About
On this page we tell you about some of the things we have been doing at the museum.
London Canal Museum has become the first museum
in London to be accredited as a "green" museum by Green Tourism for London,
part of the national Green Tourism Business Scheme which is the largest
accreditation scheme for tourism businesses' eco-credentials. The museum
achieved bronze status in the scheme and will be working in the future to reach
the silver level. To improve its eco-performance prior to assessment we
introduced a recycling scheme using facilities provided by Islington Council,
who collect recyclables free from charities in the Borough. We also insulated
the loft with two layers of a very environmentally-friendly material called
Eco-wool, made from recycled plastic bottles.
The museum is affected by the plans to redevelop King's Cross Station which include a new platform line on the east side of the station. This means no access from York Way to platform 1, a useful route to and from the museum and the station. The redevelopment is going to move the concourse to the west side of the station and together with the new platform line this is going to mean that the area of London north-east of the station will be effectively cut off from the heart of the transport complex. A long circumnavigation will be needed to reach it. A local community campaign is under way to persuade Network Rail to fund a footbridge from the north end of the station on York Way, to the west side of the station near the new concourse. Although expensive this would provide far better access from the heart of the transport interchange to the business, residential, and cultural area to the north east of the station, which includes the museum. The museum is supporting this campaign. The campaign website is called King's Cross Access.
The museum has changed one of its most poplar exhibits, the archive film show that runs continuously during opening hours. Previously a 1991 documentary film "The Regent's Canal" accompanied the 1924 silent film "Barging Through London". The 1991 film had become out of date without having the antiquity to be a period piece, therefore the decision was taken to source additional archive film of London's canals in their working days.
We chose three new short films from the British Pathe film archive:
The 1924 film "Barging Through London" remains in the programme.
The untimely death in October 2007 of museum trustee Mike Stevens was a shock to everyone at the museum and the wider waterways movement of which he was a prominent part. One of his major contributions to public understanding of waterways history was a series of over 230 maps of the waterways of England and Wales that illustrated the development of the system over two centuries. The maps were published on his personal website which is no longer maintained. A copy of the website has been archived in the museum. The map resource is a vast and valuable one and with the agreement of Mike's widow these have now been republished on the London Canal Museum site as a permanent memorial to their author as well as a valuable resource for the public benefit. They have added an increase of about one-third to the overall number of pages on the site. The maps may be found by looking at:
www.canalmuseum.org.uk/history/maps.htm
Visually Impaired People can now enjoy a comprehensive audio tour of the museum thanks to generous support from the City Bridge Trust. The project involved the writing of a special script, designed for those with limited or no vision. The tour was produced for the museum by Flexi Audio Tours. It operates by detecting the location of the visitor and automatically triggering the appropriate sound track for that location so even if the visitor gets lost, they will still hear the right part of the script.
There is no charge for the use of the tour, which is approporate for visually impaired people only. Those with vision should download our podcast tour (see below)
The
museum hosted one of the most unusual of launch events in mid-October with a
launch event for a duo who make a creuise through a long and arduous flight of
locks on the English canals seem like nothing. On the 2nd December 2007, Scott
McNaughton, partner at BDO Stoy Hayward and Neil Hunter, marine engineer in the
Royal Navy, are setting out to row from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the
Carribean in a little boat that is smaller than a narrowboat and largely open.
The launch event saw their boat parked outside - there being no nearby slipway
that would have made it possible to float it into the canal. Scott and Neil are
rowing for Diabetes UK and aim to make as much money as possible for that
charity. The journey will involve challenges not usually encountered on
London's canals, such as sharks, just to begin with, and weather conditions
that may be a little more challenging than in London. They don't expect to see
a Christmas tree during the festive season, or eat a turkey. The launch party
saw a charity auction for Diabetes UK, a display of pictures from Antigua, and
around 150 or more well-wishers heard a presentation about the dangers to be
faced by the courageous duo. The museum arranged communications for a mini
Internet cafe so that donations could be made online. You can follow tScot and
Neil's progress and make a donation or sponsor them by looking at their trip
website:
and there is a video presentation with pictures of the launch at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lU94vKHiSE
On 14th September the museum's new podcast tour went live. The museum is believed to be the first UK museum to offer a downloadable audio tour of its permanent exhibitions. Audio tours to download have been available from some museum websites in the USA for some time, and some UK museums, notably the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, have made good use of the format for other purposes such as background information, interviews with curators and for oral history. No UK museum is known to have done something comparable.
