Seven Stories Research Scholarship: Q&A

Earlier this year, a Speech and Language Sciences student, Zoe, spent 8 weeks with Seven Stories’ Learning and Participation Team working on a Newcastle University Research Scholarship.

In November, Seven Stories’ Business Development Manager John Beattie and I caught up with Zoe at Newcastle University’s Research Scholarship celebration event, where she presented a poster about her work with Seven Stories.

Hello Zoe! You undertook a Newcastle University Research Scholarship with Seven Stories. What’s that, and how did you secure it?

A vacation Research Scholarship is offered to students in their middle or penultimate year of their degree from Schools across the University. Back in January 2016, we were notified of this opportunity to conduct some research and receive a bursary. My supervisor Professor James Law notified me that Seven Stories would like some research to be conducted in collaboration with them. I organised a meeting at Seven Stories where I met members of the Learning and Participation Team. We decided on a topic and wrote a proposal that was handed in February 2016. In March I found the proposal was successful and began the scholarship in June 2016.

What did you do during your Research Scholarship with Seven Stories?

We decided to do a study about Hooks into Books at Seven Stories and sent Snow Dogs book packs into two schools to evaluate how they were received, and if anything could be improved.  This involved doing a literature review surrounding reading for pleasure and its implications. After packs were delivered I then attended each school, carried out questionnaires and observed a session. This was great, seeing the school staff and children’s reactions to the books.

Zoe's research poster: How do children engage in reading for pleasure?
Zoe’s research poster: How do children engage in reading for pleasure?

What were your research findings?

Children’s reading habits did not differ between the schools (regardless of pupil premium percentage).

Teachers and Schools have different definitions therefore different approaches to reading for pleasure. School A:  ‘Enjoying stories for the sake of it and being able to be comfortable laying down in a nice environment.’ School B: ‘Having enough knowledge and understanding to be able to read for fluency.’

Schools took different approaches to reading the story (one read all one read half). They also had different ways of choosing the story (one asked colleagues, one looked at illustrations). The activities they did using the books were also different: one was purely creative and artistic whereas the other followed more closely the curriculum with creative writing and pictures.

How did you find working in a cultural education setting like Seven Stories, in comparison to a speech therapy role?

I really enjoyed working with Seven Stories and felt very supported throughout my time there.

It was enjoyable working in the office, then experiencing the hustle and bustle of schools. In comparison, as a speech therapy student every day and placement can be different, from hospitals, to children’s centres, to community clinics and schools.

Newcastle University's Research Scholarship celebration event in November 2016. Image: Newcastle University
Newcastle University’s Research Scholarship celebration event in November 2016. Image: Newcastle University

What have you learnt from your Research Scholarship?

I have learnt lots of research skills from my project, particularly how to form child-friendly questionnaires and write literature reviews. I have also learnt how to format and design posters.

What impact will your Research Scholarship and time with Seven Stories have on your future studies, research and career plans?

I hope to incorporate my experience into speech therapy in the future, particularly the links between ‘reading for pleasure’ and speech and language difficulties.  The formatting skills I learnt will help me in the future to make assessed posters whilst still at university, but also in the future when making information sheets for colleagues of clients.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

I would encourage anyone to take up the opportunity of a summer vacation Research Scholarship. It was a valuable experience which will definitely have benefits for my future.

The Catherine Storr Experience: From Collection to Cardboard

This digital age of ours poses a challenge to both museums and higher education. How can museums present physical collections digitally? And how can academic research into these collections engage the Google Cardboard generation?

The Catherine Storr Experience, a new augmented reality exhibition based on the work of author Catherine Storr, launched by Newcastle University and Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children’s Books, attempts to meet that challenge.

The content for the experience was provided by Kim Reynolds, Professor of Children’s Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics. Kim wanted to produce a digital exhibition based on her research into Seven Stories’ Catherine Storr archive. Discussing this with the Seven Stories Collections Team, it quickly became apparent that Kim’s ambitions for the project were to do something really new.

So I put Kim in touch with Dr Tom Schofield in Digital Cultures in Culture Lab at Newcastle University to see if they could help. Tom worked with developer Dan Foster Smith, Seven Stories’ Archivist Kris McKie, and Kim to put The Catherine Storr Experience together.

