The blog is edited by the Museum Studies Programme Director Rhianedd Smith.

Rhi’s background is in Archaeology and Anthropology and she completed her MPhil in Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford in 2003. While at the Pitt Rivers Museum Rhi worked with photographic collections and assisted with the exhibition ‘Seeing Lhasa’.

Rhianedd started working in the University of Reading in 2004 as Assistant Curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, also project managing the Museum’s refurbishment from 2004-2005.

In 2005 Rhianedd took on the post of Undergraduate Learning Officer at the Museum of English Rural Life, where she developed and delivered a series of museum studies modules for undergraduates. This was achieved as part of a Centre for Excellence in Applied Undergraduate Learning Skills and Rhi has written on the benefits and challenges of engaging students with collections. Rhi was also heavily involved in a re-development of the volunteering programme at MERL and acted as HE advisor to the regional project ‘Volunteers for Museums’ 2009-2011.

From 2009-2012 Rhi undertook a PhD with Prof Roberta Gilchrist, in the University of Reading’s Department of Archaeology, entitled ‘Monks, Myths, and Multi-vocality: Presenting the Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey’. In January 2013 Rhi started work as Museum Studies Programme Director of the new joint honours programme here at Reading.

Publications

Smith, R. (2012) ‘Searching for ‘Community’: Making English Rural History Collections Relevant Today’. In Curator 55.1.

Smith, R (2010) ‘Student use of the university museum’ in R. Reynolds, B. Cook and C. Speight (V&A, RIBA and University of Brighton CETLD) ‘Learning to See: museums as a resource for design education’. London: Ashgate, pp. 77-90.

Smith, R. (2009a) ‘Finding the ‘first voice’ in rural England: the challenges of preserving intangible heritage in a national museum’ in The International Journal of Intangible Heritage vol. 4, pp. 13-26.

Smith, R. (2009b) ‘Enabling undergraduate research within the University Museum’ Proceedings of ICOM’s University Museums and Collections (UMAC) Conference 2006 Mexico City.

Smith, R. (2009c) ‘Response to Carin Jacobs ‘Commentary: Beyond the field trip: museum literacy and higher education” in The Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship.