"The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide"

"The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide." by Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, Director
Institute of Museum and Library Services
http://www.imls.gov/pdf/DiscussionGuide.pdf


pdf format


"Museums and libraries have a unique role as the primary stewards of culture and heritage
and, with this, a profound responsibility for ensuring that future generations have access to
original materials. How best to preserve and provide access to these materials in a way that
serves future generations should be a central question for museums and libraries in the
21 st century."




“We can push for change in intellectual property policies. We should
be the advocates for understanding that access isn’t enough, that
showing something on a screen is a start, but it is not the end of
what we aspire to, the people we serve want to be able to do [something]
with the material we are putting out.”
Joshua M. Greenberg, Director,
Digital Strategy and Scholarship, The New York Public Library


“Perhaps unintentionally, these institutions serve us as barometers of
our own collective humanity. It is here where our beliefs, our fears,
our hopes, and ultimately our laws about how we collect information
and share knowledge are realized publicly. It is the manifestation of
the way we believe in the process of acquiring and sharing knowledge.
To the extent that a populace uses its knowledge resources,
so too can be predicted the society’s well-being over time. One
of the most critical elements in building on lifelong learning and
fostering a nation of learners is the success or failure of engaging
broad swaths of our young people with our institutions in simple but
meaningful ways.”
—
Mark A. Wright, Director of Partnerships,
National Children’s Museum


After reading this article, I began thinking:

There are so many lonely people in the contemporary society, museums and libraries can be the special places to meet people. But probably there are. Already are.

I think there are problems…the first – security and difficulties to get there. Yes-yes! This is a problem! I am myself feeling more security home alone, especially when it is dark outside very early on the autumn-winter time…and cold…and raining…and crime-maniacs…horrible news.

Older people like to go to the Bingo clubs, there are Bingo near my home, I constantly seen buses and coaches have bringing older people to the Bingo, they are smoking outside and very happy and cheerful, they are not alone.

I like Novas CUC and A-Foundation, but it is no way I will go there when it is dark! I am scary!

Any solution?

To use own car to get to the museums and the libraries? Not everybody, especially older people and young people have car and it is again not a cheap and absolutely not “green”. Public buses? No. Not when it is dark.

I can be wrong. I am always over worried and over scared.

In this American article I found not so much new ideas but it makes me think about future of culture and society.

I like idea about beautiful and contemporary…cookies bakery(!) space inside the museum! I know, it is sound crazy! I imagine: traditional English(?) dressed older lady and gentlemen, tables and oven, children and parents…doing cupcakes, cookies and dough for biscuits. It can be edible and not edible cookies. Inedible cookies can be made for art. Dough for not edible cookies consists of flour, water and salt. When the dough dries out it can paint.

I have a lot of crazy ideas about the activities for museum and galleries!

I love to do something useful for society.

"Perhaps the greatest question for museums and libraries today is what they will need to do
to remain meaningful institutions in the future. The meeting participants spoke of sustainability
beyond economic concerns, describing how true sustainability for museums and libraries
lies in being relevant to the communities in which they reside. Museums and libraries will
be relevant as long as their work is in service to the greater needs of society. As stewards
of cultural heritage, as content and context providers of information, as central places for
people to come together to learn and share with one another, it is here that museums and
libraries will shape their future. The questions for these institutions to continually ask themselves
are what makes us unique, what makes us matter, and who cares about what we do?
These questions force us to consider what the needs of our communities are and how we can
continue to meet them and be sustainable by being relevant to the world around us."

National Gallery and Port Sunlight

I was ecstatic and delighted! Yes, it's amazing people!  Miss E G Holt, Lord Sainsbury, Lever Brothers, Sir Walker and other sponsors of British Culture.

At least in comparison to ... other very rich people from the other countries. I do not want to talk about them. And don't want to name the countries. Other...

from wiki:

The most important addition to the building in recent years has been the Sainsbury Wing, designed by the postmodernist architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown to house the collection of Renaissance paintings, and built in 1991. The building occupies the "Hampton's site" to the west of the main building, where a department store of the same name had stood until its destruction in the Blitz. The Gallery had long sought expansion into this space and in 1982 a competition was held to find a suitable architect; the shortlist included a radical high-tech proposal by Richard Rogers, among others. The design that won the most votes was by the firm Ahrends, Burton and Koralek, who then modified their proposal to include a tower, similar to that of the Rogers scheme. The proposal was dropped after the Prince of Wales compared the design to a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend",^[50] The term "monstrous carbuncle", for a modern building that clashes with its surroundings, has since become commonplace.

