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UMAC Webinars

 

Since late March, universities across the world have closed, lectures were moved online and research – apart from COVID research – has suffered limitations due to safety reasons. As lockdown rules relax and museums worldwide gradually reopen, UMAC wants to have a global overview of the situation for university museums and collections.

How did the lockdown affect your university museum, collection, botanic garden or science center? How did you navigate the plethora of online platforms and social media, both internally and publicly? How did you respond to your audiences – researchers, students, general public? What lessons did you learn?

UMAC is organizing a series of five informal webinars every Friday between 5 June and 3 July 2020. The series will take place on ZOOM. Each webinar will happen twice a day to facilitate access from different time zones.

Please see below how you can participate.

The series will be made available au fur et à mesure under our resources section — webinars and in UMAC YouTube channel.

Similar initiatives are being organised by Universeum (also here) and the AAMG – check their websites for details.

WEBINAR I: Reopening for the public

5 June 2020

Has your university museum, botanic garden or science center reopened to the public or will reopen soon? What safety measures are you implementing in your exhibitions and public spaces? Will you reopen totally or partly? If you are on campus, how are you coping with the restrictions of a closed campus?

8 AM Lisbon/9 AM Pretoria/3 PM Shanghai/4 PM Tokyo/5 PM Sydney, moderated by Andrew Simpson, Australia

5 PM Lisbon/11 AM Mexico City/12 PM New York/1 PM Rio de Janeiro, moderated by Marta Lourenço, Portugal

WEBINAR II: Reopening Collections

12 June 2020

Is your university museum resuming access to collections post-lockdown? What safety measures are you implementing? Do you plan to quarantine specimens, artefacts, manuscripts and books post-access? What impact did COVID have on your collections policy? Are you collecting COVID objects?

8 AM Lisbon/9 AM Pretoria/3 PM Shanghai/4 PM Tokyo/5 PM Sydney, moderated by Akiko Fukuno, Japan

5 PM Lisbon/11 AM Mexico City/12 PM New York/1 PM Rio de Janeiro, moderated by Sébastien Soubiran, France

WEBINAR III: Lockdown Lessons: Going Digital

19 June 2020

During lockdown, did your university museum, science center, botanic garden remain active online? Was your university museum prepared? What technological, logistical, content challenges did ‘going digital’ pose? What lessons did you learn for the future?

8 AM Lisbon/9 AM Pretoria/3 PM Shanghai/4 PM Tokyo/5 PM Sydney, moderated by Roland Wittje, India

5 PM Lisbon/11 AM Mexico City/12 PM New York/1 PM Rio de Janeiro, moderated by Jill Deupi, USA

WEBINAR IV: Lockdown Lessons: Online Teaching and Students

26 June 2020

Was your university museum or collection being used for teaching? Were you teaching material culture or collections-based courses at graduate or post-graduate levels when the lockdown started? What were the challenges of moving object-based teaching online? Which platforms did you use? Did you create specific resources? How did students cope? How can we prepare for a future where online teaching appears to be predominant?

8 AM Lisbon/9 AM Pretoria/3 PM Shanghai/4 PM Tokyo/5 PM Sydney, moderated by Alistair Kwan, New Zealand

5 PM Lisbon/11 AM Mexico City/12 PM New York/1 PM Rio de Janeiro, moderated by Kirsten Vincenz, Germany

WEBINAR V: Lockdown Lessons: The Near Future

3 July 2020

What is the immediate and mid-term impact of COVID in your university museum and collection? What consequences do you anticipate in terms of audiences, logistics, finances, access, even mission and strategy?

8 AM Lisbon/9 AM Pretoria/3 PM Shanghai/4 PM Tokyo/5 PM Sydney, moderated by David Ellis, Australia

5 PM Lisbon/11 AM Mexico City/12 PM New York/1 PM Rio de Janeiro, moderated by Steph Scholten, UK

Contributions (limited slots)

We are now inviting informal contributions from all over the world. Each contribution consists of a 5 min presentation (max. 3 powerpoint slides, these are optional). Slots are limited and will be accepted on a first come first served basis.

If you want to contribute, please send an email to UMAC Secretary Wenjia Qiu, indicating name, institution, and which date and hour you want to intervene. You will be asked to provide your three slides 24 h before the webinar.

Attendance

Everyone can attend but registration is required.

Please send an email to UMAC Secretary Wenjia Qiu, indicating name and institution. You will be given the access link and password.

 

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Survey of University Museums and Collections Professionals

Do you work with university museums and collections anywhere in the world? Then help us complete the first ever Global Systematic Survey of professionals.

It’s anonymous and it should take no more than 10 min to answer.

Global Systematic Survey.

The results will be published in a book in 2022.

The survey is part of the project P-MUS, involving ICOM-UMAC, ICOM-ICTOP, Universeum (Europe) and the AAMG (USA).

 

 

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ICOM-UMAC Global Systematic Survey of University Museums and Collections Professionals

Who works in university museums and collections worldwide? What are the expectations of professionals? How do they divide their time? What is their background training? Do they like their work or would they prefer to work elsewhere?

ICOM-UMAC wants to know the answers to these questions.

If you work — formally or informally, active or retired — in a higher education museum or collection anywhere in the world, we would be grateful if you could spare 10 minutes of your time to answer our Global Systematic Survey. The results will be published in a book in 2022.

The survey is part of the project P-MUS, involving ICOM-UMAC, ICOM-ICTOP, Universeum (Europe) and the AAMG (USA).

