Better Pest Management doesn’t mean more chemicals

Image: Brown Banded Cockroach courtesy of Jim Kalisch, University of Nebraska Department of Entomology. 

This is the title of the most recent blog post by MuseumPests.net. And it comes as a breath of fresh air! 

For a long time, advice in museum pest control was chemical based and long term perspectives on this oh-so-common problem, were missing. But these days there are a number of great resources around which provide action plans and strategies for dealing with all sorts of creepy-crawlies.

The Museum Pest organisation is a supported by a group of collection managers, conservators, entomologists who spend their time thinking about best practice in dealing with vertebrates, invertebrates and mould infestations for anyone with a collection. They meet annually and are hosted by the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The shift away from kill-them-quick with toxic sprays to a pest management approach where the focus is on preventing infestations, comes at a time when there is growing awareness about the health and safety of the environment in which we work. This incompatibility between toxic chemicals and people, as well as recent research into the impact of chemicals on the collection itself has resulted in significant upheavals in management.

Now much more practical, logical and strategic, sustainable pest management in your museum―be it big or small, old or new is an achievable goal. Have a look at the Museum Pests website― it’s got a host of really useful information to help you achieve it!

Carole Best

Mukurtu 1.0 launches in Sydney at Museums & Galleries NSW workshops

Some of the greatest revolutions begin with a whisper and on the International Day of Indigenous Peoples last week that whisper was Mukurtu.

Mukurtu 1.0, a free and open source platform that will create safe digital keeping places for Indigenous communities around the world was officially launched in Sydney at a Museums & Galleries NSW workshop at the State Library on 8 August.

The launch of Mukurtu 1.0 in Sydney was also significant as this adaptable content management system that responds to Indigenous protocols had its beginnings in Australia.

For Mukurtu Project Director Kim Christen from the Washington State University, the journey to Mukurtu 1.0 began in Tennant Creek, NT, in 1995. As an anthropology intern working with the Warumungu community, she thought there would be content management software (CMS) available to meet the community’s desire to organise, manage and share its digital cultural materials in line with their cultural protocols.

Instead, the few CMS systems available that attempted to respond to Indigenous protocols were limited in options, prohibitively expensive and required extensive training and proficiency. Since that time, government developed, Indigenous focused CMS programs have also stalled, particularly where communities have been reluctant to hand over precious information to state control.

Kim’s inspiration was mukurtu, the Warumungu world for dilly bag, used for collecting and gathering bush foods and in a particular Warumungu instance, holding their sacred objects and knowledge.

From her position at Washington State University, Kim was able to attract funding from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the US based National Endowment for the Humanities towards her social justice vision of empowering Indigenous peoples everywhere through digital management of their own cultural resources and knowledge.

The funding has grown as the project has gained momentum and feedback in test communities in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, North and South America. It also attracted some of the best technical input and advice available, including Michael Ashley, from University of California Berkley as Development Director.

Kim and Michael made a three-day stopover in Sydney en route to New Zealand where the interest in Mukurtu is even greater than here. Museums & Galleries NSW organised the 3 one day introductory workshops with support from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (ATSIDA) at University of Technology (UTS) Sydney, the State Library through new Director Alex Byrne and Charles Sturt University Wagga Campus.

What makes Mukurtu special, apart from being free, powerful, secure and easy to use, is its adaptability to any form of Indigenous protocol in isolation or combination. It does this through an “And/Or” system of community and protocol relationship options.

As Kim and Michael say, the basis of the system is about people and relationships and the software just enables these to work together in an easy and instantaneous process.

The Drupal CMS platform Mukurtu uses is also open source and very secure, used by the White House and the World Bank.

Mukurtu will work with most scanned or stored digital material including text based archives and spreadsheets, photos and video, podcasts, multimedia and visual/graphic art. It can be geo located instantaneously, even sourcing longitude and latitude if you do not know these, just type in the name of your location.

Multi-component elements of the same object (text, video, photos) can be related and stored. Objects can be related to each other and collections built and shared as online exhibitions. Communities can be assured only the information and visuals they want to share will be seen by the relevant audience. For instance, other members of the same clan or community may see more or different material to what members of the general public may see, based on the associated protocols. 

