Executive
Mia Ridge, MCG Chair
Doctoral researcher, Open University
Mia is currently researching a PhD in digital humanities (Department of History, Open University), focusing on crowdsourcing, digitisation and the geo-location of historical materials. Mia has published and presented widely on her key areas of interest including: user experience and human-computer interaction, audience engagement and crowdsourcing in the cultural heritage sector.
Formerly Lead Web Developer at the Science Museum/NMSI, Mia has worked internationally as a business analyst, digital consultant and web programmer in the cultural heritage and commercial sectors. Mia has post-graduate qualifications in software development (RMIT University, 2001) and an MSc in Human-Centred Systems (City University, London, 2011). She tweets at @mia_out and blogs at http://openobjects.blogspot.com/.
Alison Bean, Treasurer
Alison is a heritage and culture sector professional who has been active online since 1995, and working with digital media on a professional basis since 2002. Since 2008 she has been Web Officer at The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) and prior to this she spent more than six years at the arts production company Motiroti. Her professional experience includes website re-development, digital content creation and curation, social media operations, online community building, digital media strategy, online marketing and radio production. She has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Professional Writing and Communications and sub-majoring in Drama, a Certificate in Radio Operations, and is currently undertaking the Associateship of the Museums Association (AMA).
At the BPMA Alison initiated the Digital Media Strategy 2012-2016, and as part of this has been researching and developing interpretive and interactive ideas for mobile, digital and social media to be implemented as part of BPMA’s plans to build a new Postal Museum, gallery exhibition and visitor attraction. Alison is particularly interested in the possibilities offered by emerging media to deliver museum experiences beyond the museum walls.
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Adrian Stevenson, Secretary
Senior Technical Innovations Coordinator, Mimas, University of Manchester
Adrian is a Senior Technical Innovations Coordinator working in the libraries and archives team at Mimas, a national centre for technical innovations and data services based at the University of Manchester. Adrian is currently working on a number of open data and linked data projects. ‘Linking Lives‘ is using archival linked open data to build an interface based around people. He is also working on the JISC funded open data initiative called ‘Discovery‘ which is promoting the idea of aggregatable open data for libraries, archives and museums. Part of this work includes project managing the World War One Discovery project that is building a number of interfaces based on aggregated open data from museums, archives and libraries.
Adrian is also a guitar player, one of the directors of the annual Manchester Jazz Festival and hosts a radio show on Manchester’s ALL FM 96.9 station.
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Committee members
Dafydd James
Head of New Media, Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales
Dafydd leads the New Media department at Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales, which is responsible for developing digital content for all seven national museums in Wales. After gaining a Physics degree and an MSc in Multimedia Engineering, Dafydd began work as e-Learning Officer based at St Fagans: National History Museum. He developed various websites, Learning resources and exhibition displays before moving to his current role as Head of New Media. Dafydd is currently responsible for coordinating the department’s activities and implementing the organisation’s strategic initiatives in digital media. He is chair of the Technology Strand for People Collection Wales and a Trustee for Audiences Wales.
Denise Drake
Digital, Online and Social Media Coordinator at Birkbeck, University of London
Denise is Digital, Online and Social Media Coordinator for the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy at Birkbeck College. She works closely with academic and administrative staff from across the School to develop and systematise its on-line presence for potential students, researchers and staff to help maximise recruitment and build the profile of the School using new digital, on-line and social media platforms.
Denise previously worked as senior administrator in the Conservation Department at Tate and in a number of departments at the Victoria & Albert Museum including The National Art Library, the Archive of Art & Design, The British Galleries Project, Learning & Interpretation and Apsley House. After 2 years as part the web team at NICE, she rejoined the V&A as Web Content Manager for a HLF project Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership.
Denise graduated from Leicester Polytechnic in 1986 with a BA in History of Art and Design in the Modern Period, and from Birkbeck College, University of London in 2004 with an MA in Digital Art History. She graduated in 2011 as one of the fist cohort of a new MA in Digital Heritage by Distance Learning at the University of Leicester, completing a dissertation entitled Can museums create authentic and sustainable relationships with their audiences through social media?
Gemma Sturtridge, Events
Collections Systems Officer, Imperial War Museums
Gemma has over 8 years experience working in the museum sector. Her current diverse role gives her responsibility for the Imperial War Museum’s (IWM) collections management system Adlib. She has a well-rounded skill set of research, documentation and collections management as well as a good knowledge of HTML, SQL and databases. She is particularly interested in the application of IT for interpretation.
After graduating from the University of Birmingham with a BA Medieval Studies she completed a MA Museum Studies degree at University of Southampton. Gemma has worked at Museum of Croydon, Museum of London, Royal Naval Museum and Portsmouth City Museum.
Rhiannon Looseley, Events
Digital Collections Programme Manager, Museum of London
Rhiannon has over seven years’ experience of working in museums, much of it revolving around work on the web. She has a BA in French and History, an MA in Modern History and an MA in Museum Studies. She began her museum career at The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) where she worked in various different roles from 2005 until 2008.
In September 2008 she left the BPMA to take up a role as the Online Learning Manager at the Museum of London. In this role, she project managed the development of new online learning resources and programme manages the overall online learning offer at both the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands. Projects included overseeing the development of two interactive games for 3-5 year olds, developing web resources for special educational needs (SEN) schools, creating a new Picturebank of images for schools and colleges, developing a set of new ‘Pocket Histories’ and developing interactive whiteboard presentations and quizzes.
Rhiannon is now the Digital Collections Programme Manager at the Museum of London, programme managing various digital projects and working to improve some of the internal processes and procedures around digital collections to facilitate more projects in the future.
