1. Dungarvan Museum and The Irish Museum Of The Year Awards 2. Christmas Articles 3. Book Sale 4. Changing Email address for this mailing list ============================================== 1. Dungarvan Museum and The Irish Museum Of The Year Awards ============================================== Dungarvan Museum has won first prize in the Irish Museum awards for the web site www.dungarvanmuseum.org. This an amazing result for a small voluntary museum and we won half of our annual budget as prize money 3850 Euro. The press release can be read below. Thanks to all who provided the site and museum with encouragement, suggestions, artifacts etc. Thanks also to the list administrators who allow us to post our news on these genealogy lists it is very much appreciated. Hopefully this award will be a stepping stone towards the Museum achieving County Museum status. Becoming a County Museum will ensure that we have full time staff and a budget to match our ambition. Yours Martin and Willie Whelan Dungarvan Museum Triumphs At The Museum Of The Year Awards 2002 marks the tenth year of the Museum Of The Year Awards. Originally designed by the Northern Ireland Museums Council at the request of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Awards are now promoted in partnership with the Heritage Council in Kilkenny, and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland. The aims of the Museum of the Year Awards are to highlight and celebrate the achievements of museums and collections as they strive to care and protect our heritage, and make it as accessible to as many people as possible. The Awards are open to all museums, galleries and collections in Ireland which house permanent collections of artefacts. All such institutions are encouraged to enter the Awards scheme: large and small, officially funded or voluntary run, new and established, and covering all interests — arts, natural history, science, archives, military and social history, design, etc. Following on from Dungarvan Museum’s website being short-listed among the top five research museum web sites in the world at the sixth annual Museums and the Web conference (held in Boston), the society was awarded Best Publication for Visitors at the Irish Museum Of The Year Awards 2002, for the innovative approach and excellent design of its web site www.dungarvanmuseum.org . The judges noted the formative partnership between the museum and a local web design company Deise Design www.deisedesign.com . The Best Publication Award went to the museum or gallery, which, in the eyes of the judges, has issued the most appropriate book, catalogue, web site, guide or other publication within the last year. Other museums short listed for the award included, The National Museum Of Ireland, The National Gallery Of Ireland & The Ulster Museum . Publication has traditionally meant bound books printed on paper and distributed via bookshops and other retail outlets. Dungarvan Museum Society has been part of this tradition for as long as it has been in existence. Aware of the costs that can be incurred in producing and distributing speciality publications, the society sought to utilise the new medium of the Internet to create and distribute its ‘publications’ worldwide. Over time the web site evolved into an electronic archive of local history articles. Dungarvan Museum became it’s own publishing house at a cost of €150 per annum. The website is effectively unlimited in size and is automatically distributed worldwide to it’s readers. Despite its voluntary museum status Dungarvan Museum has placed itself at the forefront of online history publication in Ireland. The contents of the web site are broken up into 7 broad categories, General Information, Exhibitions, Artifacts, Photographs, Downloads, Virtual Tours and Desperate Haven ­ The Famine In Dungarvan. Interesting material on the site includes a 400-page history of the Famine in Dungarvan Poor Law Union, Lewis's Topographical Dictionary describing the condition of every Parish in County Waterford in 1837 and the memoirs of George Lennon Officer Commanding West Waterford Flying Column during the War Of Independence. Prior to Christmas it is hoped to publish Siobhan Lincolns book ‘Ardmore Memory And Story’ on the site. At the moment the site has over 1700 pages on local history. The site uses text, video, photographs, virtual tours and downloads to explore many topics of local historical interest (the Famine, the Moresby Disaster, King John’s Castle, Co. Waterford Men in the Great War, War Of Independence etc.). Publishing online is a cost free method for local historians to distribute articles they have written to a larger audience than would normally be available to them. New articles are added on a monthly basis. In the coming months a module will be added to the web site that will make site easier to read for the visually impaired and the colour blind. 1,500 different people visit the Dungarvan Museum web site per week. Putting information online has prompted many people to volunteer donations of artifacts and information. Various diaries, documents and photos that went abroad when their owners emigrated many generations ago are now being donated to the museum. The site allows the Irish Diaspora to ‘connect’ with the area their forefathers originated from in West Waterford. The Society now counts among its membership many people who live abroad and our free online mailing list has over 600 members. The success of Dungarvan Museum’s site revolves around the Content Management System installed by Deise Design www.deisedesign.com , an Internet consultancy based in Dungarvan. The Directors of Deise Design Martin and William Whelan are both committee members of the museum society. As their contribution to preserving the history of Waterford County they donated their software and web design expertise free of charge to the society. A Content Management System is a means of adding and altering content on a web site. Deise Design’s CMS took 3 years to develop. By going to a web site address and entering the correct password museum staff can gain access to the editorial package that allows them to change content on the Museum web site. Adding information to the site requires very little training; typically a staff member with experience of Microsoft Word can place text, images, downloads & hyperlinks on the site after 3 hours training. Many authors can simultaneously contribute content to the web site from different geographic locations, while the museum retains editorial control. Museum staff can directly change web pages and highlight and prioritise the newest and most important content, quickly and easily. ============================================== 2. Christmas Articles ============================================== We plan to put two articles on the museum web site between now and christmas. Eddie Cantwell a museum committee member has discovered 1 minute and 40 seconds of newsreel footage of Dungarvan in 1920. The footage is very exciting and the earliest film known to exist of the town. Congratulations to Eddie for this piece of detective work. The footage will be available free of charge on the Museum site in the next two week or so. The second article we are putting up is a book by Siobhan Lincoln the well known author from Ardmore. The book is a detailed look at growing up in Ardmore in the 30's and 40's. ============================================== 3. Book Sale ============================================== The annual museum book sale is set for the end of January 2003. The last book sale allowed us to buy the lights for the gallery area. With the proceed of this book sale it is hoped to buy conservation material. If anyone in the West Waterford are has books they don't want please drop them in to the museum.