Mukurtu also allows users to apply creative commons or standard copyright licenses, which automatically generate deeds of useage for licensees of material. Kim and the team is also working on a Traditional Knowledge label system, which WIPO is particularly interested in. While not legally enforceable it will educate and provide understanding to web image end users on the appropriate use and accreditation of Indigenous materials from a Mukurtu CMS. 

The Mukurtu publishable front page can be customised, as can much of the system so that, for instance, a local Aboriginal Land Council can use Mukurtu for its front page, displaying objects and images from its collection alongside the approved traditional knowledge. 

Users can choose either a secure web-based version of the freeware or download a free version to their computer, laptop, tablet or mobile which will make that device in effect their digital keeping place. In either case their data is protected and can only be seen by those to whom they choose to make it available. 

The Mukurtu 1.0 release means that all future upgrades (Mukurtu 1.1 being the first) can be pushed out as automatic and compatible upgrades, meaning no loss of data already entered.

An iphone application will follow in October and, with more funding, an Android version in 2013. As one of our workshop participants identified, this will be invaluable for Aboriginal field workers who can instantly record on tablets or iphones any site variations due to nature or vandalism. Where coverage is available, these can be immediately available in the localized version of Mukurtu for comparison.

The three workshops run by Museums & Galleries NSW at the State Library and the Wagga campus of Sturt University attracted a small, diverse and enthusiastic pool of potential users. These included Aboriginal achivists, academics, multimedia artists, photographers, filmmakers, researchers, historians and local Aboriginal Land Councils and community groups.

Having experienced the ease and power of Mukurtu for themselves, there was a 100% uptake of the online version which offers further training and advice support and video conferencing. In some cases, among those wanting to continue using Mukurtu were users who had only just learnt to use email.

If you would like to know more about Mukurtu, go to www.mukurtu.org and watch the three minute video and read its top ten features (there are many more).

Like all the other participants, I have become a fan of Mukurtu, believing we can create the digital future of our cultural heritage using it. Through spreading the word and further funding, I hope to be able to invite Kim and Michael back next year for a series of longer workshops for what will be by then a community of Mukurtu users and enthusiasts.

To see an interview with Kim Christen from the Washington State University click here.

Steve Miller
Aboriginal Programs Manager

An Online and Offline conversation on the role of Digital in the National Cultural Policy

Last Thursday Andrew Brettell and I attended a day of conversations and presentations on how the new digital worlds could feed into, and be integrated into, the new cultural policy. 

Organised by Senator Kate Lundy and her office, this was the third public sphere conversation. These conversations happen online and also in a real word meeting - usually supported by live presentations that are streamed. There is the use of hashtags on twitter and a wiki to collate and capture ideas before, during and after the event.
Though the biggest trending story on Twitter that day was the passing of Steve Jobs, #publicsphere was ranked third – showing a wider engagement than those who were just in the room.
There were presentations from 5 key areas followed by group discussions. They were:

• Games Development - the future of games development in Australia from independent to major studios and publishers.
• Film & Animation - the future of film and animation in Australia within the context of digital culture.
• Media & Music - the future of music and media culture creation in a digital world.
• Digital Arts - looking at digital arts, how they contribute to our national culture landscape.
• Cultural Institutions - exploring how cultural institutions right across Australia, from regional galleries, libraries, archives and museums to national institutions can collaborate on public access and participation in our culturally diverse heritage through digitisation, online engagement such as crowd sourcing and emerging technologies such as augmented reality.

Key issues that came up in the discussion with the participants from the GLAM sector were: 

• the role that digitisation plays in building engagement at a local level
• the provision of services to assist the small to medium organisations in Regional Australia who may have the will but not the resources
• the need for an over-arching peak-body  for the GLAM sector, as a balance to the roles Screen Australia and The Australian Council for the Arts play for their sectors as a policy advisor to government  and research voice for the sectors.
• the model of DigitalNZ http://digitalnz.org/ 

and

• the change in organisations’ roles as part of this process from Keepers to Sharers to Distributors to Facilitators.

You can read the collated notes at http://digiculture.wikispaces.com/ and contribute to the discussion until the 15th October when it will be closed and finalised as a submission to the National Cultural Policy consultation by the 21st October 2011.
Just a reminder that if you haven’t already commented on the National Cultural Policy, submissions for that close on Friday 21 2011 http://culture.arts.gov.au/discussion-paper/developing-a-vision

 Michael Huxley

Newcastle Museum set to open

The new Newcastle Museum will have its official opening this Thursday, 2 August. As a thank you to all those who've been part of this fantastic new development, the Museum held a "soft opening" yesterday evening. What a wonderful event! With a live broadcast from ABC radio Newcastle, the new museum was filled with people of all ages from new born babies to great grandparents. With smiles all round, the building was buzzing with happy laughter, no doubt helped along by generous glasses of bubbly and fizzy drinks for the kids.