The Mirror Image Ghost. Image: Newcastle University
The Mirror Image Ghost. Image: Newcastle University

The result? The Catherine Storr Experience explores the unsettling novel of Storr’s Marianne Dreams (1958), and the house that Marianne draws. Using the context of Marianne’s room, the augmented reality experience introduces a number of Storr’s books and illustrators, as well as some aspects of her life. The experience allows you to explore different objects, characters and settings by moving your smartphone or cursor.

It uses the very latest in WebVR technology. I haven’t seen anything like this yet in digital collections, so I asked Dan about the technological innovation:

“This is new and experimental technology, which is on the edge of a breakthrough into the mainstream. It has the ability to take information that has traditionally been displayed in a flat, 2D way and literally add another dimension to it!

Websites have the great advantage of allowing the viewer to navigate the information at their own pace. Video and TV captivate and engage the viewer. This sort of experience combines the best of both; I like to think of it as a guided tour with the ability for you to ‘ask’ questions along the way.”

Inside the house of Marianne Dreams. Image: Newcastle University
Inside the house of Marianne Dreams. Image: Newcastle University

Throughout The Catherine Storr Experience you can spot illustrations, photographs and other items from the Seven Stories Collection. Some of the materials included in the experience also relate to Storr’s personal life and were kindly loaned by her family, extending the Seven Stories material. The project has also enabled Seven Stories to digitise all of their Storr holdings so this is available to readers and researchers around the world.

From Seven Stories’ perspective, Kris commented that this partnership had brought a new dimension to their digital collections:

“It was interesting to see how a group of talented people from outside the museums and heritage sector were able to respond to the challenge of representing an archive in a new way; Kim was able to bring her expertise to write the content, and Dan and Tom were able to envision a unique platform to present it. It will be intriguing to see what people make of The Catherine Storr Experience and the additional content on our website.”

'Marianne draws a house, and the house is Marianne.' Image: Newcastle University
‘Marianne draws a house, and the house is Marianne.’ Image: Newcastle University

And I’ll leave it to Kim to have the final word:

“Working with colleagues in Culture Lab and Seven Stories made it possible to experiment with new ways of presenting archival mterial and reaching out to audiences all over the world. It required new ways of writing, and Dan and Tom approached the task in adventurous ways that re-engaged me with the material. It was an exciting and challenging – in the best possible ways – collaboration.”

http://digitalcultures.ncl.ac.uk/Catherine-Storr/

Applications open for the David Almond Fellowships

David Almond (above, with Michael Morpurgo). Award-winning North East children’s writer. Patron of Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Honorary graduate of Newcastle University. So it seems only fitting that we named our annual fellowships in children’s literature in David’s honour!

Newcastle University and Seven Stories’ David Almond Fellowships aim to promote high-quality research into the Seven Stories Collection by supporting award holders to make a study visit to Newcastle. And there are so many amazing collections that you could research! Take a look at Seven Stories’ informative Collections blog for an insight into some of our holdings.

Collections at Seven Stories. Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books. Photography: Damian Wootten.
Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Photography: Damien Wootten

We launched the David Almond Fellowships in 2012 to increase national and international access to Seven Stories’ Collection and build new links with researchers. So far, we’ve awarded 11 Fellowships and over half of our Fellows have come from outside the UK.

Lucy Stone, one of our 2016 award-holders, says of her David Almond Fellowship:

“To take up the pen, pencil or paintbrush proffers the chance to make sense of the beautiful, but also perplexing world into which children are born, grow and find their place as an adult. The Judith Kerr Collection contains a myriad of remarkable drawings, paintings and writings child Kerr crafted pre- and during her family’s exile from Nazi Germany. Thanks to a David Almond Fellowship, I had the wonderful opportunity this summer to examine Kerr’s juvenilia, now part of my doctoral research involving consulting archives across Europe and the US to determine what writing and drawing can offer refugee children. Everyone at Seven Stories and the Children’s Literature Unit were incredibly helpful and supportive; the Fellowship proved invaluable.” 

Collections at Seven Stories. Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books. Photograph: Damien Wootten.
Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Photograph: Damien Wootten.

And, applications for the 2016/17 David Almond Fellowships are now open! You have until 1 December 2016 to apply for visits to be taken before the end of August 2017. Have a look at the David Almond Fellowship Information 2016-2017 for full details of how to apply, and download the David Almond Fellowship Application form.

We would love to welcome you to Newcastle as a David Almond Fellow – and you could even research David’s collection…

For more information about the David Almond Fellowships, visit the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics website or contact Professor Kim Reynolds.

