This month, the fourth dedicated Connected Earth exhibition opens at Edinburgh?s Royal Museum, writes Ylva French. It is one of four permanent exhibitions which have been created in museums around the UK as part of BT?s Connected Earth, a £6m project, which attempts to safeguard the future of telecommunications heritage in the UK.
Connected Earth has involved bringing together 40,000 objects from across the UK, from telephone kiosks to telegraph poles. At the BT store in Ashford these were assessed for their museological importance by a team of volunteers who were mostly former BT engineers. Simultaneously, the partnership that was to make up Connected Earth was coming together. Museums with appropriate existing collections and interest were approached and a good geographical spread achieved, from Cornwall to Scotland.
Through work with partner museums, permanent exhibitions were planned in an attempt to create a national collection which would be shared between eight Connected Earth partner museums and others. At the same time, BT was setting about establishing a museum on the Internet. This database-driven, multi-media website now holds over 1,600 pages of information with some 2,000 illustrations. In addition, two new dedicated curatorial and research posts in the subject of telecommunications have been endowed at the National Museums of Scotland and at the Science Museum. The vision throughout has been to develop and build on this network to nurture and encourage the future preservation of, access to and interest in the nation?s telecommunications heritage.
As David Hay, BT?s head of corporate memory, comments, ?This has been a truly innovative project, which we are excited to be taking forward. We have already started the major task of integrating the former BT Museum?s documentary collections into the archives, which will continue to be managed from within BT as a key component of the company?s corporate memory. We?ll also be looking to establish closer links between the BT Archives website and the museum on the Internet.?
Connected Earth is a unique collaboration between the corporate, public and independent heritage sectors. Several key factors mean BT can consider the exercise a success:
? the core of the collection is in safe hands for the future
? the Internet and the new exhibitions mean that the UK?s heritage can now be accessed by a worldwide audience
? the foundation has been laid for research and scholarship in telecommunications heritage
? property housing the varied collections has been released for re-use or resale which has helped finance the original investment
? hundreds of retired BT staff remain involved as volunteers at museums around the country.
The Connected Earth concept stands as a model for the responsible management and future preservation of a corporate heritage collection within a secure, sustainable framework.
Ylva French is PR consultant to BT?s Connected Earth. The online museum can be accessed at http://www.connected-earth.com. BT?s archive resources can be accessed at http://www.btplc.com/archives.