Museum E mail

Generally, the national museums are good at replying to enquiries and have dedicated staff to do so. However, it may be a bit harsh to criticise and generalise about the smaller independent museums which are, generally, volunteer run.

In a previous life (!), and pre-internet days, I was involved in setting up and running the Tangmere Museum and we were always inundated with letters (and phone calls) seeking information about a whole range of related or in-related topics. Sadly, we had to filter – especially when there was an expectation on time, postage costs etc. – or where no definite benefit to the museum could be perceived. Harsh, but that was the position. And, we all had full time jobs and a museum to run.

Even now, and often via this forum, many of us get requests to help with this, that or the other. Personally, I always try to help people but it often can involve a lot of time – especially when it involves seeking out documents, information or photos. Sometimes, it just isn’t possible – and I suspect that is much the case with some museums. Plus, volunteers are…well…volunteers. And there shouldn’t be an expectation of attention to what can be many queries a week, although some of these museums are exceptional in their attention to queries.

Of course, in respect of Britain at War, we also get many queries and do answer all of those even if we can’t directly help.

My accountant still had a fax facility. A good way of sending documents if
you don’t have a scanner.

To add a bit of levity………

If you really want to get revenge on a fax recipent – tape six sheets of A4 paper together on the short end into a continuous length and feed one end into your fax machine – and as it emerges from the back, loop it round and tape the first sheet to the last sheet to form a continuous loop.

As this loop continues to be sent, it will tie up the recipients fax machine and use up loads of his paper as it prints out the blank sheets.

If you really want to be perverse – use black paper – this will use up all the recipients ink as well.

An amusing and true email story….

When I worked in IT, the boss’s daughter – on work experience – went on leave and set up an ‘out of office’ reply to incoming emails, to inform everyone that she was out and would reply later.

Only trouble was, she included her own email in the list of recipients – so her reply to herself triggered another email, which triggered another etc.

This went on for some time – until, with no-one to stop it, the email server filled up and crashed the mail system.

Meamwhile, back to the serious discussion about museums and emails…

Ken

I always do my best to answer any e-mails (certainly not the worst our there) but I have to work and have a mortgage to pay so it is very difficult to answer every enquiry we get so I have to filter them to some degree. Time is the bigest problem and keeping on top of the e-mail is almost a full time job. I always try to help families, visitors who have questions about the museum first, then we get a lot of modellers who want us to scrape off paint samples and send them to America! these kind of requests are just not viable for several reasons.

…which is a bit like saying a cylinder player is a good way of playing music of you don’t have a gramophone.

🙂

My accountant still had a fax facility. A good way of sending documents if
you don’t have a scanner.

…which is a bit like saying a cylinder player is a good way of playing music of you don’t have a gramophone.

🙂

i think some of you have missed the point, yes i could write or telephone, but most museums have a e mail address for contacts, and then don’t respond so why have one in the first place.

My accountant still had a fax facility. A good way of sending documents if
you don’t have a scanner.

So why go to the lengths to set up and publicise to specifically contact them via email why bother at all if they don’t use it.

In my example they were asking for help and some pretty hard to find bits via their site supplying a fill out contact form

The telephone is a very good alternative to e-mail if ……

– you get more than a recorded message when the call is answered
– you can get beyond the receptionist, if he/she will allow you enough time to explain the purpose of your call and/or knows the right person to deal with that
– you are not told that the person you want is unavailable and that there’s no-one to take a message, so would you please call back later
– best of all, you know who you want to speak to and can get that person’s direct line and/or mobile number

The trouble is that the latter information tends to be guarded like the Crown Jewels and if you do get it, often the call recipient’s response tends to be something along the lines of: ‘how the hell did you get this number …..’!

I can’t speak for other museums but our email inbox is monitored constantly and even though we aren’t the biggest museum there is a constant stream of enquiries all of which are responded to promptly unless they are trying to sell us stuff. It’s not hard to keep on top of it, is it?

Do people still use fax? I haven’t used one since 2008.

Often email addresses shown on websites such as [email]info@xyz.co.uk[/email] or [email]admin@abc.com[/email] are never answered not because people dont care or want to use computers it is more likely they dont know they are there. Try using a personal email such as [email]john.smith@themuseum.com[/email] Once contact is made and you are in the loop, you will be fine. Not sure if using the telephone has been mentioned, you can always leave a message quoting your own email address as the preferred contact.

Also please remember dormant email addresses that do not get answered can sometimes be deleted by the service provider, examples might be [email]abc@virgin.com[/email] might have been cancelled if the user has left the Virgin network.
I know it is still the museums fault for not updating things, but these things happen.

Museums also have addresses: have you bothered to write? I suspect that a letter would have been much more likely to have been read and responded to, for any and maybe all of the reasons given above. For every non-adopter of recent technology there is an adopter with a blind eye to alternatives. If we all paid attention only to the latest technology there would be no museums, and no interest in them.

If writing is a bit too old-fashioned for you, you could also try telephoning?

A fax! Those are only to be found in a museum these days? In a display case, not the office.

just a quick observation,
why do aircraft museums have contact E mail addresses yet they don’t bother to respond:mad:

Are you prepared to name and shame? There might just be someone on this thread who can contact the museum directly for you.

I remember when my Brother in Law was working at Luton airport, they put a computer in his office. He never turned it on.
Saying that if someone wanted to tell him something, they knew where to find him.

Hopefully he has long since retired? I don’t understand the mentality that beyond a certain age you should have carte blanche to stop learning or developing your skills and actively take pride in rejecting any changes and improvements brought into the workplace. I’m speaking from bitter personal experience, at least in part. I find this all especially amusing as this forum celebrates technological achievement and innovation, albeit fizzling out somewhere around 1965. In the case outlined above this steadfast aversion to technology has potentially hurt a museum that would benefit from the donation of a relevant aircraft part and, as such, I have very limited sympathy and patience for anybody that just doesn’t “do” computers.

I will now get back to smashing up this loom. :rolleyes:

thanks for the reply guys, Twinotter, i am hoping the replies will come for that , you would have been my next port of call, oh well.
sabrejet, the RAF museum are fantastic, the help i received when doing the Spearfish drawing was unbelievable and all for free, Paul Hudson waved any charges, a great guy.

The problems with emails, is that someone has to log onto a computer and read them. (Not everyone uses smartphones)
A lot of museums will be staffed by volunteers, who never go near a computer.

Better to send a fax if available.

I remember when my Brother in Law was working at Luton airport, they put a computer in his office. He never turned it on.
Saying that if someone wanted to tell him something, they knew where to find him.

Also a lot of museums and others have to set the spam high as they get tens or hundreds a day so maybe you get whisked up in those, also a lot of museums are run by individuals who may only check them every so often just a thought.

just a quick observation,
why do aircraft museums have contact E mail addresses yet they don’t bother to respond:mad:

It’s bit of a sweeping statement: both RAF Museum and IWM are very good at responding.

Examples?

Likewise I assist NAM in monitoring two of their ‘departmental’ email accounts and I always try to respond as quickly as possible.

sagindragin I did see your separate Sea Hawk appeal but don’t believe that NAM has a relevant AP, otherwise I would have responded!

Had exactly this last week

A museum website has a list of items wanted to finish their restoration some of which I have to hand spare, saying if anyone has the parts or can lead them to the parts. Sent an email, got an automatic response saying you will be contacted within 24 hours. Nothing at all after that.

Screw em !, why should I hunt them down to help them. My next worse experience with museums has been to say things like, they will discuss it at their next committee meeting in three months time