I live by the river
Continuing the Clash theme… well I am in a hotel in County Hall, which is after all by the river, and I can see the top half of the London Eye from my window…
So, here I am. And I take back what I said about the lunch - there were seats! Admittedly they were for people to watch presentations in the trade show section, but there was no show on at the time. Just as well, since I had spent the whole of the previous session standing up as all the seats were taken. As were the tables and window ledges, and most of the floor too.
So how was day one? Not too bad. I was surprised at the number of people here from Scotland - I thought I’d be all on my tod, but there seem to have been quite a lot of last minute decisions to attend. This means that we can all get together and complain about how everything is relevant only to English museums, or how even when it is of wider significance, the particular circumstances prevailing in Scotland aren’t addressed. Which makes us all feel better, and lets us bond more closely. Group hug. 
I was surprised that the second keynote address overran by 12 minutes - impressive in a thirty-minute time slot. It made me wonder if the presentation had actually been gone through beforehand (surely a pre-requisite). Nonetheless it was interesting, though someone should have pointed out that a background image makes the text very hard to read. Especially when there is so much of it.
The session on conservation (the one that was very crowded) gave an interesting perspective. It seems that all the time we curators were blaming conservators for stopping us from displaying or otherwise using the collections, the conservators were blaming us for making them take these decisions about whether it was safe to use them. Of course they seemed all too happy to take that responsibility, and curators, I suspect, were just as happy to be absolved of it.
After lunch, a good keynote address from Jude Kelly of the South Bank Centre (hint to other presenters - humour works). It almost made me look forward to London 2012. Almost. Then ‘Ten Golden Rules for virtual collections’. Funny, to the point, but some of it obvious to us old hands. Good to see that others have identified graphic designers as the main barrier to usability. I would suggest an eleventh golden rule, though. Always check the spelling on your powerpoint slides.
On to ‘Revolutionising Museum Archaeology’, which was, well, weird. One presentation about disposals, one about keeping everything, but maybe not in museums (but where, exactly, then? and who will pay for it?), and one from a manic Welshman, which I enjoyed enormously, though I’m not exactly sure what the point was.
Meanwhile, back in the hotel, I decided to buy 2 hours of inernet fun @ £3. Not bad I suppose, but at home I get 24 hours for about £2.50. Oh, and the fun? Checking my email, sending messages to my kids and reading a few of my regular blogs. Sad, isn’t it?
I wonder how tomorrow will go?