So you want to be a museum blogger?

We are so thrilled and excited to be featured in this month's Museums Journal in their feature on museum bloggers. It's odd to think we started this little blog in November of 2012, and we are still at it! The MJ's piece is such a great opportunity to meet the people behind the blogs and get to know a little bit more about what interests them. From comedy and natural history, to autism in museums, and art crime news, each blogger brings something new to the community. If you read this issue and thought, wow I'd like to do that! - then just let us say, you definitely should! But if you wanted some pointers before you start out, here are some of our top tips!

1) Think about your hook- What makes you different than anyone else writing about museums? What struck is reading the MJ article is the very different takes all the bloggers had on the field. At the Ministry we focus on young people working in museums, registry and collections issues, and women in museums. If you want your blog to get some traffic, then you have to have some kind of hook that makes people interested in your opinion. Just writing exhibition reviews probably won't get you much of a following.

2) Create your voice/brand - Ok so you have a concept, how are you going to make that consistent? You want your readers to know they are reading a blog by you each time, so think about your unique writing style. Once you've thought about the tone you want to take - friendly, informal, or critical and hard-hitting, then stick to it. Your blog should be unique to stand out from the crowd.

3) Have a content plan- How frequently are you going to post on your blog? Try to make it realistic. We aim for once a week, although twice a week would really be ideal! Very frequently bloggers start out with daily posts that peter out after a month or two. If you have so many ideas, save them up and schedule them to go out at more even intervals! If are you posting new content, be sure you let your readers know. Which brings us to...

4) Snap up those social media accounts- Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are all great ways to keep your followers up to date and drive them towards your site. The museum community on Twitter is amazing and really supportive. Be sure whatever site to use hashtags like #museums #culture #museblogger to get some attention. 

5) Get to know your community- Even before you get started, have a look around on twitter and instagram for bloggers you admire. Then FOLLOW FOLLOW FOLLOW - the best way to get followers on twitter or anything else is to follow other people. But not just anyone, the kind of people who you want reading what you right. Get stuck in on online conversations like #museumhour or visit an event like Museums Showoff to get your name our there. Some museums like the Wallace Collection offer museum blogger only events, so do your homework. 

6) Just keep swimming - Blogging can be harder than you think, especially over a long stretch of time. Life find a way of getting in the way of your ambitious plans. Maybe you had a fantastic idea for this week's post, but your boiler broke. C'est la vie. Either try and have some posts saved as drafts, or just leave it til next week. Just don't get disheartened! 

Our number one tip however is that if you want to blog, make sure its for you. Don't set up a blog because you think you have to, or its the 'done' thing. Blogging is hard, and the only way to sustain it is your passion for it! If you haven't quite figured out what drives you, maybe leave it for a bit until you find something that makes you excited! 

The Ministry Explains It All: The life of an archivist

At the Ministry we tend to focus on the glamorous world of museums, but that doesn't mean to say we don't also love our sexy allied profession: the Archives. We seem to spend all of our time talking about what museum people really do, how we really are, and how you can get to be one of us, but what about all you budding archivists out there? To right this terrible wrong we approached a good friend of the Ministry Kate Tyte, who also happens to be giving a talk at Museums Showoff on the 4th of February called, 'The totally unorthodox guide to museum archives! Featuring Robots! Nicholas Cage! Indiana Jones! And Beards!'

Kate wears this t-shirt literally every day.

Kate graciously explains for the Ministry exactly what an Archivist does, why they are all tough as nail and most importantly why the bizarre and wonderful objects they work with are as amazing as anything in a museum store.

Life in the Archives

Deep in the bowels of the museum basement, in an area few humans venture into, we finally catch a glimpse of our one of the most elusive of all the animals that dwell in the museum ecosystem – the archivist. The archivist’s usual habitat is in quiet storerooms and overcrowded offices, amongst stacks of boxes and rustling papers. Let’s take a closer look at this interesting creature…

What are archives?

Archives are materials that have been created by individuals, groups or organisations during the course of their life or work and deemed to be worth keeping permanently for the purposes of research. They can be in any format, from notebooks, maps and architects drawings to betamax videos and digital files.

How can you become an archivist?

You’ll need about 1 year’s work experience to get a place on a 1 year masters course in archives and records management. Many archives offer 1 year pre-course training positions, though there’s a lot of competition for these jobs so many people do voluntary work.

What do archivists actually do?

Archivists spend a lot of time appraising records – in other words putting the rubbish stuff in the shredder – and cataloguing.  Archives catalogues are hierarchical, with records arranged into groups of similar records, and designed to preserve the context, provenance, and value of records as historical and legal evidence. Archivists also spend a lot of time answering enquiries, supervising researchers, and promoting our service with leaflets, articles, displays, online content and educational activities. We also drink lots of tea.

