|
The Museum's video team have produced their first short videos and
they are now available as podcasts via Apple iTunes.
Clicking this
link
WDOAM
Podcasts
will take you to the index of published videos which you can download.
If you do not have iTunes installed on your computer, clicking the link
will initiate the downloading of the software. Once installed you
will be able to proceed as above.
If you have any comments about this new venture please e-mail them
to the
video projects team.
The project
The Museum’s latest Designation Challenge Fund project began in April
2006
and
involves producing short films showing the detailed setting-up and use of
the Museum’s horse-powered agricultural machinery.
Three
recent graduates from Portsmouth University – Tim Connell, James Allison and
Oliver Turner – have been employed to produce around 10 films which will
provide an invaluable record of how agricultural machinery was used. The
team began work in September, with the Horse Gin at Watersfield
Stable.
The
digital films will eventually be available for use by the Museum, other
institutions and the general public, and cover the 10 most significant
generic types of equipment in the Museum’s collections e.g. implements used
in ploughing, drilling and reaping. Three versions will be made available:
an onsite version for use in exhibitions and displays – up to five minutes
long; a research version – up to 30 minutes long; and an online version –
some two minutes long. Where possible, each film will show a range of
examples within a generic type, and include demonstrations of preparation,
use and maintenance of the equipment.
“It is
increasingly important to record exactly how these types of machinery were
operated since those people with the knowledge become fewer and fewer,” says
Curator, Julian Bell. “Besides the general working principles of each form
of equipment, it is those unique pieces of personal knowledge that
experienced operatives have accumulated over the years which are of great
importance and in most danger of being lost.”
The
two-year project, for which the Museum was awarded £76,000, follows on from
previous projects funded by the Designation Challenge Fund. These have
included the moving to a more appropriate site of Winkhurst Tudor Kitchen,
the refurbishment of Pendean Farmhouse, the removal of the artefact
collection to the Downland Gridshell, an Interpretation Strategy, the
Volunteer Support Project and improvements to the condition and
accessibility of the large collection of items stored off-site.
This
funding has been invaluable in enabling the Museum to develop and tackle
collections storage and interpretation to a degree which would otherwise
have been impossible. The entire collections of the Museum were Designated
as being of outstanding national importance in 1998, one of only some 60
collections throughout England to achieve this status.
|
