The working life of Museum of London

Emma Ramsey recently volunteered for work experience at the Museum of London, and this is her account of her week:

“When I first decided to undertake work experience at the Museum of London, I was simply hoping to learn more about the Roman invasion of Britain and other periods of early history. So I was pleasantly surprised to come away, not only with more historical knowledge, but also with a good idea of what goes on in a museum behind the exhibitions and displays.

On Monday I began by sorting the entries for the London’s Burning exhibition poem activity, and typing up the audio recording of the Great Fire of London study day (held on 6 October 2007). I never really knew a great deal about the Great Fire before, but having listened to the recording of the study day for a good part of the week I feel as though I would have a good chance at Mastermind with ‘London in 1666′ as my chosen subject! Or at least, I was able to reply to an email sent in by someone asking what caused the fire at the end of the week.

On Tuesday afternoon I visited the Guildhall amphitheatre on a guided tour with the Roman curator Jenny Hall. This, coupled with my time spent in the Conservation lab on Thursday and Friday, taught me a lot about the methods of preservation used for wood and leather.

I also had the opportunity to see the Transit room on Thursday, where I got a sneak preview of some of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ items to go on display at the Museum in Docklands in May. [A note for readers: the Transit Store is a temporary storage room for objects either about to be installed in an exhibition/gallery or that have just been taken off display and are about to be sent back to their permanent stores.]

During the week I was also able to visit the costume department and sit in on a meeting about the events planned for National Archaeology Week. I also had the task of putting visitor comments from the Outside Edge exhibition at the Museum in Docklands into an Excel document in order to record its success. I always had plenty to do and it feels as though the week flew by. I would thoroughly recommend this work experience to anyone who is interested in history and how it is preserved as it really gave me a great insight into museum work and taught me skills that I would not learn at school. It was a thoroughly enriching experience, and I am grateful to the Museum for giving me the opportunity.”