Supporting digital skills development across two museums.

#Reading: Town and Country is a joint project between Reading Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) funded by Arts Council England. These two museums cover a broad swathe of history and culture: Reading Museum for the town, and the Museum of English Rural Life for the country. Together, they want to make the best of both museum’s areas of expertise to better serve Reading’s communities in new, digital ways. To do this, the #Reading: Town and Country project takes stock of how the two museums use digital technologies and the skills of their staff. Training is then provided in the digital areas with most potential, before the enhanced skills are applied in shared projects between the two museums.

Anna Faherty worked with staff from Reading Museum and MERL to develop and deliver three bespoke training workshops delivered within the project’s ‘Digital Den’ sessions. These workshops were intended to raise participants’ awareness of blogs and blogging, support them as they developed their own blogging strategies and enhance their storytelling and writing skills for non-specialist audiences.

Read more about the overall project at Reading Museum and Medium.