BT's Connected Earth
Widening Access And Creating A Model for Modern Collections... |
The Launch of Connected Earth Connected Earth was officially launched in April 2002 at the BT Tower to an audience of museum and heritage specialists, and attended by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Tessa Jowell, MP and the Chairman of BT, Sir Christopher Bland. Three new exhibitions and the Museum on the Internet www.connected-earth.com were introduced to the audience at the launch. What is Connected Earth? Since the BT Museum at Blackfriars closed in 1997, BT had been looking for an innovative and cost effective solution to secure the future of its extensive telecom collections, and at the same time making sure that the maximum number of people could enjoy them. After a lengthy period of consultation and research, BT came up with a model solution; one which works for BT and possibly for others holding large collections which are based on our industrial heritage. The development of telecommunications and interest in the subject is so fundamental to the modern world that its history is worthy of being shared not just locally in small isolated museums, but internationally and with the latest innovations, the opportunity to give access worldwide is possible via the Internet. With these aims in mind, BT created the Connected Earth project in July 2001 and began developing the concept of 'Partner Museums' and the 'Museum on the Internet'. Very simply, Connected earth is the driving force behind a innovative model of real collections housed in 'Partner Museums' and virtual collections displayed in the 'Museum on the Internet'. How does the Model work? The model combines the very best of the old with todays technology to give a unique viewing experience. Resources have been drawn from BT Group Archives, TCN - The Communications Network (formerly the Institution of British Telecom Engineers), established collections, such as those at Goonhilly and a collaboration of 'Partner Museums'. BT's extensive collection of telecoms artefacts has been distributed to Partner Museums across the UK to share and bring to life telecoms history which otherwise may have remained buried in more numerous museums and storage spaces where inadequate funding and poor access prevented their full enjoyment. Critics of the process may have sighted this as a cost cutting way to preserve BT's heritage, but the alternative was a policy of collecting and preserving thousands upon thousands of items and never having the opportunity to adequately display them to maximum effect. Who are the Partner Museums? Amberley Working Museum The new Connected Earth gallery at Amberley Working Museum in West Sussex was officially opened in May 2002 by HRH Prince Michael of Kent. The purpose-built gallery features the most comprehensive exhibition of telecommunications heritage in the UK, and represents a major investment by BT as part of its £6 million Connected Earth project. Connected Earth at Amberley explores the dramatic history of telecommunications and its impact on people's lives. Many of the thousand or so artefacts on display have a local connection, but will be just as familiar to people throughout the UK and around the world whose lives have been transformed in just two or three generations by the development of telecommunications. The new gallery reflects and enhances the ethos of Amberley as a working museum in touch with people's lives in the past, present and future. Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings At Avoncroft Museum, West Midlands, a newly interpreted exhibition of telephone kiosks and roadside boxes, the largest in the world, opened in April 2002. Museum of London At the Museum of London, the new World City Galleries feature Connected Earth artefacts; many others are in store awaiting development of a new gallery exploring the role of communication in the shaping of London. Museum of Submarine Telegraphy National Museums of Scotland In December 2002, plans were announced for the Connected Earth gallery at the National Museums of Scotland, due to open in Autumn 2003. The new gallery in the Royal Museum, Edinburgh, will be based on the Museum's existing collections and further enhanced by Connected Earth artefacts. Many of these will come from the telephone exchange building in Leith, once home to the IBTE Scotland museum, and have important local and regional connections. The gallery will cover the history of telecommunications from early telegraphs to the telephone - including, of course, the role of Scotland's own inventor, Alexander Graham Bell - and move on to the internet, world wide web and email. The mobile phone was identified in discussions with potential audiences as today's symbol of communications and will be used as key feature in the gallery. There will also be links to Scottish Curriculum Guidelines for ages ranging from five to 14. Science Museum While there is no new gallery planned at the Science Museum, more than 100 artefacts have been transferred to Museum's collections to expand its storytelling capacity in the broad context of science, technology, medicine and media, with particular focus on significant innovations and everyday communications equipment. The Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester Delegates to the Museums Association conference in October 