty of colour and texture
I spent a few hours at Allestree Park in Derby the other day. Had some fun looking around. I was trying to photograph things beginning with T, but found a few other things too!
A quick walk round @derbymuseums on #nationaldogday and look what I found!
Derby is not a bad place if you look up! #lookupderby!
The Impossible Object
The day I found the impossible object started like any other; I got up at sparrow’s fart, crawled in to work under the influence of industrial strength caffeine, fed the hamsters and cranked up the computer.
But before we go any further, Dear Reader, perhaps a little background wouldn’t go amiss here. About 5 years ago I came across a record on the database which detailed…………or rather didn’t detail……an ‘unidentified object’, and gave its location as ‘location unrecorded’. Oh yes, I said to myself, was that record made after a hefty pub lunch (it was written on the 2nd March, a Friday as it happens) or was it an attempt to catalogue an impossible object?The Impossible Object soon became the Holy Grail of store management. I imagined wild and wonderful things; was it a narwhal’s tusk, or a finely chased silver pectoral, or William Henry Fox Talbot’s spare camera?Unfortunately……………but let’s digress a bit further.
You see, every item in the Museum’s collection has an individual and unique number. The Impossible Object’s number is 1990-33/58, this means it entered the Museum in 1990, it is part of the 33rd group to do so and it is number 58 within that group. Our collections management database, called MODES, is ordered by number, and every piece of information we have about an individual object is added to that electronic record. Or not, as the case may be.
A big part of my job is ferreting nosily in boxes in the stores; in fact it’s a bit like Christmas every day because all I do is open boxes and find fabulous objects, and that’s how I found the Impossible Object. The box was labelled, rather
intriguingly, ‘Bus material’, so I opened it up and emptied it in preparation for auditing, cleaning and photographing its contents. 1990-33/18, a ticket rack; yep. Click, flash, clean. 1990-33/17, a conductor’s ticket machine; yep. Click, flash, polish. 1990-33/58…………Yes! Yes! Oh YES! (All those expensive acting lessons from Meg Ryan had finally paid off.) There it was, lying in the bottom of the box, neatly but tightly secured in taped bubble wrap; long, slim, and enigmatic.
I lifted it gingerly, and then couldn’t contain myself……… ripping off the bubble wrap………nearly crying with anticipation………yes……..oh! Yes ……….Oh…………WHAT? Um.
There it was, lying across my hands in all its simple glory, long, slim and enigmatic, but very obviously not a narwhal’s tusk. And I know that early Victorian plate cameras were simple things compared to today’s digital machines, but it wasn’t one of those either. I suddenly understood the lack of information on the record - Object name; unidentified object. Beautifully made in laminated wood with a copper riveted brass fitting at either end……….but still……….an unidentified object.
So this, Dear Reader, is where you come in. I need your ideas, your thoughts on the function of this object. The only clue we have is that it is part of a group of bus related items. It might even be part of the bus itself. Your mission, should you choose to accept it………….
Coffee …………..need more coffee…………….
The Mollusc
Markeaton Park footbridge. #bridge #park #derby
Testing the prototype (with staff)
A couple of weeks ago we put the first public prototype of the new website online, initially to gather feedback from Museum staff and volunteers. We asked users to complete the following tasks:
Find an event to recommend to someone visiting the Museum & Art Gallery with their young children in February
Point a member of the public to a suitable venue which could be hired for a drinks reception
Show a member of the public how they can make a donation through the website.
We asked people not to pay too much attention to visuals as these are still very much work in progress. Later this week we will collate the feedback into a single document and review what people said, identify underlying issues and decide on solutions.
A lot of the time user feedback comprises both issues faced and proposed solutions. We have to be really careful to get to the root of the problem. Sometimes the solution proposed by the user will be the right thing to do, other times it could be clouded by personal experience or bias. This isn’t to knock the ideas of anyone who helps in testing as feedback is always valuable; but those viewing the website at this point don’t always have the full context and probably haven’t been involved in the user research that came earlier in the project.
The process we follow when reviewing user feedback is as follows:
What exactly was said?
What is the actual issue behind the comment?
Is this issue something we need to address?
Are there any potential issues with any proposed solution?
What alternative solutions are there?
What will we do about this comment?
This is only one way to test a website. We are also planning to carry out usability testing with members of the public. That round of testing will differ in that we’ll ask users to carry out a task and observe them as they use the website. This is a very different process as we see how easy people find using the site first-hand rather than asking them to recall their experiences later on.
Updated sitemap. The first sitemap was created before we started wire-framing, this version reflects changes that were made as part of that process.
Adventures in 3D Scanning
One of the really big advantages in working at the Silk Mill is the opportunity to involve lots of lovely new technology in different areas of work, including collections. Where traditionally an object record would involve a written description, and sometimes a photograph, having our own 3D scanner opens up lots of amazing opportunities to increase access to and our knowledge about our objects. It really opens up new opportunities for objects pose handling problems because they’re too heavy or fragile as we are able to 3D print copies which are much easier and less precarious to handle.
It also has some great opportunities in terms of caring for our collections as being able to zoom into something in great detail to detect the early signs of degradation. However, one of the greatest uses for this technology is that it gives people across the world access to our objects. We’ve already published some of our trials here. This is something we’re keen to develop further and do for all the objects we scan, not just badge makers and Lucozade bottles!
Before all this, however, we have to work out the best way to scan the objects so we can both get the best scan and use our time efficiently. This is where having a go and trying out different methods of scanning comes in and these are the key things we’ve learnt:
· You don’t need to be as close to small objects as you think. The scanner has a minimum distance it needs to be away from whatever is being scanned so even though it seems like it would make sense to get as close as you can, if you go closer the scanner can’t ‘see’ anything there.
· Think of the scanning process as a bit like Tai Chi, slow but purposeful movements are the best for capturing the most detail on an object and so the scanner can keep ‘tracking’ it. We’ve been trying out other ways of scanning in the last few weeks, putting the object on a turntable so we can move that whilst keeping the scanner stationary which has worked really well so far.
· The scanner has a really hard time recording small, shiny, cylindrical objects, which is great for an industrial collection! We are looking into dulling sprays which would help with this issue but we don’t want to put anything on our objects that will damage them, so this is something which might take some research!
· Sometimes you’re going to delete half the scans you take because you can’t figure out how they link up.
· The scanning isn’t the thing that takes the longest time. All the processing which has to be run on the scans can take hours to work through and that sometimes means that the software has to be left running overnight.
· When it’s done right, the scans look amazing.
- Eilish
Had a good meeting with @Mattbookbinding and @dmjosephwright @derbymuseums yesterday. Lots of talk about #JosephWrightofDerby in #italy #volcanos #artists #museums
Such a useful trip to NY forget it was more than two years ago. @metmuseum #sculpture #art #asia #ny #newyork #nyc (at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Lovely #beetles in @dmnature @derbymuseums #noticenature #insect #green #closeup #museum (at Derby Museum and Art Gallery)
To sit alongside our New Nature Gallery we’re developing a space that will show objects from the collection that have been inspired by nature. The old brown carpet tiles have gone! and check the beautiful architectural details that have been revealed. We found the wallpaper behind one of the old cases. An elegant space fit to dance through
Really looking forward to seeing this space finished. It's looking great!