One of the conditions of the 1982 competition was that the new wing had to include commercial offices as well as public gallery space. However, in 1985 it became possible to devote the extension entirely to the Gallery's uses, due to a donation of almost £50 million from Lord Sainsbury and his brothers Simon and Sir Tim Sainsbury. A closed competition was held, and the schemes produced were noticeably more restrained than in the earlier competition.

 Port Sunlight

It was built by William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) starting in 1888 for the employees of Lever Brothers soap factory (now part of Unilever). The name is derived from Lever's most popular brand of cleaning agent, Sunlight.
I wonder are British people know about those such a great British men?

The Walker Art Gallery.
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part of the national museums and galleries administered directly from central government funds.
Designed by local architects Cornelius Sherlock and H.H. Vale, the Walker Art Gallery was opened on 6 September 1877 by the 15th Earl of Derby. It is named after its founding benefactor, Sir Andrew Barclay Walker (1824-1893), a former mayor of Liverpool and wealthy brewer born in Ayrshire who expanded the family business to England and moved to live in Gateacre.
In 1893 the Liverpool Royal Institution placed its collection on long-term loan to the gallery and in 1948 presented William Roscoe's collection and other works. This occurred during post-war reconstruction when the gallery was closed, re-opening in 1951. During the Second World War the gallery was taken over by the Ministry of Food and the collection was dispersed for safety.
Extensions to the gallery were opened in 1884 and 1933 (following a two-year closure) when the gallery re-opened with an exhibition including Picasso and Gauguin. In 2002 the gallery re-opened following a major refurbishment.
In 1986, the gallery achieved national status, as part of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside.

The gallery, the gift to the city of Sir Walker during his mayoralty (1873), and designed by Cornelius Sherlock and H.H Vale, was opened in 1877 and enlarged by the addition of nine rooms in 1882. A further large extension was made in 1933. The Gallery is in Corinthian style, the portico consisting of a broad flight of steps. On either side are large marble statues of Raphael and Michelangelo. His portico is crowned by a figure representing the Arts. The most important part of the collection consists of the Roscoe Collection of Italian and other early masters and art unrivalled collection of works by English painters. Among the latter are examples by eighteenth and early nineteenth century masters, such as Reynolds, Gainsborough (“Viscountess Folkestone”), Romney (“Mrs Sargent”), Raeburn (“Ann Stirling” and “A Girl sketching”) Turner (“Rosenau” and the “Wreck Buoy”), Richard Wilson (“Snowdon”) and Thomas Girtin: a good selection of the Liverpool school of painting, including Richard Wright (1733-1775), Richard Caddick (about 1750-1823), and William Huggins (1820-1884), a representation of the Pre-Raphaelite group Rossetti (“Dante’s Dream”), Millais (“Lorenzo and Isabella”) and Holman Hunt (“The Triumph of the Innocents”), and among modern British artists, examples by Orpen, Augustus John, Wilson Steer, W.R Sickert, Harold Gilman and Paul Nash.

In 1933 Lord Wavertree bequeathed to the gallery £20,000 and a collection of sporting pictures and more recently these have been enhanced by the acquisition of the Walter Stone collection of British sporting pictures with which it is intended to make the basis of a gallery devoted to this subject. Another recent bequest was that of Miss E G Holt, who left the city her important collection, containing valuable examples of early English artists, and also her house at Mossley Hill, Sudley House, which has been converted into a branch Art Gallery, Museum and Library.

TEDDY BEAR

'Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested

A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.
Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.
The BBC has learned the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.
Officials from the British embassy in Khartoum are expected to visit Ms Gibbons in custody. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7112929.stm

Build-A-Bear Workshop in Liverpool One

http://www.liverpool-one.com/website/Modules/StoreDirectory/StoreListing/StoreDetails.aspx?retailunitid=dd102a79-8a9d-4737-93bd-a3b225999b44&pageid=45

When I first saw it – Teddy Bear Work Shop in Liverpool One - and I went to the shop to see what's going on there - I wanted to stay there forever! How many were there a happy children and adults!

So many charming teddies! Absolutely fantastic clothing and accessories for teddy and little heart(!!!) to put inside the teddy!!!

I thought that in the big mixing machine, behind a transparent wall are the cotton candy spinning but there was .... a soft substance that is inside the teddy bears.