The Museum is conveniently located adjacent to the Civic train station in the Honeysuckle precinct in a wonderfully gritty industrial building. The address (corner of Merewether St and Workshop Way) gives some hint to the former use of the building with references to its heritage continuing throughout the site. It's truly wonderful to feel the sense of the building's industrial past oozing through the edges of the very contemporary exhibition spaces. The exhibitions have been lightly placed over the industrial infrastructure and the staff and designers have clearly put a lot of thought into meshing the original use of the building with its new life as a 21st century museums.

The exhibition areas are divided into three main zones. The history of BHP in Newcastle is explored through an engaging exhibition that includes a light and sound performance involving an enormous smelting crucible and a great deal of smoke and noise! The exhibitions draw on a range of materials including life sized photographs of the smelting works by the likes of Max Dupain and Harold Cazneux, reconstructions of work spaces such as a chemistry lab and men's wash room and the personal belongings of people who worked with BHP.

Newcastle's story is shown through the main gallery which includes an audiovisual wall with faces from the Newcastle community including panels that change every few minutes. Many of the images have been given by local people and it is the museum's intention to continue to add to the wall. The more environmentally sensitive objects are displayed within two rooms created within the larger industrial space. These rooms are more intimate than the main exhibition areas providing visitors with a change of pace. Themes such as immigration, Newcastle's role during times of war and the local surfing culture are included.

One of the great delights of the Newcastle Museum is the SuperNova exhibition. Part of the original Newcastle Museum, SuperNova is an interactive science centre providing children and adults alike with a range of hands on science experiences. A giant blue globe of the world greats visitors as they enter the space. A series of science work stations are scattered throughout the space. Each station sits on a colourfully lit up base and explores a different scientific issue. A softplay area for toddlers is also located within this space.

Museums & Galleries NSW is holding an event at the Newcastle Museum on Tuesday 30 August to give participants an opportunity to hear more about what's involved in developing this and other new cultural facilities, for more information go to Bricks and Mortar

To learn more about the Newcastle Museum go to the Newcastle City Council website or visit the Newcastle Museum facebook page

You can also hear Acting Deputy Director Julie Baird being interviewed on ABC radio Newcastle

There's a War On! Website Launch

On Tuesday 1 March, M&GNSW launched our new wiki website There's a War On! at Chifley Home Education Centre, Bathurst. The website has been developed as a follow on to the earlier thematic studies on collections and sites associated with World War I and World War II activities in NSW which led to the travelling exhibition There's a War On!

Launching the wiki website at Chifley Home Education Centre, gave people the added opportunity of viewing the exhibition There's a war On! and visiting Chifley Home. Ben Chifley's significant contribution to the Australian community during World War II, first as Treasurer, then as Minister for Post War Reconstruction and finally as Prime Minister following Curtin's untimely death in July 1945.

The website provides an opportunity for users to look at sites and collections associated with the homefront during WWI and WWII across NSW. Utilising google map technology, the sites and collections are mapped out on a map of NSW with the capacity to zoom into particular locations and view the map in either satellite or map mode. Each entry has a "pin" on the map, clicking on the "pin" takes the user to a page for that particular object or site. These pages provides information about the object or site which can include description, location, history and an image.

It is hoped that the information on the site will expand over time as users are invited not simply to visit the site but to become contributors adding information about their own collections or sites associated with World War I and World War II in NSW. The site also invites contributors to include their memories of particlar sites or object. We hope that this will allow people to share their thoughts about sites such as air training bases, POW camps or Women's Land Army Hostels.

Thank you to Bathurst Regional Council for hosting the event, in particular Sam Malloy, Grant Weatherstone and the other Chifley Home Staff. Thanks also to Carah's Bakery for the marvelous catering. It was also great to have Ian Rufus, heritage re-enactor from Lithgow, reveal the inner secrets of the .303 rifle and its dispersed production in feeder factories across the central west of NSW during World War II.