Benefits for non-curators: Hesham

I’m not workin in the field of Museology but I have experienced ideas and techniques of museum work, which may one day prove useful if I work in the museum sector in Egypt, and I will try to implement these ideas and techniques in my job!

• Museum (in Egypt and everywhere) should be scientific institutions, helping with it’s collections, academic research, postdoctoral stadd and postgraduate students
• the museum libraries and reading rooms play an important role for allowing research, and allow the museum to function in an educational capacity in all categories, adults and school groups alike
• the role of volunteer programmes and the importance of them as a way of giving people the opportunity to gain new skills and to gain experience in museum work such as working in galleries, handling objects and providing customer service

At Manchester museum, new amazing ideas for me were the Museum of the Mind (mental health emotional well-being and the museum) which will collect the Flotsam and Jetsam stories and artifacts from our society to illustrate what people were thinking and feeling – it’s about the meaning of life and the museumwill reflect it all back at us to make us think. That can help people find their emotional place in the world.

Manchester Museum’s “Collective Conversations” give people the chance to interpret objects, tell stories and make up their own minds. These stories were filmed and will be shown on the web. This idea is great and effective and I was filmed giving feedback on my ideas and feelings while I was in Manchester.

Other things worth mentioning were:

• using good database programmes for museum collection will save time and money
• fragile and heavy objects have specific considerations
• storage practicalities, organising, environmental monitoring and control
• object packing
• how important it is for any museum to have a scientific and qualifying conservation programme and good laboratories