On the MCG Committee, Rhiannon works with Gemma on planning forthcoming events and conferences, taking responsibility mostly for all events communication.
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Rhiannon blogs at www.rhiannonlooseley.blogspot.com
Tony Harris
New Media Officer & Photographer, Government Art Collection
I have worked in cultural heritage at the UK Government Art Collection (GAC) since 2000 as a photographer, website development management, graphic designer and more recently as a podcaster. My role at the GAC also includes collection management system administration. Prior to this I worked as an architectural modelmaker and now use this experience to create 3D computer exhibition spaces using Google Sketchup.
I have completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Digital Colour Imaging at the London College of Communication (LCC) and this course has given me an in-depth knowledge of colour and digital colour in particular. The four projects I undertook on this course were all linked to cultural heritage photography and subsequently this has enabled me to refine the existing GAC photographic workflow to produce images to more exacting colour consistency.
I am currently the Chairman of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography (AHFAP), this is the UK’s only organisation for image professionals in the cultural heritage field.
Emma McLean
Emma is Digital Marketing Officer at Royal Museums Greenwich, which includes the National Maritime Museum, Royal Observatory Greenwich, The Queen’s House and Cutty Sark. Emma was appointed as the first digital marketing specialist at the Museum in 2010, her role inputs into a number of cross museum activities, including web content and design, email marketing, social media, online advertising, strategy and policy development and analytics for digital activity across the three sites.
Emma’s background is in audience development consultancy for the cultural sector. Her move to digital marketing grew out of the development of a benchmarking project to measure online engagement whilst working at Audiences London. This project compared online data from 12 of London’s biggest off-West End theatres, with an aim to find out what really matters to audiences and visitors when it comes to digital content.
Emma’s specialist experience lies in developing policy, process and understanding appropriate and effective use for promotional activity on social media, and meaningful evaluation and analysis of interaction with websites, advertising, social media and other platforms against targets and objectives.
Oonagh Murphy
Oonagh Murphy is a PhD Student in the Centre for Media Research and the Arts and Humanities Research Institute at the University of Ulster, Ireland. Her research looks at digital practice, engagement and innovation within the cultural sector; and she lectures on a range of courses including Museum Studies and Interactive Media Arts. Alongside academic research Oonagh is a Cultural Consultant and Freelance Arts Manager and has worked for a wide range of cultural organisations including the Frieze Art Fair, British Council, Craft NI, Young at Art and Arts & Business. . Oonagh holds a First Class Honors Degree in Arts Management, from De Montfort University, England (2008) and a Masters of Research, from University of Ulster, Ireland (2010). A fellow of both the RSA and Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, she regularly blogs about her work at oonaghmurphy.com and tweets @OonaghTweets
Danny Birchall
Danny Birchall is responsible for the website, games, blog and other digital stuff at Wellcome Collection. He has previously worked at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the British Film Institute. He has recently completed the MA Museum Cultures at Birkbeck College, and has written and presented on digital cultural heritage, games, and related subjects.
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Blog: museumcultures.wordpress.com
Andrew Lewis
Digital Content Delivery Manager, Victoria and Albert Museum
I am an information scientist with 23 years experience in information and cultural services, and have been directly managing change management in public-facing digital services since 2001. I have a BSc in Cybernetics and Control Engineering and an MSc in Information and Library Science. I am also a chartered (although lapsed!) librarian.
In my current role of Digital Content Delivery Manager for the V&A, I am responsible for the strategy for development of the technology and platforms that deliver digital content to the V&A website and on mobile. Previously I was Senior Web Content Manager, and managed the content programme for the website overall, including overseeing the migration programme for the 2011 major site redesign.
Previous to my four years at the V&A, I was Enquiries and e-Delivery Team Leader for Libraries, Information, Heritage and Arts at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead for 7 years. There I was responsible for the development strategy, and implementation, of digital services, including online information strategy, public access computers, self-service (on premises, the web and via phone), multimedia development and large library technology systems, (Content management, Library Management, PC access, etc)
My areas of expertise lie in the strategy, planning and implementation of digital technology. Professionally, I am an advocate of the effective delivery of services that our audiences will actually want to use, and find useful and relevant when they do. I believe in a pragmatic, but informed approach. I take a keen interest in both social and technology trends in digital, and I am a strong supporter of data-driven scalable solutions.
I am also a strong believer in taking an active part in the sector community and that we learn and grow more by participation (both inside the sector and by collaborating outside of it). I established the Digital Media department blog at the V&A. I am on the programme committees for (US) Museums and the Web and MuseumNext.
I am also an active maker and tinkerer in digital and physical stuff, and have been posting to my blog Making Weird Stuff for the past 3 years.
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Blog: makingweirdstuff.blogspot.com
Irida Ntalla
Doctoral researcher, City University
Irida Ntalla is a PhD researcher at School of Arts and Social Sciences, Centre of Cultural Policy and Management City University London. Her research examines interactivity in the context of the museum within UK, via the prisms of audience experience, affect, embodiment and space. Irida has a number of presentations, publications and chapters on the subject areas. She holds a master’s degree on Interactive Media – Critical Theory from the department of Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, London.
Irida has worked in cultural and art institutions in UK on areas of new and digital media, culture and heritage research. She is currently a teaching assistant at City University, and a student principal investigator of the AHRC funded (2013) project ‘New media, audiences and affective experiences’. She also coordinates a long-term heritage research in a theatre in London.
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[...] It looks to be a really great line-up this year (though I am a little biased being a member of the Museums Computer Group committee that’s organising the [...]
[...] takes a lot to put on an event like this so I’d like to start by thanking the MCG Committee, particularly Oonagh, Gemma, Rhiannon, Angus, John, David and Denise, the Programme Committee [...]