Someone's Gotta Do It

For many visitors, what happens behind the scenes at Museum Victoria is an intriguing mystery. A new series of podcasts called ‘Someone’s Gotta Do It’ reveals more about the people who keep the museum running. It’s the latest addition to Access All Areas, the MV website portal for podcasts and blogs.

In Someone’s Gotta Do It, Dr Andi Horvath, Senior Curator of Science Communication, asks MV staff ten-and-a-half questions about their work. The questions cover some of the most interesting, unusual and strange things they’ve done in their job plus what they do on a regular day. The half-question – “What’s that for?” – investigates tools peculiar to each role, which are often quite bizarre.

Andi has produced podcasts for Access All Areas since May 2008. She was inspired to create this new series by the passion and diversity of staff at the museum. “I love the fact that we have conservators who keep objects immortal, that we have an actor on staff who can impersonate Darwin, just such a huge range of skills from the academic to the technical to those who are great with people,” says Andi. Another thing that struck her during the interviews was that some staff have a completely different persona out of hours, like the conservator who works with hundreds of collection objects at work, but keeps her home minimalist and sparse.

Access All Areas also hosts Andi’s regular podcasts and the blogs kept by the Discovery Centre, Live Exhibits and exhibition staff. Podcast episodes coming up later in 2009 include gatecrashing the A Day in Pompeii exhibition opening in 'Be My Guest', a Someone’s Gotta Do It profile of Programs Officer and Darwin impersonator Bernard Caleo, plus roaming tours of collection stores and Spotswood Pumping Station.

Someone's Gotta Do It podcasts can be downloaded from Access All Areas.