"The Seam" project at the Mining Institute Library: a singer songwriter in residence
•Descargar como PPTX, PDF•
0 recomendaciones•403 vistas
The document discusses the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers and some of their recent outreach efforts. It lists some of the resources the Institute has like maps, tracts, archives, objects, journals, and books. It also includes some positive feedback from recent events they held, including a concert about the mining industry and engaging with history through story and song. It directs people to learn more about the Institute through various online sources and social media accounts.
Recomendados
Recomendados
Más contenido relacionado
Último
Último (20)
Destacado
Destacado (20)
"The Seam" project at the Mining Institute Library: a singer songwriter in residence
- 4. Why?
- 10. Maps
- 11. Tracts
- 13. Archives
- 14. Objects
- 26. “Great concert – brought the mining industry alive” “Wonderful evening engaging with history and heritage through story and song” “What an amazing insight. Definitely inspired to visit the Institute.” “It must be the best piece of marketing that has ever been done for the Institute.”
- 27. @mininglibrarian
- 28. Picture Credits Images used with thanks to: The Mining Institute Sean Elliott Tom Yellowley Fiona Forsythe Aaron Guy Free images and effects from: Photofunia Freeimages.com
- 29. North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers See us on Inside Out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02j6r18 With thanks to: Fiona Forsythe: http://fionnconsultancy.co.uk/ And Gareth Davies-Jones: http://www.garethdavies-jones.com/ @MiningInstitute North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers See us on Inside Out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02j6r18 With thanks to: Fiona Forsythe: http://fionnconsultancy.co.uk/ And Gareth Davies-Jones: http://www.garethdavies-jones.com/ @MiningInstitute
Notas del editor
- [Song: “Practical Coal Mining” – see https://soundcloud.com/gareth-davies-jones] So why have I started by sharing a song and images from a dusty 1950’s coal mining textbook?
- During the Autumn of 2014, the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, shown here, hosted a songwriting residency in which I gave singer/songwriter Gareth Davies-Jones
- open access to our collections and our volunteers. From this experience, Gareth created a body of work of 11 songs which he then took on tour across the North of England in the Spring of 2015.
- Briefly, in the next 15 mins or so, I’d like to answer/explain 3 basic questions: Why did we do it?
- How did we do it?
- And what came out of the project?
- But first let me set the scene. The Mining Institute is in central Newcastle, very close to the railway station, in a Victorian Gothic, grade 2 star listed building. It was the first such institute in the world, set up in 1852 to promote research and safety after a number of major disasters, often caused by a lack of information on previous mine workings in the area.
- Our first president, Nicholas Wood, brought together a group of his contemporaries to discuss and solve the problems facing them in running and maintaining coal mines. From the beginning, one of their priorities was to build a Library to house the growing research and share their ideas.
- So back to beginning of the The Seam project and why it came into being. With some partnerships, it is hard to know where the beginning is! I had known Fiona Forsythe of Fionn Consultancy for sometime, and was not too surprised when she said she wanted to introduce the MI to a Singer-Songwriter, who had previously used an archive (the FARNE archive) to inspire a body of work, and was looking for his next artistic challenge. Somewhere, by the end of the meeting between myself, Simon Brooks, our Institute Secretary, and Gareth the idea of a songwriting residency, The Seam, was born. As to why we did it, other than a personal love of folk song of course, at the MI, we are always looking for new ways to engage with audiences. Physically, the library is hidden from the street. It has been and is still, the library of a professional body and we aren’t very well known to people outside of our membership in Newcastle. Even the people who do know we exist and know they can come in, initially expect that we’re only about coal in Newcastle but instead the collection covers mining of every kind, worldwide and in quality, if I do say so myself, it is world class with maps,
- Well over twenty thousand of them, from geological to ordnance survey to underground mine plans.