Building a new city with Newcastle City Futures

What will Newcastle and Seven Stories look like in 2065?

This October, Newcastle City Futures took over Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books for a weekend of Big Draw Festival activities which encouraged children and families to design and build their future city…

Over 500 people visited Seven Stories over the course of our Big Draw weekend. 2016’s STEAM Powered Big Draw Festival aims to inspire illustrators everywhere to explore creative innovation, enterprise, digital technologies and the arts through drawing.

This seemed like a perfect theme for Seven Stories to connect with the Newcastle City Futures Urban Living Partnership, a project led by Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones at Newcastle University. Newcastle City Futures aims to get people and organisations in Newcastle Gateshead talking and thinking about the future needs of the city, and working together to foster innovation.

Now, I think the views of the children and families visiting Seven Stories are pretty important here. After all, they’re the ones who’ll be living and working in Newcastle in fifty years’ time!

So what will Newcastle and Seven Stories look like in 2065? Here’s what Seven Stories’ visitors think…


Building Newcastle Gateshead
Newcastle Gateshead in 2065. Image: Newcastle University
Newcastle Gateshead in 2065. Image: Newcastle University

Over the course of the weekend, children and families added to our large map of Newcastle and Gateshead to create their vision of Newcastle in 2065.

And their creativity was amazing! Visitors built homes, cultural, sports and science venues, businesses, hotels, transport systems, power stations and several bridges. In fact, the children organically created pretty much everything you’d need in a future city.

I was pleased to see they thought the Angel of the North would still be there, and Seven Stories too!


The house of the future…?
The house of the future. Image: Newcastle University
The house of the future. Image: Newcastle University

Children drew on (and played in!) our large 3D house of the future. What does this tell us? Perhaps that houses in the future will be more colourful and allow for personalisation. We’ll continue to build in green technologies, and graffiti won’t be going away any time soon…!


The streets of 2065
Designing a new Northumberland Street. Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books
Designing a new Northumberland Street. Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books

Dr Emine Thompson and students from Northumbria University came in to run a ‘Your City, You Design It!’ workshop. We looked at the streets of Newcastle in 3D and then participants designed a new Northumberland Street using SketchUp. It’s going to look pretty different in 2065…


A big jigsaw for the Big Draw
Drawing on RFID jigsaw pieces
We drew on RFID enabled wooden jigsaw pieces and recorded messages about the future of the city. Image: Newcastle University.

Zander Wilson of Open Lab at Newcastle University provided a fun jigsaw activity. The children coloured in wooden RFID enabled jigsaw pieces, before recording a message about their hopes for the future of the city. Zander will be combining these to make a digital jigsaw – I’m excited to see the finished result!


The future of Seven Stories
A new plan for Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University
A new plan for Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University

Our last two activities of the weekend were all about planning the future of Seven Stories. Throughout the weekend, children could draw a new blueprint for our galleries, and Teresa Strachan and the YES Planning students at Newcastle University came to deliver a drop-in workshop all about urban planning. Here’s a plan one of the children came up with!


The children came up with so many interesting ideas about what Newcastle Gateshead will be like in 2065 – I’m looking forward to seeing what changes the future holds!

Apply for the Seven Stories Northern Bridge Partnership PhD Award

This autumn, we’re delighted to offer a new fully-funded PhD opportunity: the Seven Stories Northern Bridge Partnership Award!

Northern Bridge is the AHRC-funded Doctoral Training Partnership between Newcastle University, Durham University and Queen’s University Belfast. Northern Bridge offers funded PhD studentships, with support for placements and training, to outstanding applicants through a competitive scheme.

Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books is a Strategic Partner to Northern Bridge. When Northern Bridge suggested that we could issue a targeted Partnership Award call in this year’s application round, we jumped at the chance…

What are the benefits?

For applicants: well, for starters, it’s a fully-funded PhD opportunity and Northern Bridge’s focus on academic excellence means that these studentships are very highly regarded.

You’ll have the opportunity to study Seven Stories’ amazing children’s literature collection in depth through your PhD research. This could also lead to placement opportunities with us through Northern Bridge: perhaps your work will feed into a Seven Stories exhibition, or you could help us with collection management tasks, or maybe you could deliver a public event?

For Seven Stories: Seven Stories encourage research on our collection. Academic research really helps to unlock the archive and we love the new ideas that researchers come up with.

