ExhibiTricks: A Museum/Exhibit/Design Blog

Another Visit With The Exhibit Doctor: Don't Touch The Walls!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:43:00 +0000

In our continuing "Exhibit Doctor" feature, here's a common problem that ExhibiTricks reader Mary Anna Murphy raised:

This isn't a very knotty problem, but I've run across it again and again in installing 2d works in a non-traditional gallery setting such as a mall, an office that worships its walls, or even the Russell Senate Office building rotunda. None of those places have walls that want nails or hangers. I'd be interested in seeing how other folks have managed to make their displays. Oh, and it always has to be low budget.

Ian Simmons from the Centre for Life in the UK puts in a vote for Velcro:

We have the same problem as Mary Anne in some of the places where I need to hang 2D stuff, and I swear by industrial grade Velcro, which avoids having to make holes for anything. This can keep up an amazing weight of stuff pretty securely, depending on how much you use, but it does need the venue to be relatively sanguine about any paintwork as it will take paint with it when peeled sometimes, but if they are cool about having someone just come round to do a touch up it works really well. It has to be proper Velcro brand Velcro though, none of the knock-offs are anywhere near as good.

Thanks, Ian! (You can find "industrial strength" Velcro at Amazon, amongst other suppliers.)

For a different approach, Dana and Kathy Dawes from ExhibitShop shared some of their work from the Palouse Discovery Science Center (PDSC) in Pullman, Washington (pictured below.)

While we haven’t come up with anything particularly elegant, we’ve come up with two solutions to hanging 2D displays in the parts of our local science center that has concrete walls. One is to use GridWall panels connected into three-sided prisms, “X” or “H” shapes, or zigzag walls. We’ve been able to get these from industrial/commercial liquidation sales for very reasonable prices. We like them in our space because they are not visually intrusive; the downside is that some people don’t care for the industrial look.

The other solution is to use door slabs connected together to create temporary walls. We can get hollow-core, primed hardboard door slabs made up in sizes from 1-6 x 6-0 to 4-0 x 8-0 and the prices are very reasonable. Our favorite way to assemble them is with bed-rail hangers mortised into the edges of the doors. If necessary, we’ve finished the exposed edges with tee-molding or stained/varnished wood. To make them easier to assemble, we have routed slots in the bottoms as well and use a t-shaped wall brace to align the bottoms of the panels.

Nice work! Thanks for sharing Dana and Kathy.

Hopefully those ideas will help Mary Anna (and other museum/exhibit/design folks) break through some institutional "walls" (at least design-wise!)

Have some of your own "off the wall" design ideas to share on this topic? Let us know in the "Comments" section below. Also feel free to pose your own question or design challenge to The Exhibit Doctor below as well. Lastly, don't forget to check out previous Exhibit Doctor posts.

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Designer's Toolkit: Gear Ties

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:40:00 +0000

Gear Ties are one of those forehead-slapping inventions that makes you wonder "why didn't I think of that?" Basically, Gear Ties are reusable rubber twist ties that come in a variety of lengths, thicknesses, and colors. While one of the primary purposes of Gear Ties is to wrap around things like computer or electrical cords, you can also make simple hooks or hangers from them, or temporarily bind things together as well.

The body of each Gear Tie is striated with parallel incised ridges, so they stay in place.

While all these attributes are great to keep any museum workshop or designer's space in order, I couldn't help playing around with the Gear Ties as toys and seeing the possibilities to use them as exhibit pieces (either for building or creative spaces) or to use during the exhibit prototyping process by holding pieces together or for changing configurations rapidly.

You can see the range of Gear Ties yourself over at Amazon. Let me know how you end up using them!

(A special tip of the ExhibiTricks hat to Peggy Monahan for showing me Gear Ties in the first place.)

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ReWind: Building Internal Capacity

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:46:00 +0000

In honor of an article I have in the current (January-February 2012) issue of ASTC's Dimensions magazine entitled, "Internal Capacity: Making a Good Museum Great," I thought I'd reprise the post below. Enjoy!

If there is one silver lining to the continually oppressive economic news, it's the opportunity for museums and other organizations to focus (or re-focus) on building their internal capacity.

