46: googling for museums

As people's lives become more digital, what does that mean for museums, which exist to hold on to real, physical things? In 1999 we received quite a lot of funding from the Department for Culture Media and Sport's "IT Challenge Fund", to run a project called North Devon on Disk.  The idea was to digitise …

45: Tidying up in the museum

Our Lottery Fund for Heritage project is creating our new building and Social History Gallery, but there is only a small amount of money for sorting out the existing displays.  We are worried that the old galleries will look very tired compared with the new spaces, and we have taken the opportunity to take out …

44: A look around the site

You may have noticed that I am terribly behind on these updates and wishing that I had never said they would be created every week!  We are now up to the end of April, when some of our volunteers and donors had the opportunity to have a look at progress. Site manager Mark explains the …

43: The Partridge Family

As well as creating new permanent displays about Barnstaple and North Devon in the 20th century in our new Social History gallery, we are working hard on our new temporary exhibitions programme.  One of the stories we are looking forward to telling is that of Ethel Mairet, who is nationally recognised today for her working …

42: What’s for tea?

As we move towards reopening the museum in the autumn we are getting some extra expert help towards setting up our new shop and tea-room.  Consultant Julie Cullen has been advising us on setting up our new tea-room kitchen (not from IKEA this time) and helping prepare possible menus. The last Bromleys menu we have …