 

 

 More than a thousand Steiff teddy bears go up for auction

A private collection of more than 1000 Steiff teddy bears is being auctioned at Christie's in London, on Wednesday.
The German company Steiff has made soft toys since the late nineteenth century, and is a highly prized brand amongst collectors.
Many of the toys in the collection are expected to raise thousands of pounds for the anonymous seller.
Christie's' teddy bear expert, Daniel Agnew, offers a guided tour of the sale's highlights, including the most expensive and oldest teddy bears in the collection.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11517569

 

 

Most Expensive Teddy Bear

The German teddy bear company, Steiff is responsible for the production many expensive collectible bears and also the most expensive teddy bear ever made. The Steiff company claims to have made the world’s first teddy bear and is has made this golden bear to commemorate its 125th anniversary.
The expensive bear has a mouth made of solid gold and fur made from gold thread. Topping off the teddy bear are jeweled eyes featuring sapphire pupils with diamond irises.
If you or your spoiled daughter simply “must have” the world’s most expensive teddy bear, you might have to search hard for the purchase. Only 125 of the collectible edition bears were produced, making them not just hard to afford, but also hard to find. These bears came with a price tag of 62,446 Euros (about $84,000 USD). But you don’t have to empty your bank account just yet, Steiff toys makes a wide variety of teddy bears that are more affordable than anniversary edition and will still make you feel like a teddy bear connoisseur.

Mr.Hardstaff’s lesson about first animation films

What a fascinating subject is history of animation films! It brought for me a lot of memories from my childhood.

My first nightmare was from image of witch with the apple from the film “Sleeping Beauty”. I don’t know how called this first home projectors, it was manual moving film, cadres moved by hands and film was without sound, there were subtitles which read parents or older children who study to the school already. Films were placed in the small tins.

I realise how talented first animation films artist were!

Using only black ink and paper and they produced very characters and emotional images and faces!

I remember caricatures and comics. I remember from my “black-and-white” childhood political caricatures in the soviet newspapers which read my father. I didn’t understand anything but always looked on those funny people in the caricatures.

 30 October we are going to the trip to Haworth Village and National Film Centre with Student Union. I hope found those first home film projectors there! I remember stereo films cards with charming house and teddy bears there. It was small devise looks like binoculars, inside placed card with films, there are only 5 or 6 cadres on the card and when you look there directing to the day light or lamp, there inside was a beautiful fairy tale! I loved it!

My favourite cartoon artist are Dean Yeagle and his “Mandy girl”

By Jake Friedman Dean Yeagle has been animating and designing for decades, from licensed characters to his own creations. His work can be seen from Bugs Bunny to Playboy magazine, and his sketchbooks, including that of the sexy character dubbed “Mandy,” are a trove of quality draftsmanship. He was also assigned the unique task to revitalize a 65-year-old Disney property in the World War II-era comic book, “Return of the Gremlins,” for Dark Horse Comics. Look for it on the shelves.
Recently I had the chance to talk to Dean about his rise to success, the Gremlins project, and his sexy pin-ups.
Let’s start with your background. What was your first job?
 I started working in Philadelephia – that’s where I’m from. It was a tiny company called “Animation Arts Incorporated” and it had some very good people working there. They were able to teach me some stuff that I might not have been able to learn going cold into a place like Disney, being pegged into one job or another. I got to do a little bit of everything.
Then I had to go into the service during Viet Nam; I was in the navy. After that my wife and I moved to New York. For the first seven years I worked at Zander’s Animation Parlour as a designer and animator and eventually a director. Jack Zander was a great animator of the old Tom & Jerry cartoons; he recently celebrated his 99th birthday. Afterwards I opened my own company called “Caged Beagle Productions” with Nancy Beiman and Daryl Cagle. Nancy is a great animator who worked for Disney and is now teaching in Rochester New York. Daryl is editor of the MSNBC editorial cartoon site now. And as of 2006 I’m living in Southern California.
How did you get involved in such a fringe project as reviving “The Gremlins?” It was originally Dark Horse’s idea. Mike Richardson is the company head, and he also works in movies as a producer and director, and it was his idea to reprint the original book that Disney put out in 1943. It was Roald Dahl’s very first book, and Dahl was a flyer for the British air force at the time. The basic premise is that there are these little gremlins who are messing up the British airplanes. People started saying that when anything went wrong, it was the work of the gremlins. After he wrote it, it got to Disney, Disney bought the book, and they were going to do a feature film. In fact, I have storyboards from it that they sent me.
But various things happened, including the war ending, and they never made the movie. Another thing was that Warner Brothers took the gremlin idea and came out with a couple very funny gremlin cartoons by Bob Clampett, and that was another reason why Disney killed the project. The gremlin from the Bugs Bunny cartoon “Falling Hare” looked very much like Disney’s, as a matter of fact.


