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Web Content Co coordinator £22,500, Bradford. Fixed term until 1st April 2012. Award winning, visionary and truly unique, the National Media Museum embraces photography, film, television, radio and the web. Part of the NMSI family of museums, with a world-leading online presence, we aim to engage, inspire and educate through comprehensive collections, innovative education programmes and a powerful yet sensitive approach to contemporary issues.

We are looking for a Web Content Coordinator to bring our websites alive with dynamic, engaging and audience-focused content.

Coming from a similar role, you're an expert at writing punchy and eye-catching web copy for a wide range of audiences, copy-editing content from other sources, and updating sites using content management systems. An organised and tenacious team player with extensive experience of supporting and working with stakeholders, you have a solid mastery of basic HTML and web technologies, simple image manipulation skills and an understanding of social media and its implications. Above all, you know how to make web content contribute to a fantastic user experience, and have the creativity and drive to make our web presence stand out from the crowd.

To apply, please send your full CV and covering letter to: recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk

Closing date: 25th April 2010

We regret that we can only respond to successful applicants.

No agencies please.

We are an equal opportunities employer

Man and Cameraman is a project to conserve, catalogue, digitise and promote the photographic collection of George Bernard Shaw. Shaw collected around 16,000 photographs taken by himself and others and these will be fully investigated for the first time to reveal Shaw's activities and the evolution of photographic processes. Bernard Shaw was not only a prolific playwright, writer and social-political commentator and thinker but an avid amateur photographer: taking and collecting images from the 1860s until his death in 1950.

Shaw left his paper and photographic archives to London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the British Library and his home (Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire) to National Trust (NT), it is here the photographs were initially housed before being transferred to LSE. Thus the project extends his desire to open up his collections to researchers and interested parties.

Photography lets us peer into the past and Shaw's photographs give us an informal view into his circle including writers, reformers, actors and actresses. Photographs show us how places used to look and what people did in their private lives - they inform our knowledge of society and its famous personalities: revealing the heritage of us all. Shaw's images include informal prints of people such as: Auguste Rodin; Augustus John; Beatrice and Sidney Webb; Harley Granville-Barker; and Lilliah MaCarthy. They offer a glimpse into the early 20th century theatre and film and include images of stars of Shaw productions such as Vivian Leigh as well as visuals of sets.

Now photography is regarded as an artistic form but in Shaw's time it was not, the collection lets us see how photographers were pushing the boundaries and using it in experimental and artistic ways. Shaw played with light and perspective to advance his craft. He also wrote on the subject for example, reviewing early photography shows.

The project partners (LSE and the National Trust) have worked with free-lance conservators, staff and volunteers to dust and re-house the photographs in high-purity storage materials. Shaw's photographic albums have been conserved in a specialist studio to repair damage and will be photographed so people can look through them. As well as prints there are about 8,000 negatives, these are particularly fragile as they degrade in even moderate conditions. They will be sealed in special bags and frozen to halt their deterioration.

Work on cataloguing the 16,000 photographs and digitising 8,000 photographs and all the negatives is now underway and this will let people know what the collection contains. Cataloguing can also reveal stories behind the images as each one is researched. Digitising will provide virtual access to those images taken by Shaw and those out of copyright ensuring their long-term preservation and revealing for the first time Shaw's photographic legacy to the nation and providing a window into his world.

For more information click here.

As a group of specialist workmen refurbish part of the historic Manor House at Mount Grace Priory, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire, it was reported today that a photograph showing some of the original skilled workers has been donated by an anonymous visitor. The current work at the Manor House is part of a £150,000 project by English Heritage to restore two rooms, which were given an Arts and Crafts make over in the 1890s.

Now a photograph dating to the time of the works has emerged, offering the conservationists a window on the past. The picture was handed in anonymously by a local man who found it in an old drawer and shows artisan workmen who were employed by Priory owner, Sir Lowthian Bell.

The English Heritage custodian at Mount Grace Priory, Becky Wright, said: "There are more than 20 workmen shown in the photo, and that's
just about same number of people we have today reviving the two rooms. They played a big part in preserving the priory and we would be very interested to learn if anyone recognises any of them."

The original workers, circa 1890s, who restored the Manor House inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement

Our aim is to create a museum that engages people as it evolves. Our membership scheme is an exciting part of that vision. Your role is to implement a marketing strategy that promotes Museum membership and encourages our audience to be a part of our future. Through a combination of literature, events and local business liaison, you will help to attract a diverse membership base, grow membership levels and, ultimately, generate maximum income for the Museum.

Experience of marketing practices in a similar sector is essential, including direct marketing and print production. You must be adept at using databases and your administrative skills will be exceptional, with strong attention to detail. Flexible and adaptable, you will be comfortable liaising with a wide range of people: members of the public, internal and external stakeholders.

This is an opportunity to help grow the Museum’s reputation, build a loyal audience and ensure that we enjoy a profitable, prosperous future.

For more details click here.

Hours: 35 per week

We regret that we can only respond to successful applicants. No agencies please. We are an equal opportunities employer.

Closing Date: 19th April 2010

Interview date: 26th April 2010

Award winning, visionary and truly unique, The National Media Museum embraces photography, film, television, radio and the web. Part of the NMSI family of museums, it aims to engage, inspire and educate through comprehensive collections, innovative education programmes and a powerful yet sensitive approach to contemporary issues.

