Annual Conference

18 and 19 June 2015

The Silk Mill, Derby Museums (Derby)

and Millennium Gallery, Museums Sheffield (Sheffield)

Call for contributions

The Social History Curators Group is a membership organisation dedicated to improving the status and provision of social history in museums and the standards of collections, research, display and interpretation. Our annual conference aims to facilitate the sharing of skills and experiences, and provoke debate around a current theme affecting our members through presentations, interactive workshops and tours.

This year’s theme is:

A Toast to the Future! New ways of engaging.

Social history practitioners have led the way in developing innovative methods to actively engage the public with our collections. Participatory practice, new methods of public engagement and innovating storytelling are key in an increasingly digital world where many museum collections are at our fingertips. How are practitioners responding to the need to provide new, fresh, innovative and exciting ways of engaging with museum collections?

SHCG believes there is a great deal to learn from the successes, failures and insights of each other’s work and would like to invite proposals from across the museum and cultural sector that broadly reflect thinking around the conference theme.

The following questions are for guidance only, but proposals should deliver thought provoking insight, showcase innovative ideas, reveal ‘how to’ or share stories of what not to do.

1.  What examples are there of museums pushing the boundaries through innovative public engagement, creating new and exciting work and widening the impact of social history collections?

2.  Embracing the digital- what can we learn from current projects using collections in new ways online? Are we engaging with more people or alienating our traditional visitors?

3.  The future of engagement- a brave new world or a huge challenge? What’s next for social history collections?

4.  Curating in partnership- Who are we curating with and for? Has this changed the role of the curator? What are the challenges?

5.  Tumblr. Twitter. Instagram. Whatsapp. Facebook. Trello. How has the increased use of social media affected the practitioner’s role and what innovative examples can we learn from.

6.  How can practitioners communicate current challenges that society and museums face ethically and responsibly? In light of this, how can we advocate more effectively for the work we do?

Please fill in the form below and return it to Jemma Conway and Verity Smith, Conference Organisers by Friday 30 January 2015. Contact details below.

Name
Organisation
Contact details
Please indicate how you would like to participate
Case study presentation (20 minutes)
Interactive workshop (45 minutes)
Other format idea: please specify
Please tell us why you believe your paper should be included in the 2015 SHCG conference (100 words max)
Abstract clearly indicating which theme or themes your paper will explore, and how it will explore it/them (300 words max)
Short biography of proposed speaker/s (100 words max)
Return to Jemma Conway and Verity Smith by Friday 30 January 2015.
If you have an idea which you would like to talk through before submitting your proposal, do email us, or call Jemma on 07758236704 or Verity on 07790665995.

Please note: speakers’ travel costs can be reimbursed (travel reimbursed at standard fare rate – booked by a cut-off date specified by the committee) and there will be no attendance fee on the day of speaking. Unfortunately we are unable to provide additional fees, subsistence costs or accommodation.