My Museum Education
I received my MSc in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in January 2009. My research centered on the way that museums communicate with potential visitors, specifically through telephone inquiry services. (Essentially, I cold-called 250+ museums in the USA and UK, rating museums' telephone services on helpfulness, friendliness, and efficiency.) My concentration at Leicester was Natural History Curation.
During the summer of 2008, I completed a work placement in the Interpretation and Design department of the Natural History Museum in London. My many awesome experiences included: working in the live butterfly house, seeing Linnaeus's herbarium volumes behind-the-scenes, and helping with the photographs for the new Darwin Centre (you can actually see a photo of my hand on a panel inside!).
Museos Unite - join the revolution!
Museos Unite is a blog I co-edit which focuses on the issues that affect museum employees, volunteers, and those seeking to work in museums. We undertake research, like the 2010 Salary Survey, and we facilitate discussions about possible solutions to the many issues museums face. Our main goal is to bring museum employees and fans together to work for improvements in the field.