BPH reported that the Culture Minister had placed an export bar on a Fenton orientialist photograph sold at at auction. The Art Newspaper reports that the National Media Museum in Bradford, Britain’s main collection of photography, hopes to raise the money, and a spokeswoman told us it is “assessing potential funding opportunities”.

Pasha and Bayadère was staged in Fenton’s London studio, with the photographer posing as a pasha (Ottoman official) watching a bayadère (dancing girl). The role of the musician was taken by Frank Dillon, an artist friend of Fenton. The photograph passed to one of Dillon’s descendants, and it has just been sold privately to a foreign buyer for £109,000. An export licence is being deferred until 1 May, to enable a UK buyer to match the price, and this period could be extended for a further three months. Only one other example of this important Orientalist photograph survives, which was bought by the Getty Museum in 1984.

Photographs are only occasionally subject to UK export licence deferral (they have to be over 50 years old and worth above £12,160 before this can be considered). In one case a vintage photograph which did not have an export licence was exported illegally. Alice wearing a Garland, by Charles Dodgson (the writer Lewis Carroll), was sold for £55,000 in 2001 and then illegally shipped to the United States. The UK authorities would welcome information on its present whereabouts.

Last year BPH reported that Derek Wood's excellent website dealing with his publications and research was to close early in 2010 (click here to see the original posting). Derek Wood has emailed to say that the 'Midley History of early Photography' will now continue to be permanently available. The British Library has archived it at the UK Webarchive and it can be found here: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100311230213/http://www.midley.co.uk/:

The archiving has been done well without any missing pages, images or links. It will continue to be live at the original address until July.

The Midley site also had a subdomain, 'Midley Search39 on History of Photography' ( http://search39.midley.co.uk/ ) intended to provide a way of making a single search over approximately thirty-nine websites judged by Wood to be of high value for the history of photography. Sadly, that will go off line in July. The UK WebArchive have rightly decided, that as 'Search39' depended on an external service, that it was not appropriate to archive it along with the main www.midley.co.uk site. However, all is not lost, for the Midley Search39 facility will remain available at least for several, or many, years at a Google Custom Search engine (CSE) page at
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=015777431052609043336%3Apoauettouhg

This is excellent news. As anyone who has read Derek Wood's published papers and research notes knows they remain key texts for their respective subjects. Their continued availability outside of their original publications is to be warmly welcomed.

A draft guide has been published to the photographers and collections of photographs held by the National Monuments Record at English Heritage. The guide has been compiled by Ian Leith and is intended to help users with the new EH Archives website: see www.englishheritagearchives.org.uk

A copy of the guide can be Archilist 2010.03.24 FINAL 01.doc.

The shortlisted titles for the Best Photography Book are:

• Oil by Edward Burtynsky (Steidl)
• Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans by Robert Frank, edited by Sarah Greenough (Steidl)
• Paul Graham by Paul Graham (Steidl)
• Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s by Ryūichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian (Aperture Foundation)

The shortlisted titles for the Best Moving Image Book are:

• The Tactile Eye by Jennifer M. Barker (University of California Press)
• Being Hal Ashby: The Life of a Hollywood Rebel by Nick Dawson (The University Press of Kentucky)
• Eisenstein on the Audiovisual by Robert Robertson (I. B. Tauris)
• The New Yorker Theater by Toby Talbot (Columbia University Press)
• Michael Haneke’s Cinema by Catherine Wheatley (Berghahn Books)

Over 150 titles were submitted across the two categories for the awards, which have been narrowed down to a final nine books by the two judging panels chaired by Philippe Garner (Photography) and Francine Stock (Moving Image). The judges were looking for clearly written, well illustrated works, which make a significant contribution to the understanding of photography and/or the moving image.

The photography shortlist includes: an essay by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, chronicling the infrastructure of the oil industry and the implications of our dependence on the fuel; an expanded re-issue of legendary photographer Robert Frank’s seminal work The Americans; a retrospective of Paul Graham, the pioneering UK photographer and winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009; a survey of the Japanese photographic print culture of the 60s and 70s, which has since had a profound influence on photographic publishing worldwide.

Philippe Garner comments:

The field was strong and the excellent shortlist reflects a wide range of approaches. They include: single-minded and engaging investigations of sometimes very narrow topics, made riveting by the passion of the authors; excellent monographs on or by photographers from all areas of photographic practice; and a number of quirky, category-defying projects.

The moving image shortlist includes: Jennifer M. Barker’s theory that the connection between film and viewer goes beyond the visual and aural, to become something visceral; a portrait of the life of the underappreciated rebel 1970s Hollywood Director, Hal Ashby; Robert Robertson’s revealing exploration of Eisenstein’s ideas about the audiovisual in cinema; memoirs by Toby Talbot, co-owner of Manhattan’s influential home of art-house film, the New Yorker Theatre; the first English language analysis of the films of Austrian Director, Michael Haneke, by UK film critic Catherine Wheatley.

Francine Stock comments:

The books that impressed us above all were the ones that inspired a deeper love of film. The shortlisted authors each combined passion and original research in a format that suited their subject. Whether it was intimate memoir, biography, history, critique or a call for a radical new understanding of the way we experience cinema, these books were both focussed and involving.