Tell me about Mandy. Where did she come from?
Mandy is a character I developed in 2002 for an online workship I hosted at bellefree.com. A group of us cartoon pin-up types got together as an offshoot of sketchbook sessions, and that’s what I started on. I originally based her on what the Coppertone girl might look like grown up, in the style of my Playboy cartoons. Now she has a wide audience with both men and women. She doesn’t use guns or karate chops – she’s just herself, a sexy but innocent and, I hope, charming character. I get a lot of fans from my websites, and a good number of projects come up as well…for instance, she’s been licensed as the iconic character for coffee by a company in Russia – they’re actually calling it ‘Café Mandy’, and her picture’s on every package. They have big plans for the brand in Japan, Europe, China, and here in the US.

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Herluf Bidstrup,  1912 - 1988, was a cartoonist with both a German and Danish background. His cartoons represent everyday situations, smugness and human weaknesses with the help of satirical comedy. Most of his drawings are completely text free to help make any language barriers easier. (Here's hoping you all enjoy them.)

 I found him! There are no information about Bidstrup on English language. It is understandable - he was very communist! His original caricatures were in soviet newspapers.

Camille Allen's babies

http://www.camilleallen.com/camille_allen.htm

This is absolutely amazing babies-dolls!!!
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 "A year later when I had some bits of leftover clay from a larger doll, I formed the bit of clay into a miniature baby.  When I held the tiny baby in my hand I had the  feeling of protectiveness and fascination. I loved it instantly!
  The first miniature baby I made was curled in a fetal position, and I even gave it an umbilical cord, as if it was still in the womb.  The shape and size of the baby seemed similar to that of an egg shell. I tried this, and the baby fit perfectly inside an egg!

 I I am privileged to have learned the art of doll making from my husband's grandmother just over 8 years ago. She taught me how to sculpt large lifesize dolls in polymer clay." (Camille Allen)

TThis was how the idea of "Egg Babies" was born. I think the fragile newborn baby is complimented by the egg shell, reminding us of how fragile new life is and how gently they must be treated and cared for.

Later I tried sculpting a baby inside a seashell - thus the "Shell Babies". The shapes of and textures of different seashells either echo the soft curves of babies, or they provide an interesting contrast to emphasize them. Some Shell Babies have pearls in their navels or are holding a pearl, like two little treasures found in one shell!

Seminar on Biennial Visitor Centre (Rapid centre)

I chose a short presentation the art work by Lee Mingwey "Mending"

His work situated in the ground floor of Biennial Visitor Centre, former Rapid Store. The Exhibition on the ground floor called “Rethinking Trade” and Lee’s work connected to this idea very personally and perfect. His performance-installation is about communication between people. His work is about – “Artist have to be useful. They have to fill a role.”(quote from interview Louise Bourgeois and Ingrid Sischy)

What is more important, in my opinion, that Taiwan born artist Lee Mingwei  brought for the western society viewers his message about importance of skills and abilities to do forgotten in rich countries work as a sewing and repairing of clothing.

I think nobody, especially young people in UK, have never done sewing because it is not necessary anymore in the richest country in the world when clothing cost very cheap and average income are high. Western society became extremely consumer society based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase commodity goods in ever greater amounts.

Lee has forced people through his art to bring piece of clothing for repair not only because it is important to anybody to repair old clothing but because it is part of communication for lonely people and for repairing Lee ask people to share with him stories or conversation.
Biennial artistic director Lewis Biggs said: “Made Up was about the power of imagination.
“Touched is more about what’s real now, it’s much more in the present, about locating ourselves in our physical surroundings.
“The word touched is meant to have many meanings and in the show we have a different approach to the theme from different venues.
“It celebrates the fact we’ve commissioned numbers of artworks that have touched the people of this city as well as changing the urban fabric.”

Lee Mingwey begun to his “Mending” after death of his close friend as a cure for depression after lost. It is very significant about clothing that cloth is closest to human skin and cloth are always touching our skin. “Touched” is the name of Liverpool Biennial and Lee’s art touch viewers as well.