In response to the clamour for maths-related ideas on the Group for Education in Museums e-list I have just photographed the Maths Year 2000 booklet I wrote with project manager Alan Newland (not John Bibby as I first thought, apologies to both lovely gents).
In my defence it was one of my very first consulting contracts more than 20 years ago – the proof, if any were needed, is that the lass holding the River and Rowing Museum salmon below is my daughter, now 26 and training to be a teacher herself.
Bear in mind that most if not all the faces will have changed (and some names are truly the late greats of museum learning), contact details will be out of date and even some museums will be no more (I had a real lump in my throat when it came to The Livesey in Southwark). I have omitted two pages of 2000 event dates but otherwise all is here.
Back in December 1999 many people genuinely believed that all technology would crash at midnight as the millennium turned. Heady times and maths enthusiasts quite naturally took the chance to up the profile of their subject.
I have always struggled with maths myself so I approached this project as though it needed to be fun and not just mathematical. The year’s contract taught me that maths is just another universal language, and one of the most ancient.
This was a free Museums Association publication sent out with Museums Journal in late 1999. I am an MA member and I hope I am not transgressing copyright rules by reproducing it here. If I am, message me and I will take it down right away. It was simply the quickest way to get it to ‘out there’ again to those interested. It seems to me we need another Museum Maths Year…
MATHS THEMES
ORIGINAL PARTNERS/FUNDERS
A – Z of maths case studies in UK museums
Vee Walker is an author and heritage consultant, now living in the Black Isle just north of Inverness. Her WWI novel Major Tom’s War was awarded a prize for military fiction at the SAHR Awards and in the same year she was awarded the Hugh Miller Writing Competition prize for fiction. You can contact her via her website at http://www.majortomswar.com.
Vee Walker writes... 