Hi Leeanne,

When I was at Buckinghamshire County Museum we used the Social and
Industrial History Classification system to look for gaps in previous
collecting areas - found surprisingly that land-locked coal-less
Buckinghamshire had a shipbuilding industry (engines, made at Stony
Stratford), and a coal heritage (the automatic pit-prop was invented in
Chalfont St. Something, I think).

More importantly, SHIC lead us to realise that we were not collecting in
some areas, including non-craft industries (hairdressing, I think was one),
and that what now is called 'intangible heritage' - particularly gestures.

Working with communities (ethnic or other cultural communities) - some
ideas:
* start with communities that you already know, but know who you don't know
(your council will give you the census figures you need to do this, but be
aware that the census figures don't show the whole picture).
* be aware that ethnicity includes culture, and that different cultures
are, well, different: they relate differently to material culture, people
may prize different things within cultures (e.g. stories may be more
important than dress, or cooking may be more important than dance).
* different ethnic groups also have different histories - I know when
Croydon clocktower sliced up their borough and chose age/ethnicity/ward,
they struggled with some, because the communities and ages were not
uniformly distributed.

I am currently working on a project which is starting with research into
the needs and desires of the Traveller communities of the South East.  It
should be published in April, if we keep to timescale: this can be used by
other museums, libraries and archives, and we hope, offer some principles
on consultation.

End of lunchbreak, I'm afraid.

Best wishes,

Pat

Pat Reynolds
Surrey Museums Development Officer
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