Skills needed

Archivists need deep reserves of patience for cataloguing, as well as good people skills, because researchers are often quite mad. Whether it’s a history of cow breeding in eighteenth century Berkshire or the adventures of great aunt Ethel, they do like to drone on about their tedious projects. It’s your job to nod and smile. Sometimes it’s also your job to politely explain that they’re barking up the wrong tree or have wandered into completely the wrong forest altogether. All job descriptions will specify ‘the ability to lift and carry heavy boxes’ as an essential skill, and they’re not kidding. Lifting boxes on and off shelves gives archivists great upper body strength. This will be a bonus should you ever decide to take up pole dancing to supplement you meagre income. Other stuff they don’t specify on job descriptions can be equally important – archivists love tea and cake. Curators are more trendy coffee drinking types, but a coffee drinking archivist will be looked on with suspicion. But what archivists REALLY need is an overwhelming passion for the past. If you can’t get hours of excitement from a photo of a funny 1950s hat, an account of a Victorian fistfight or a random graph about eighteenth century cow breeding statistics, then this really isn’t the job for you.

Why it’s great to be an archivist!

It’s mainly great because of all those records about eighteenth century cows. No, really – I love discovering weird stuff about the past. A previously unknown letter by Darwin or a baffling statistic about the likelihood of dying in a horse and cart traffic accident in the 1820s are just some of the things you might come across in an average day. No matter how much people think ‘everything is on google these days’, many things really aren’t. Archivists provide access to the raw, unmediated evidence of the past – and it’s up to our readers to decide what to make of it. We won’t tell you that the First World War was glorious and just and we won’t tell you that it was a pointless omnishambles. We simply provide you with the evidence and empower you to judge for yourself. I love helping people with their research, whether it’s a personal quest or an academic pursuit. From the repatriation of Aboriginal skeletons to Auntie Ethel’s lonely death in a lunatic asylum and burial in an unmarked grave, it’s the archivists who really know where all the bodies are buried. 

What archivists think of the rest of the museum staff

Museum people are such sushi-nibbling, hashtag-using hipsters that the humble and tweedy archivist sometimes feels a bit inadequate. Museum curators have an awe-inspiring depth of knowledge about their collections and museum educators are startlingly creative – two things archivists can only ever dream of matching. On the other hand, your filing systems are universally terrible. You find archives baffling, and you’re always coming up to us, needing an obscure fact about a dissected Panda. But the more obscure the fact you need, the happier your archivist will be. It helps us to feel like the eccentric aunt of the museum family - We think you cool kids are amazing, and crazy, and we want to get drunk with you at Christmas.

Kate has been an Archivist for 8 years. She enjoys cocktails, cake and putting things in alphabetical order. Check our her blog about archives, the Victorians and mental health at katetyte.com or follow her on twitter @katetyte. 

Happy Birthday to The Ministry!

Here at The Ministry of Curiosity we are spending the next week in self-indulgent bliss celebrating our first birthday and to honour ourselves (and of course you readers) we will be posting our favourite articles. The past year has gone has gone by in a museum-loving blur we've met some brilliant people, sparked outrage on twitter, seen amazing exhibitions and tried to get people thinking about museums in a new way.

Almost a year to the day Kristin and I met to visit the fantastic ‘Doctors, Dissectionand Resurrection Men’ exhibition at the Museum of London and out of our shared love of the morbid came the birth of The Ministry of Curiosity. Orginally aiming to provide an event resource to museum workers like ourselves and create a Salon of ideas for Museum Lovers -  but without the patriarchy and opium.

We never expected our pet project to hit off in the way it has done, we never anticipated collaborating with the big guys at Museums Showoff and SickCity Project or get as much attention as an interview on the Guardian website. We’d only aimed for a thousand twitter followers and an invite to an opening or two! 

Thank you to you, our contributors and readers, and especially our twitter followers. Without your 140 characters, retweets and favourites we wouldn't know if anyone cared what we thought or was even listening! Your support and constant enthusiasm is why we do what we do.

And thankyou to Kristin for putting up with my often incoherent regional dialect and early morning panics. God bless that American.

So please join us in celebrations, shake your bum and sing to Stevie Wonder, read our favourite articles and stay curious. 

Love from Terri x

A Support Group for the Museum-Stereotyped 

Collector in Focus: The Little Mermaid

Guest blogger Becky - Smashing Shows

My History Valentine Series: Frederick John Horniman , John Hunter, Mrs Beeton and Henry Wellcome to Katy Perry.

#Museumfear Series Dummies and Packing Foam.

Guerilla Heritage Activist Takes on the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum

Making Museum Geeks Mad #museumhates

Exclusive Interview with the Glass Jar of Moles

Why your registrar should be your best friend

Museum Muscles

Prancing to Playlists: Museums on Spotify.

The Ministry Explains It All: Getting into museums

P.S We will be celebrating with cocktail this evening  in London email/tweet us to find out where!