Susan Lambert's blog

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Another cold case hots up!

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Wed, 25/06/2014 - 22:17

This elegant octagonal bowl is part of the Plastics Historical Society collection that is on long loan to MoDiP. It came to us documented as manufactured by British Industrial Plastics (BIP) for the Magneto Syndicate.  Evidence from the object included "M-L BEATL ML115 MADE IN ENGLAND” moulded on its base.

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Cold case is HOT again!

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Sat, 24/05/2014 - 17:00

Do you remember this ice bucket? All we knew about it was that it was made in Australia. After very little comment it was relegated to a cold case but unknown to us, horn historian, Adele Schaverein had kept on the case. She has found out that it is made of polystyrene which tells us also that it was injection moulded.  

The 10 Most Wanted Project Team are very grateful to Adele Schaverein and Excel Plac Testing Service and send them both a big thank you.

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Getting to where we are now

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Wed, 26/03/2014 - 14:10

This is a joint blog written by all three partners

10 Most Wanted is a first generation Digital R&D Fund for the Arts project which combines social media and online gaming to motivate the public to search for unrecorded information about cultural artefacts. It outsources tasks commonly undertaken by professional curators, thereby taking crowdsourcing to a new level: while most crowdsourcing projects ask the public to complete simple tasks that do not require sustained engagement, 10 Most Wanted asks people actively to undertake research.

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Chief Agent Calling

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Tue, 18/03/2014 - 16:02

10 Most Wanted is pleased to have appointed its first Chief Agent. Variously known as Ian15.mdx and Ian Holdsworth, he has sourced 15 separate pieces of information about objects in the MoDiP collection which we knew we wanted to find out. He has also contributed masses more contextual information - a stellar performance. Once you become a Chief Agent you have the opportunity to support HQ staff and Ian has accepted the invitation to write a blog. We hope he will also enjoy an extra-large slice of cake at the 10 Most Wanted get-together when the summer arrives.

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Curatorial concerns

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Wed, 22/01/2014 - 10:01

I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk about 10 Most Wanted at the Dorset Museums Association’s AGM. The event was held in the Upper Hall of Scalpen's Court Museum in Poole, itself a pleasure to visit: it is a gem of domestic mediaeval architecture, complete with Tudor herb and physic garden.

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Not just plastics

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Wed, 16/10/2013 - 12:21

Although 10 Most Wanted  is being piloted on plastic objects, the purpose of the project is to create a methodology suitable for use by different sorts of museums and heritage sites. In this endeavour we are being helped by an Advisory Group comprising people with expertise in a wide range of other subject areas.

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Choosing the challenges and rewards

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Mon, 05/08/2013 - 10:58

When we came up with the idea of 10 Most Wanted it was clear to me, as a museum curator, what the challenges for the people who played the game would be. It was to replace all those ‘unknowns’ in the documentation of our objects with hard facts in order to make it conform to the requirements of Accreditation, the scheme  administered by Arts Council England in partnership with CyMAL: Museum, Archives, Libraries Wales; Museums Galleries Scotland and the Northern Ireland Museum Council, which sets nationally agreed standards for museums in the UK.

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Choosing the Ten

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Tue, 30/07/2013 - 13:00

Selecting objects with which to play 10 Most Wanted has been much more demanding than I expected.  The idea for the research project came from the fact that when the MoDiP collection became available on line through the website built for us by Adaptive Technologies, Phil, our lead contact there,  was astonished by how often the word ‘unknown’  appeared against an object’s designer,  manufacturer,  country of manufacture  or date. Sometimes we are even unsure of the specific plastic from which a product is made and its method of manufacture.

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Networking

Submitted by Susan Lambert on Wed, 26/06/2013 - 09:28

We, the 10 Most Wanted team – that’s Marcus, Phil and I, attended a Digital R&D event at Nesta last week.  It involved all the so-called nine first generation projects announced in February and also the nine second generation projects announced earlier this month. Each project was represented by upwards of three people so there was quite a crowd and a wonderful variety of arts represented: theatre, painting, opera, dance, storytelling, music, sculpture, and curation. It was a great opportunity to meet people engaged on parallel projects.