APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING
www.24hourmuseum.org.uk
February 2002
Welcome to the first 24 Hour Museum email newsletter for museums, galleries
and everyone in the professional sector.
This is a round-up of news, information about planned content and subjects
we may need help with. Please pass this mail on to anyone else in your
organisation you consider an appropriate recipient. If you don't want to
receive this mail again please send a blank email to:
[log in to unmask] and you'll be taken off our list.
If you have been forwarded this mail by a colleague and would like to be
sent future 24HM mailings directly, please mail us at
[log in to unmask]
Statistics and good news!
We had a total of over 500,000 visitor sessions to the site last year. By
the end of 2001 it became clear we have seen a dramatic rise in visitor
numbers, year on year.
Compare visitor sessions for the first week of January 2001 with the first
week of January 2002: visitor sessions grew from 8,975 to 13,170 - a huge
47% rise. A comparison of unique visitors (ie. not including any repeat
visitors) in the same weeks of January 2001 and 2002 showed a massive 75%
increase from 3,090 to 5,429.
Our visitor figures have grown steadily since our re-launch in October and
last week (commencing 4th Feb) saw our best week ever with nearly 500,000
hits and over 14,000 visits.
DDE
Our Direct Data Entry system is a simple way to enter your events and
exhibition details straight into the 24 Hour Museum database. The info then
shows up almost simultaneously on our 'Today's Listings' section.
DDE is proving very popular with museums and galleries all over the UK.
Since October 2001 over 400 users have signed up - if you haven't yet joined
email [log in to unmask] for a password.
Content coming up - new museum and gallery trails
What is a trail? It's an online narrative feature designed to encourage
visitors out into museums and galleries. Some are interactive,
graphically-rich productions built with outside (voluntary) help from web
designers. Other trails are simpler text-based trails we build ourselves
using our own Index+ content management system.
Trails continue to be a great success. The Harry Potter Museum trail
featured 50 museums all over the UK and our web analysis software showed an
increase of over 500% to that directory between October and November, no
doubt inspired by Potter mania. The Tolkien trail was also popular with
readers, bringing in 7% of all hits in the same period.
Virgin.net have re-published, with our co-operation, both the Football
Museums trail and the Tolkien Trail, including prominent links to 24HM. We
will be looking into other co-publishing deals in an effort to increase our
public visibility and grow the visitor numbers even further.
Below is a list of trails planned for 2002. With some of these we will
certainly need help from curators and gallery staff.
1. Golden Jubilee trail. Is your museum or gallery planning anything?
Contact Jon Pratty: [log in to unmask]
2. National Science Week, March 8-17. Anra Kennedy (who wrote our Harry
Potter trail) is putting together a science and technology trail. Contact
Anra at [log in to unmask]
3. Military Museums: a trail of Canadian second world war military sites in
Britain is in preparation, plus trails of interest to American ex-service
personnel. The Canadian trail is planned to coincide with the anniversary of
the Dieppe Raid in 1942. Contact [log in to unmask]
4. Espionage. Will cover activities by SOE and security services during
World War Two, Bletchley Park etc. plus Cold War spying activity in London.
Contact: [log in to unmask]
5. Cricket History trail - contact David Prudames at the 24HM office:
[log in to unmask]
6. Textiles/embroidery/weaving. Possibly an interactive trail. Contact:
[log in to unmask]
7. Historic communications sites - eg. Porthcurno, Goonhilly, Marconi
Museum. Cornwall is full of sites on this subject, but what about the rest
of Britain? Contact: [log in to unmask]
8. Preserved Railways, Motor Museums and other transport history locations.
Contact: [log in to unmask]
9. The Trench We are planning a trail to coincide with the BBC's new series
on life in the trenches. If you think your museum should be included, please
contact [log in to unmask] with collection details before March 5th
Press Releases
Please keep the press releases coming in to us. We do read each one and if
your event or exhibition doesn't get into a story on the site, we will check
to see if it has been entered into the event database. If not, it will be
inputted and will show in the Today's Listings section. Regrettably, we
cannot reply when you send us a release.
We get lots of press releases sent in and we 'd like to cover many more
stories than we do, but personnel resources are short. With one writer in
the office (Editor, Jon Pratty) there's a limit to what can be done.
However, more student and volunteer writers are joining us, increasing the
number of exhibitions and news stories we can cover.
Museums and Galleries Month 2002
Once again we are working in partnership with Museums and Galleries Month
and making sure all your MGM events are promoted on both websites.
Deadline for grants for MGM 2002 events in England of up to £1000 is March
8. Up to 100 grants are available and there are two strands to the funding
this year: 'Get It Together' is for collaborations with Libraries and
Archives, and 'Do You KS3', covers schools partnerships targeting KS3
children. Contact Holly Garrett at Engage for more info:
[log in to unmask] or telephone her on 0207 278 8382.
Professional sector news
Please keep an eye on our 'For Museums and Galleries' section on the website
where you'll find regular news updates of interest to all in the sector.
The 24 Hour Museum
PO Box 3470
Brighton
BN1 1DA
01273 820044
www.24hourmuseum.org.uk
Education site of the year, BT/New Statesman New Media Awards 2001
Britain's first national virtual museum.
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