2002 were able to tour the historic 1830 Warehouse where the Connected Earth artefacts will form part of a major exhibition of telecommunications history due to open in 2004; focusing on the importance of Manchester as a centre for industrial development in the 19th century. Milton Keynes Museum At Milton Keynes Museum, BT has made an initial contribution towards the costs of a new gallery using historic telephones and working equipment to explore the development of engineering and switching technologies. www.mkmuseum.org.uk/ The Telephone Museum www.mkheritage.co.uk/ttm/ BT Group Archives Ongoing responsibility for BT's heritage activity and contribution to Connected Earth is now vested with BT Group Archives. The Archives itself will continue to be managed from within BT as a major component of the company's Corporate Memory, and has already begun the major task of integrating the former BT Museum's documentary collections. Goonhilly Earth Station The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals Oral History Programme The experience and memories of those who worked in telecommunications in the last century has not been overlooked. Working closely with members of The Communications Network - BT set up an oral history programme in conjunction with Bournemouth University. More than 250 retired BT employees and others in related businesses offered their memories to be permanently recorded and used in the virtual museum. Their recollections have brought the recent past to life and illuminated many of the stories told in the Museum on the Internet, as well as in the partner museum exhibitions. The Exhibitions The first of the new dedicated Connected Earth galleries opened at Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall in Easter 2002. Here the emphasis is on global communications and the development of the world network of submarine cables and satellite links. The new exhibition has increased visitor numbers considerably. BT also transferred many significant artefacts to the nearby Porthcurno Museum of Submarine Telegraphy to supplement existing displays and contribute towards a temporary exhibition of 100 telephones through the ages. Museum on the Internet Connected Earth - the Museum on the Internet went live in June 2002 and over time will become one of the largest virtual museums on the Internet. The database-driven, multi-media web site already holds over 1,400 pages of information with some 2,000 illustrations. Hundreds of objects in the BT heritage collections have been especially photographed for the site and images and photos from the BT Group Archives scanned. The Museum tells the history of telecommunications through nine themes, but has been designed so that the visitor is in charge and can switch between straight narrative, pictures of artefacts, oral or written testimonials from people who worked in the industry, film clips, and simple explanations of how things work. There are also links to the Connected Earth partner museums where many of the objects will be on display. Connected Earth - the Museum on the Internet also has a substantial education content with material aimed at primary and secondary stages of UK curricula. www.connected-earth.com has already won a major award for best interactive media project and has been shortlisted for other key industry awards. Research and Education BT's Connected Earth has also invested in the future of telecommunications heritage by endowing two curatorial and research posts in the subject; one at the National Museums of Scotland, where Alison Taubman took up her post in 2002, and one at the Science Museum, currently being filled. As the major part of the collection was dispersed to partner museums, registered museums around the UK were invited to share in the BT collection. An Open Week was held at the BT collection store in Ashford, Middlesex, and some 50 museums and societies chose objects for their own collections. The remaining items, mainly duplicates and incomplete objects, were auctioned to collectors and the general public in February 2003, with the funds raised going back into the project. Concluding the first phase, Richard Loyd, project director for BT's Connected Earth, said: "We believe that investing in existing museums is a better way to share our telecommunications heritage than creating yet more museums. This way, and through the web, the communications highway of our age, millions of people will be able to enjoy and learn from the history of telecommunications in earlier ages." The Future The next phase, potentially the most significant and certainly more challenging, has already begun. BT retains its responsibility for Connected Earth as an equal partner in the network with specific responsibility to maintain and develop the Museum on the Internet, www.connected-earth.com. The vision is to develop and build on this network to nurture and encourage the future preservation of, access to and interest in the nation's telecommunications heritage. Connected Earth has been, and continues to be, a unique collaboration between the corporate, public and independent heritage sectors. The Connected Earth concept stands as a model for the responsible management and future preservation of a corporate heritage collection within a secure, sustainable framework. |
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