- Then also Tracts – these are tiny pamphlets bound together to make volumes of social history
- Then we have Photographs of various eras from the very early to the quite modern ones here. This includes glass plate negatives as well as film and now digital
- We have Thousands of Archival documents dating back to the fifteen hundreds. I’m a librarian really not an archivist but I have had to learn to adapt! This is a page from one of John Buddle’s notebooks who got a whole song to himself as the “King of the Coal Trade” as part of the project.
- I’m not a museum curator either but we do also have an objects collection! The safety lamps got a starring role in a song, especially after I mentioned how 2015 would be the bicentenary of the lamp and a great time to celebrate its invention.
- And of course we hold journals and books. We think about 70,000 volumes but I have to admit that the last thing I have time to do is count them… Gareth did explore some of the newspaper volumes and mostly I think, he enjoyed the adverts which before the advent of any regulation, are rather nice, I have to say! So one of those later made it into a song as well. He really did make an effort to cover all aspects of the collection.
- Increasingly the Mining Institute is used as a music venue both in the Library and down in the lovely Lecture Theatre. This usually happens, as you might expect, outside the opening hours of the Library. Looking at the audience profile for music gigs and the profile of our users and volunteers – we noticed that they were very different, with actually our library volunteers (around sixty of them) being far more diverse than the young people organising, performing at and attending the gigs. A little thinking and we started asking the following questions: Could singing about the collection, help attract a different musical audience to use or hire our venue? Could we use music to reach people who have not yet heard about the MI? Could we use songs to interpret and help people understand our collections more? Could we take the MI on ‘the road’ to communities who have a mining heritage, but who have forgotten about us Could the songs inspire people to come and use us for research into their locality, their family…. So, that’s the why…. How did we do it?
- We applied for an Arts Council England grant. (Or rather Fiona and Gareth did, useful, as this didn’t take up too much of my time). Simon and I simply had to write sections as directed by Fiona! This was successful. They also applied for a Performing Rights Society Foundation Grant, and despite getting through to round 2, this was unsuccessful. Being unsuccessful with the Performing Rights Society Foundation did mean some careful negotiations with ACE and re-looking at the budget, again Fiona and Gareth handled this side, with Simon and I able to take the overview. However, this delayed our original timetable of starting in September by a month, the result was that instead of having time between visits to the MI, Gareth really did have to immerse himself in the collection and start to understand technical terms very quickly.
- But on to the “How” - where did the songs come from? As soon as G walked through the doors he said ‘I can write songs here’ and indeed the building itself is in one of his songs. Our existing volunteers were wonderful. Gareth asked them ‘What are your favourite stories’ ‘why do you give your time here?’ ‘what’s important?’ …and the answers are revealed in his songs. An article on a ball held underground, adverts for brandy, and also individuals who had caught their attention. They were really pleased to contribute to the development of the project and I feel it has definitely strengthened the relationships we have with those volunteers who took part. It also gave them an opportunity to discuss things they had found in more detail than I normally have time for in an average working day! I quickly realised it would also be essential to explain my numbering and reference systems to Gareth and to ensure he noted down enough information to find these pieces again! I didn’t want to be caught out by people wanting to see the “archive piece the song is about” and not being able to locate it…. One of the only criticisms we have had of the project was that one body felt we should have had a more structured set of aims behind the materials we gave Gareth to write about and how these documents would be interpreted for the audience. Whilst I felt this was a valid comment, part of the joy of this was seeing the serendipity of what he discovered and letting the volunteers guide what he found just as much as myself. I certainly did try to fill in any obvious gaps and to make sure he saw all the different types of material as I showed to you before which also meant he could create a number of very different songs to give the album some variety. I will admit that I did have one initial awful moment when Gareth first arrived, and he said “where do we start?” and I simply hadn’t had time to plan that before he arrived! But it worked out. I fell back on that coal mining textbook you saw at the beginning which one of the trustees had shown me very early on in my job role as an excellent basic primer on any mining topic and Gareth loved it and we were away. It was always a case of too much possible material never too little!
