Work Experience week

A guest post by Coralie Smith, work experience student from Bedford Sixth Form

During my time at North Herts Museum this week for my Year 12 Work Experience I have gained lots of experience in what it takes to work at a museum and found it very interesting as prior to coming here I had little knowledge on the work that was done for the museum to function. All the staff at the museum have been so friendly during my week here and I found it very interesting to learn all about the different roles that are taken on by them.

I found it very interesting to see how far back in time some of the objects displayed at the museum go and loved learning the history behind them, my favourite being a Denarius of Elagabalus from Baldock which is being shown in their LGBT+ display where I learnt is considered to be one of the first known genderfluid Roman rulers.

As well as this, I found it very insightful being taught how to accession objects which are donated to the museum and learning how to do this in both the accessions register and their online database Ehive. On Ehive I found it very interesting to see the variety of items that have been donated to the museum and then researching items that I found interesting and didn’t have prior knowledge in. Overall, my time at the museum has been very eye opening in developing an understanding about the jobs that are done while working at a museum and learning different skills that are needed to do these jobs.

Coralie working on the record for a Peter Rabbit plush