For Northern Bridge: By launching the Partnership Awards this year, Northern Bridge are exploring a new way of involving Strategic Partners within the Doctoral Training Partnerships – and we’re excited to be trailblazing with them!

Collections. Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books. Photography by Damien Wootten.
Image: Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Photography by Damien Wootten.
So how will it work?

Step 1: Working with Northern Bridge, Seven Stories have developed a call for applications for the Partnership Award. We’re particularly interested in receiving applications in the following areas: Makers of children’s literature: children’s book history 1750-2000, New adults: the growth of teenage literature, and Children on stage: twentieth century children’s theatre. But if you want to look at Seven Stories’ collections from another angle, we’d still be very interested in hearing from you. Take a look…

Step 2: The application period is now live! Students who are planning to apply for the Seven Stories Partnership Award are encouraged to outline their proposed research project and email this with a CV to sarah.rylance@ncl.ac.uk to register their interest by 18 November 2016.

Step 3: Next, students will work with Seven Stories and their proposed academic supervisor to develop their research proposals. Newcastle University will also be holding a Children’s Literature Unit Postgraduate Open Day on 3 November where you can discuss your application!

Step 4: The completed applications will go into the 2017 Northern Bridge Studentship competition and will be assessed alongside all other Northern Bridge submissions. The outcome of the studentship competition will be announced in March 2017.

Step 5: Successful applicants will start their Partnership Award PhD in autumn 2017.

So now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that we get some great applications!

For more information about Northern Bridge and the Seven Stories Partnership Award, visit the Northern Bridge website.

A first year and a first blog post

We’re now officially one year into our funding for the Vital North Partnership between Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University. I thought this blog would be a good way to review what’s gone on over the past year…

The Vital North Partnership begins

The start of 2015 saw Newcastle University’s REF Impact Case Study about the Children’s Literature Unit’s work with Seven Stories receive a 4* grading, leading to the School of English ranking first in the UK for research impact.

This was fantastic recognition of our collaboration over the last 10 years, and led Seven Stories (with Newcastle University’s support) to make a Museum Resilience Fund bid to Arts Council England. This was for the Vital North Partnership, a project with the following aims:

  • To strengthen and scale-up Seven Stories’ partnership with Newcastle University
  • To build Seven Stories’ brand recognition and reach and develop new income streams
  • To secure a sustainable business model for Seven Stories as the national home for children’s books

We were delighted to be awarded funding, and the Vital North Partnership began…

From 2015 to 2016

It’s been a busy first year. Here are some of the highlights!

  • We were granted funding from AHRC and Innovate UK for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the School of English Literature, Language and Lingusitics and Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions team.
  • We recruited a Vital North Partnership Manager (me!) to facilitate the project. I started in post in January 2016.
  • Seven Stories’ exclusive Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories exhibition opened, supported by the KTP. The Vital North Partnership also supported a sell-out Christmas concert with Michael at St. Nicholas’ Cathedral, On Angel Wings.
  • We offered 4 joint public talks on children’s literature with expert Brian Alderson, and author Garth Nix.
  • Seven Stories’ Living Books project is ongoing: this is a development programme for early years settings and parents to share and enjoy books with young children. Newcastle University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching are helping to evaluate this project.
Living Books workshop
Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books
Journey to Jo'burg performance
Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books
  • Seven Stories and Newcastle University hosted Leverhulme Visiting Professor Karen Sands O’Connor from Buffalo State University. Karen spent her time here looking at race and diversity in the Seven Stories collection.
  • We jointly offered four David Almond Fellowships to support postgraduates and early career researchers to come and consult the Seven Stories collection.
  • Newcastle University students from the BA in English Literature and BA in Education visited Seven Stories as part of their course, and I gave a seminar on Seven Stories and reading for pleasure for the Educational Psychology doctoral trainees
  • Seven Stories have also been supporting student employability by offering placements: we’ve supported an undergraduate Research Scholarship with Speech and Language Sciences  and we’re currently hosting a Santander University Internship.

Phew!

What’s next?

Now I’ve been in post for 8 months, things are really gathering pace. There are lots of projects in the pipeline and I’m planning to share activities as they happen via this blog. If you’d like more information about anything you’ve read about here, get in touch!

Between now and Christmas, I’ll be posting about opportunities through the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership, sharing a Pecha Kucha I gave at the AHRC Common Ground event earlier in the summer about the Vital North Partnership and quizzing Research Associate Dr. Jessica Medhurst about all things KTP.

So a first year, and a first blog post. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year has in store…