- The ‘what’ also includes taking The Seam on tour – out to other libraries and museums but also community associations as well. The Arts Council England grant paid for a professional graphic designer to do these fab promotional materials as well as the CD itself. This was a novelty for me in the small charity library sector where it’s usually me and a volunteer attempting to pull something together. We sadly didn’t have any spare budget to actually distribute all these posters and fliers so this became another case of volunteer goodwill with myself, Fiona, and anyone else we could persuade being asked to take them around the nearby shops and houses. We quickly developed a template/ box of tricks for the gigs which could be quickly handed to the relevant volunteers, usually a trustee plus a long standing library volunteer, who were attending the gig! This went something like:
- 3 pull up banners (paid for from the Arts Council England grant) [image of Durham gig]
- We also had A Box of resources which related directly to the songs – duplicate copies and photocopies of items Gareth used, no original Library material was risked out at gigs! A sales table of books and postcards A donation bucket Big laminated Images of our building/lecture theatre along with details of how to book your event there. Lots of “This way” signs designed with arrows in every possible direction with sellotape, string, blutack and pushpins in case the venue proved to be confusing when they arrived. Vouchers offering anyone who visits the MI a free cup of coffee (this was our ‘soft/non-obtrusive’ form of evaluation – more about results later) At least 3-4 volunteers to help man the above, shake people’s hands and enthusiastically welcome people.. And a comments book to capture all those lovely things people say.
- Gareth is a consummate performer, who along with a backing singer and instrumentalists for some of the gigs produced evenings which delighted audiences. For some gigs, one the choirs who rehearse here at the Institute provided additional backing vocals. I apologise for the quality of the gig photo up there – I was so busy enjoying myself that I forgot to take pictures – lesson for next time – get a volunteer photographer! The opening night in particular was superb. It had been a stressful run up – the CDs themselves only arrived the day before the launch – and tickets had been selling fairly well online through WeGotTickets and also over the phone in the library then suddenly we were sold out, there was such a buzz round the place and the gig was starting!
- So, in conclusion, what has been the legacy of The Seam? Firstly a huge amount of positive publicity. It was really quite far reaching. Something like, 2 features in The Journal, Full page in the Hexham Courant, a feature in the Morning Star, a feature in Newcastle University Alumni Magazine, and a 9 minute feature on BBC’s Inside Out, with a link which is still live and which we can use as an advertising product. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02j6r18] Songs from the CD were also played on BBC Scotland and BBC Wales, and Gareth did an interview with BBC Newcastle. A substantial number of people have come in thanks to that BBC Inside Out segment. We were lucky that whilst they had to focus on the project, they also promoted us generally and made it clear that we were open to the public through the week.
- The next legacy is a product in terms of the CD and the songs. These are played in the background as groups arrive in the library or the lecture theatre for other events, particularly the song about the building. The CD is still for sale for just £10– If you enjoy Gareth this evening, why not buy one? Just catch me any time tomorrow! We even have them available on eBay on “buy it now”. It is also a product in terms of the performance. Gareth is still touring with The Seam this Autumn and is happy to do so, if the performance is self-financing. Wherever possible, we will continue to support this with our volunteers at performances, though Somerset might prove a challenge! I’m sure that all of those gigs will continue to drive people towards the Institute to visit the building and use the collections.
- ….and what of the coffee vouchers? One of the first people to walk in waving one, booked a tour for his local history group (so that’s 40 people at £2 per head) and his wife wanted to talk about volunteering…. We haven’t had huge numbers of vouchers returned, but all the people who made the effort to seek us out seemed to really enjoy their visit and often said things like “I’ve meant to come in before but I never got round to it…” The vouchers gave them an excuse to come and have a look around without feeling awkward and the gig automatically gave them things to talk about with us.
- I love this shot. This was my view from the top of the “resources” table in the interval on opening night. Everyone immersed in books, wanting to see the source material that inspired the music. I’ll leave with some comments from the audiences of The Seam.
- So now I’m happy to take questions either live or via Glisser… Or later by email [librarian@mininginstitute.org.uk] or twitter if you’re shy!
- HANDOUT