Anyone who has travelled on a London bus can attest that half the population of the City has a "thing in his or her ear" and in most cases that thing will be a device capable of playing the museum's new audio tour. MP3 players, Apple Ipods, handheld computers, PDAs and many mobile telephones are all capable of playing MP3 audio files. People will be more comfortable using their own gadget that they are used to controlling, than a device provided by the museum as is traditional for audio tours.
The podcast is accompanied by a "taster" called Introduction to London's Canals which whet's the appetite and is intended to be listened to not in the museum but on the train or bus, at home, or during a break at work!
The podcast has been designed with a clear purpose in mind, to enhance the value of a visit to the museum and add to the educational benefit of the visit as well as to be informative, entertaining, and enjoyable. It does not duplicate the exhibitions but adds to them, It is hoped to create more audio recordings in the future with an MP3 towpath walk a distinct possibility.
The podcast tour is suitable for anyone who can listen to an MP3 but for deaf and hearing-impaired visitors a transcript is also available in Adobe PDF format. Neither the podcast nor the transcript are available at the museum - they have to be downloaded from the website. This will usually be before a visit, although the museum is a Wi-Fi hotspot and those who bring a laptop or handheld computer with them could download it on site. It will also shortly be available via the museum WAPsite for mobiles.
See Podcast Tour page to download
A substantial amount of change to this website has been taking place as part of a long term programme of redevelopment. A number of pages have been converted to the pull-down menu format that is now used on most parts of the site. Some new sections have been created to encompass related pages and bring a more easily understood structure to the site. Due to the large size of the site it is not possible for all pages to be reached from every menu - to do so would mean menus that were unusably lengthy. The site has therefore been divided into sections, several of which are large websites in their own right.
If you notice anything that does not work correctly, please let the webmaster know by e-mailing webmaster@canalmuseum.org.uk.
The museum's audio tour for visually impaired visitors is nearly ready for installation. The script was recorded at a London studio in August and the tour is expected to be operation in September. The audio tour is the last of a series of improvements for disabled visitors funded by the Bridge House Trust. The tour will enable visually impaired and blind people to enjoy the exhibitions using a hand-held audio unit. Whilst there will be a suggested route, the system selected will recognise the location of the visitor and will automatically begin the appropriate dialogue when the visitor has reached that part of the building.
The
museum's project to create a large scale wall map of London's canal network has
been completed. The whole of the London area is covered and a great deal of
detail is combined with a style that will make the map easy for everyone to
appreciate and enjoy. There is an introductory panel just before the map,
showing the context of London in the waterways of England. The map is just over
2.5 metres wide. A lighting installation is in place to ensure it can be seen
easily. A low-level version of the map is provided for wheelchair users, on a
series of separate sheets, suspended on a poster display frame specially
imported from the United States, because it was not available in the UK.
Wheelchair users and anyone who wants to look very closely at the detail, will
therefore be well provided for. The map drew on earlier work by Richard Dean
who kindly gave his permission for re-use of some of his work. Richard's map is
on sale in the museum shop. A great deal of development work has been done by
London Canal Museum staff and the map has been designed by a map specialist
working with the Continuum Group, who have been for some years the museum's
main designers. The map project has been the product of a huge amount of work
behind the scenes in historical research, specification, and project
management, and in checking and updating the draft versions until we were as
sure as humanly possible that no errors remained.
