ITP 2013: September 6 – Mahesh Kalra

ITP Day 26
We began this week with two buoyant visits; one to the Musical ‘Top Hat’ at Aldwych Theatre, London, a delightful rom-com musical set in 1930s America; and a visit to Bristol’s SS Brunel Museum and the Roman Baths at Bath.
The last working day of the week saw a lot of action with multiple sessions, beginning with one on Small Object Photography by Kevin Lovelock, senior Photographer, helping us understand digital imaging of smaller objects like coins, statuettes and the camera functions applied for good results. 

The next session was on Museum Assistants and their role in the BM by Emily Taylor, MA in Ancient Egypt & Sudan followed by a hands-on mini workshop sessions with several MAs like Ed Johnson from the Coins and Medals Department, Condition Checking by Gemma Renshaw, Packing by Angela Rowbottom, Mount making by Simon Prentice, and making of labels by Mark Haswell. 

We proceeded for a post-lunch session with the Conservation Department and were told about the testing of fabrics by the Oddy Test, a pioneering test invented by British Museum Conservationist, Andrew Oddy in 1973 for testing their reactive power with Silver, Copper and Lead by Capucine Korenberg, Senior Scientist. We also had a session on Integrated Pest Management with Melanie Keable who oversees the Preventive Conservation and Pest Management at the BM.

Lastly, we settled for a group discussion on packaging of various loan objects under the supervision of Emily Taylor and her colleagues from the Ancient Egypt and Sudan Department reflecting our understanding of the methodology involved in loans of various objects. We ended the session with distribution of samples of various materials used in packaging for our reference.