When you point out in a sudden panic to a colleague "DON'T PUT YOUR HAND THERE!" and then have to chisel lumps of dried on nasal matter from an exhibition wall.
 I’m not saying that these wouldn’t happen at other times of the year, just that they certainly happened during the school summer break at our museum.
More museum holiday fun? Find out what I've overheard in the holidays here. I thought it was a piece of paper on the floor of the museum. I honestly thought I was just picking up a receipt or a crunched up ticket. That was why I blithely picked it up. And then froze as I pondered "Why is this paper wet?" AND IT WAS HAM.   A previous venue I worked at had some offices in the older refurbished areas of the building, as well as the newly built extension. They were cramped, but very beautiful as a work space. One staff member had regular "visitors", as her office was the first door at the very top of the main stair case.
To get to the top of the stairs, people had to actively climb over or unclip two rope barriers, and squeeze around or move a Private sign on a freestanding post. On one occasion, she had to ask a visitor if they would delete the photo they had just taken of her sitting at her desk.
 Sketch done at the British Museum, of two of the many offenders happy to be trampled come an evacuation.
I chose these two as they were sat slap bang by the signs, and couldn't have not seen them when sitting down. When someone vandalises your ancient monument, would you want to: A) Imprison them. B) Fine them. C) Get them to do community service on the site. D) Get them to write a research paper on the site, so they have to look into it's history, religious and societal significance, and then explain what they have learnt about it. Kudos to the manager of Serpent Mound, and the local Assistant Prosecutor, who think that A is unlikely, B won't change any attitudes, so want C and D to happen.
Daniel Coleman Dargavell allegedly jumped the curb in the parking lot in the middle of the night over the Fourth of July weekend and attempted to drive a large white pickup over a 2,000-year-old Adena Mound.
Prison time – if he's found guilty – is a long shot, said Armstrong of the prosecutor's office, who is unsure whether he'll ask that Dargavell do any time. "Someone else, a family member likely, is going to pay the restitution up front," Armstrong said, "but I want (Dargavell) to have a significant investment in this, that would mostly be community service." Sometimes, when things like this happen, the party that was vandalized never wants to see the vandal again, Armstrong said. Not Serpent Mound manager Goodwin. "In fact, they were already coming up with a list of things they want him to do," Armstrong said. Story pulled from here.
Feeling nervous? The idea of the annual day is "to educate the public about various professions in the museum world" with a website "to provide museum professionals with a platform to inform the general art and museum-loving public about the myriad responsibilities and challenges that they face at work on a day-to-day basis." Why hugging? "The event is fun, well, because it is, as are museums. And, most of us can do with a hug on a regular basis – especially all over-worked, under-paid with little job-security museum staff." (more here) They admit themselves that the day's name is "a somewhat flippant title", and it led to some entertaining responses online, (my favourite of which is this article "Many museum workers are introverts who went into museums specifically because they did not want to be near, much less touch, regular people. In fact, they often don’t want to be around their own colleagues either.") followed by a swift explanation on the Hug A Museum Worker blog.  There doesn't seem to be a huge following for the idea yet, with their social media numbers low, and most discussion about the day being jokes made by self-confessed introverted museum workers. What solid interaction there has been seems to have taken to the concept with a good sense of humour. It's also given a small platform to raise awareness of what benefits museums bring to the community and the broader stage.
It's a good ambition, to make people aware of the full crew that go into making museums happen, and encouraging appreciation of their work. Will it catch on as a thing? Not sure, so let's brace for June 29th 2016.
 A synopsis of the email I received:
"My gallery encourages lunch break visits... very popular to relax for 15 minutes in the city... council staff use the cafe as it's the nearest real coffee to the main office...They got aggressive, began almost shouting, acted like I'd yelled at them or spoken like they were stupid or something. It was upsetting when I'd been as polite as possible to them when they knew they were openly breaking rules." This pair were hoist by their own petard though. As they were wearing their council badges, the gallery manager was able to contact their manager about their conduct in public. This local authority apparently has rules about conduct while publicly identifiable as council staff, so having offered that tidbit, the gallery manager left the rest in the hands of their manager.
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Webcomic and occasional blog about the heritage sector.
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