 

 

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TRANSFER ZONES: UNIVERSITY | COLLECTIONS | PUBLIC SPHERE

Conference hosted by the University of Münster (WWU) in cooperation with the University Collections Association (GfU)
11 – 13 July 2019

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Transfer is not a particularly new concept. In the past, it referred to the implementation of economically relevant or application-oriented research findings. Nowadays the term has taken on a broader meaning. In a position paper published by the Wissenschaftsrat (German Council of Science and Humanities) in 2016, “transfer” is defined as the conveyance of scientific and technological knowledge into society, culture and politics in the context of various activities.

Accordingly, the Wissenschaftsrat classifies science communication as a transfer activity and explicitly designates exhibitions as a potential transfer medium. This is by no means surprising as museums have been important institutions for the public re-presentation of scientific study and discoveries since the 19th century. However, the Wissenschaftsrat holds a critical view of the traditional concepts of popularisation and knowledge transfer because, by its nature, transfer is not one-directional, but rather a mutual relationship based on exchange and can only succeed if the content and methods correspond to the needs and expectations of the public.

The question of how to form such asymmetrical relationships has been the subject of intensive discussion at least since the literary scholar Mary Lou Pratt coined the term “contact zones” in 1991. New variants of the concept, such as “trading zones” (Galison, 1997) and “transaction spaces” (Nowotny/Scott/Gibbons, 2004), indicate that the academic community has come to a new understanding of science and its transfer relationships. Under this expanded definition of transfer, the focus has also shifted to less frequently considered aspects of university collections and the services they provide, e.g. consultation and advice, translation services and collaborative research activities.

University collections are especially conducive for testing experimental forms of object-oriented transfer. Because of their unique character, university collections can pursue very different paths than, for example, traditional museums. Collaborating with other “transfer specialists” at universities can produce promising results, be it in relation to subject-specific didactics, transfer centres or science communication departments within the faculties. With this in mind, the conference aims to highlight the performance potential of university collections for scientific transfer both within and outside the university.

At the 11th Collection Conference, hosted by the University of Münster and the University Collections Association (GfU) from 11th to 13th of July 2019, participants will discuss how and to what extent scientific collections can contribute to university transfer activities. What forms of transfer activities are conceivable? What might a successful bi- or multi-directional transfer look like? What processes of change could be set in motion by focusing on transfer in and for the collection – as well as within the university?

For the upcoming conference, we are interested in theoretical-reflective papers and praxis-based contributions. The following formats are planned:

Presentation sessions

The conference will focus on:
regarding the transfer zone COLLECTIONS | PUBLIC SPHERE
•    locations and media of transfer
•    mobile transfer formats
•    re-presentation of pathways to knowledge
•    models for bi- and multi-directional transfer
•    collections and application-oriented research
regarding the transfer zone COLLECTIONS | UNIVERSITY
•    collaboration with particular disciplines, science research, science communication and subject-specific didactics
•    positioning collections within university transfer strategies
The length of the presentations should not exceed 20 minutes.

Workshops

The workshops should offer participants and especially the curators of university collections the opportunity to share praxis-oriented expertise and experience. Possible themes include:
•    transfer formats, analogue and digital,
•    new developments in provenience research and its funding
•    technical and conservational issues
Further suggestions for workshops on the conference theme “transfer zones” are welcome.
Participants may also submit individual wishes for the workshop section.
The workshops can have a duration of one or two double periods.

Poster Session

A poster session will offer the possibility to present and discuss current projects and the latest research findings.

 

Grants

The University Collections Association (GfU) will award six grants of a max. 200 euros each to offset the cost of travel and accommodation expenses for doctoral candidates who provide a substantial contribution to the conference (presentation, workshop, poster). Please submit an informal application to the treasurer of the GfU, Prof Dr Cornelia Weber.

Conference languages are German and English.

Please send your presentation, workshop proposal (max. 1,500 characters) or poster proposal (max 750 characters) together with a short CV by email no later than March 15th, 2019 to the following address:
Dr Eckhard Kluth, Central Curator
Central Curatorial Department of the University of Münster

Email sammlungstagung@uni-muenster.de

Conference website here.

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The Archivio Lombroso is now online!

The vast number of documents that Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) donated to the University of Turin are now accessible online — an incredible resource for the history of science and the history of Italy and Europe.

Ritratto di fronte e di profilo di un galeotto. Fa parte dell’Album dei delinquenti n. 1, seconda metà del XIX secolo (Archivio Lombroso, Univerità degli Studi di Torino).

The Lombroso Project was established by the Museum System of the University of Turin, with the support of the CRT Foundation and the Department of History of the University of Turin.

Read about the Lombroso Project and access the documents here.

Also, read about the  Museo di Antropologia Criminale ‘Cesare Lombroso’ in UMAC World Database of University Museums and Collections.

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2018 CAUMAC Symposium

Reframing university collections — Research Infrastructure

ANU, Canberra, Australia

Call for Papers

The Council of Australian University Museums and Collections is currently calling for proposals for our symposium to be held at the Australian National University on April 6. 

While the symposium is primarily a way for us to gauge the Australian experience of this issue, we also welcome international perspectives.  Even if you are not able to attend the symposium, we’d love to hear responses to these questions from your part of the world. We’d be interested in putting together a document to be made available at the symposium that gives an international perspective.

So recasting the symposium questions for an international audience:-

  1. How have universities dealt with the issue of legacy collections?
  2. What are the advantages and pitfalls of valuing legacy collections based on their potential for new research?
  3. How do you manage a collection to be ready for research that might currently be unforeseeable
  4. What does this mean for collections whose research potential is unknown?

We welcome the thoughts of university curators, researchers, professional staff, administrative staff, university leaders and students who would like to help shape our thinking on this issue.

Read more.