15 May 2012

This week’s featured Adopt-a-Museum is the Armitt Museum in the Lake District in England, adopted by Alice Kershaw. Many thanks also to Zoe Dawes from The Quirky Traveller for providing the photograph.

8 May 2012

Adopt-a-Museum heads back to Germany this week with the Lehmbruck Museum, adopted by Sebastian Hartmann (aka @MuseumsHeld).

27 April 2012

Many people have been enquiring whether we’ll be repeating our very successful Museum Memories day (#MusMem) from last year. The answer is, yes and no.

Museum Memories was a run up event to International Museums Day, which had Museums and Memory as its theme last year. That’s why we asked  you to share you most memorable museum moments. So, we will be having another run up event, but it won’t be about memories this time.

This year’s International Museums Day theme is Museums in a Changing World: New challenges, New inspirations. We’ve decided to focus on the ‘inspiration’ part, so this year we’re asking you: What inspires you about museums? What is it that lit - and still lights - your spark? What’s your #MuseoSpark?

And that’s not all. We’ve been supporting @Culturetheme’s monthly themes from the start, and in return they’ve been supporting our projects, but #MuseoSpark marks the first time we’ll be teaming up to run a joint project. As we were both planning on doing something for International Museums Day, it made sense for us to do something together.

So, join us on Thursday 17th May on Twitter to share your #MuseoSpark with us!

24 April 2012

We’re really pleased to be adding a new country to the Adopt-a-Museum map this week, with the Waterford County Museum in Ireland, adopted by Mike Hackett.

23 April 2012

It’s UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day today, which is being celebrated in many countries, including Germany, to promote reading, publishing and copyright (though the UK celebrates their World Book Day in March). In addition, the USA, UK, Ireland and Germany are also celebrating World Book Night by gifting tens of thousands of books to people in their communities.

We may not have tens of thousands of books to give away, but Jenni used to run a book group in Edinburgh and still has a few copies left over from the book packages for group leaders she regularly received, so we thought we’d have our own little giveaway today. Here are the four titles:

1. Our Museum140 HQ are now set in Berlin, as is the first of our books. Chocolate Cake with Hitler is a fictionalised account of the life of Helga Goebbels, the eldest daughter of the Nazi Party’s Head of Propaganda. The last days of Hitler is a story that has been often told, but Emma Craigie’s debut novel gives a fresh and yet poignant insight through the eyes of Helga who, together with her family, shared those last days in the bunker at the heart of Berlin.
2. Romance novels aren’t really our thing, but we enjoyed the museum scenes in this romantic caper about the world’s greatest art thief that takes you from Paris to San Francisco (ok, we admit, we enjoyed dissecting the museum scenes^^). If you’re looking for a fun beach read with a museum-y twist, then you should give Where Would I Be Without You, by Guillaume Musso, a chance.
3. For a summer read with a bit more substance, Olivia Glazenbrook’s drama The Trouble With Alice really gets to you. Beautifully written, this story centres around the lives of Kit and Alice, and their dog Bones, and literally starts with a bang when they are involved in a car accident whilst on holiday and changes everything. It’s an unconventional love story, but also a story of compassion and reconciliation. 
4. Finally, we thought we’d throw in a copy of one of #MuseumBaby’s favourite books. Who doesn’t love Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar? It’s so popular that most people may have a copy of it already, but if you’re in need of a spare or want to surprise someone who hasn’t yet been introduced to the caterpillar and it’s enormous appetite, then it’s here for the taking. BTW, did you know there’s an Eric Carle Museum in Massachusetts, USA?