{"id":2506,"date":"2026-08-07T14:16:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/?p=2506"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:16:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:16:56","slug":"museum-studies-placement-2026-week-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/2026\/08\/07\/museum-studies-placement-2026-week-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum Studies Placement 2026 week 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This week it is time to introduce Holly, who is also with us until September, as the practical element of the Museum Studies MA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My name is Holly\u00a0Fletcher,\u00a0and I am a currently completing my\u00a0eight-week\u00a0placement at the University of Leicester Archives and Special Collections, whilst concluding my journey towards a postgraduate degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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During my first week,\u00a0I was\u00a0given\u00a0the opportunity to learn the process of accession box listing\u00a0using\u00a0the archive’s\u00a0Casson Mann material. Casson Mann gets its name from designers Dinah Casson and Roger Mann, who founded the company in 1984 and\u00a0specialised in\u00a0museum, exhibition, and interior design\u00a0projects.\u00a0Much of\u00a0the material consisted of\u00a0rolled up, large format architectural drawings of various design projects from the 1980s and 1990s, many of which being museum exhibition spaces.\u00a0I made note of\u00a0any\u00a0relevant information\u00a0that I\u00a0observed\u00a0on the\u00a0drawing\u00a0sheets and added it to the spreadsheet,\u00a0quickly\u00a0familiarising myself with\u00a0what is\u00a0required\u00a0for each field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to my prior experience in architecture as an undergraduate student, I was able to differentiate the types of orthographic drawings that were included, such as plans, sections, elevations, and detail drawings, as well as other 3D and axonometric drawings that each provide clients and contractors with different details of the proposed scheme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the tubes containing the rolled-up drawings were excessively full, meaning it was particularly necessary to sort through these and remove any material that may be less appropriate to keep, considering space and resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Assessing some rolled plans: several large rolled plans spread out on a desk, held down at the corners by small weights.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This\u00a0task\u00a0was interesting for two main reasons.\u00a0Firstly, it was my\u00a0introduction to accession\u00a0box listing\/accessioning\u00a0which I know\u00a0to be an essential responsibility for archivists when material is received into an archive, but also\u00a0my\u00a0first\u00a0venture into\u00a0hands-on\u00a0archive experience\u00a0in general. Secondly,\u00a0it was interesting to\u00a0observe\u00a0museum and gallery\u00a0design\u00a0drawings\u00a0from the perspective of\u00a0someone transitioning\u00a0academically from Architecture to Museum Studies and seeing how these two topics can\u00a0converge.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In addition to the physical material of the Casson\u00a0Mann collection,\u00a0during week one,\u00a0I was asked to\u00a0begin describing digital\u00a0material\u00a0submitted\u00a0by participants for the 2025 and 2026\u00a0Museum Studies Heritage Specialism Modules.\u00a0It has been interesting to learn the different responsibilities of an archivist, as well as how these\u00a0tasks\u00a0might differ depending on\u00a0the type of collection or format.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After completing my listing work with the Casson Mann material, I moved on to my main task\u00a0involving material from the\u00a0design company Metaphor, who specialised in\u00a0master planning, exhibition design and architecture. I have begun to sort through the accessioned boxes of Metaphor\u00a0material, rearranging it to be\u00a0grouped by job\/ client, so that cataloguing can take place in due course. Unlike\u00a0the material for\u00a0Casson Mann, much of the\u00a0Metaphor items\u00a0are\u00a0smaller in scale, mostly A4 and A3,\u00a0with\u00a0many drawings\u00a0or documents\u00a0being grouped together\u00a0as books\u00a0(Fig. 2).\u00a0Additionally, this collection is not limited to\u00a0paper,\u00a0containing\u00a0several\u00a0CDs, photographs,\u00a0projector slides, and physical models, to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Material in archive boxes and folders being reviewed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It was\u00a0established\u00a0early on\u00a0that I would be using selected material from the Metaphor collection\u00a0to create a\u00a0display for one of the University of Leicester\u00a0Library\u00a0display cases\u00a0about Metaphor\u2019s work, with the specific theme to be decided by myself. I have been considering this as I sort through and read the material for each project, with some jobs, such as the Olympic Museum\u00a0in Lausanne or the\u00a0Nasjonalmuseet\u00a0in Oslo,\u00a0standing out to me as potential focal points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thank you Holly, for that summary of your work over the last few weeks. And thank you to Luna too – you have both made a great start and I am looking forward to helping you learn and achieve lots over the rest of the placement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week it is time to introduce Holly, who is also with us until September, as the practical element of the Museum Studies MA. My name is Holly\u00a0Fletcher,\u00a0and I am a currently completing my\u00a0eight-week\u00a0placement at the University of Leicester Archives and Special Collections, whilst concluding my journey towards a postgraduate degree in Museum Studies from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2508,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions\/2508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}