It might sound funny for an independent museum professional like myself to advocate for museums being able to develop and create programs and exhibits internally, but I am a strong believer that all types of museums should build upon the strengths of their existing staff and other institutional resources, rather than automatically looking for outside help. (See my recent posting on the importance of in-house exhibit workshops, for example.)

One way for museums to stretch their resources in these tough times is to look for ways to increase such internal capacity.

Art Museums, as one obvious instance, are starting to think more carefully about how the items in their collections might be reinterpreted or redisplayed to create new exhibitions, or even "mini-exhibitions" of a few works, rather than booking traveling shows, or trying to mount expensive "blockbusters."

Any type of museum could benefit from taking a fresh look at their programs and exhibits to try and creatively, and economically, improve them. Is there a way to slightly change or reconfigure a troublesome exhibit component to make it more interesting for visitors? Can you rethink or revitalize an exhibit in storage, and bring it out of retirement? What about building upon a current news item to rapidly develop a combined education program and mini-exhibition on the topic?

So why not try to stretch your museum's ideas (and budget!) by thinking some more about internal capacity?

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What Real World Advice Would You Give to a Museum Education Grad Student?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:57:00 +0000

Once again I'll have the pleasure of teaching the graduate class in Exhibition Development at Bank Street College this semester.

While I'm continually impressed by the high caliber of the students I work with, I always feel compelled to share "real world" museum advice with them --- especially with the job market so tight.

So I'd like to harness the brain power of all my ExhibiTricks readers and ask you to please share (anonymously if you'd like) in the Comments Section below one bit of advice about the museum business that will help my grad students as they move forward and consider their place in the museum ecosystem.

Thanks!

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Turn the Content Around and Around: An Interview with Lyn Wood

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:10:00 +0000

Lyn Wood founded Hands On! in 1984 as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation for “the promotion and expansion of science education opportunities through the development of participatory science centers and youth museums,” particularly in communities that do not have such resources for children and families. Shortly after its founding, Hands On! teamed with the Junior League of St. Petersburg, Florida, to co-found Great Explorations, the Hands On Museum, and helped operate it for several years.

That accomplished, she spun off Hands On! to apply her knowledge of exhibition design, visitor behavior and operational sustainability to more than 50 projects all over the world. Projects range from helping museums that are in the process of re-imagining their institutions to small start-up museums to expansions of major science centers. Lyn is pictured above in a Hands On! exhibit at the Don Harrington Discovery Center in Amarillo, Texas. Photo: © Oscar Williams.

Lyn was kind enough to share her thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers:

What’s your educational background?

My Bachelors degree is in Industrial and Environmental Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology. I think I was the only native Miamian in school there. Experiencing cold and snow for the first time caused me to stay indoors and attend classes or spend long hours on projects in their wonderful shops. I was able to score a great first job doing commercial exhibition design back in Miami, but by then my heart was (perhaps always was) strongly leaning toward the museum field. I received my Masters in Museum Education from George Washington University and was slightly less cold than when in Rochester.

What got you interested in museums?
My family is a tribe of adventurous travelers, and we marked time abroad pre-travel tour days. Pan Am and Eastern Airlines were doing a booming business from us then. My parents always took us through museums, and they all seemed fascinating and strange to me. I don’t think I actually encountered an American museum until I was a young adult and, by then, I was marinated in the eccentric collections and presentations I had seen while growing up and traveling.

You can imagine me in graduate school with all kinds of enthusiastic questions about these new-to-me American museums. And let’s just say, back then when I was taught, children’s museums and science centers were not yet on the syllabus—not quite accepted into the hallowed halls of museum academia. So, of course, I developed an immediate thirst to learn more about what, at the time, seemed forbidden. This ultimately led to the founding of Hands On! Inc.

How does working with museums worldwide to create exhibits inform your design process?
Given that I already had a healthy amount of exposure to different cultures, it has been relatively easy to work on the fantastic variety of projects that have come our way. I think that having such basic curiosity about the world inevitably makes great questions come up, causing delightful explorations that can then lead toward interesting solutions.

Tell us a little bit about how your industrial design skills inform your exhibit design work?
I am very open to what I don’t know as a designer, but if you can ask good questions, then a new universe of design answers open up. Getting to good design solutions really is mostly about opening up the possibilities. That being said, if I were not surrounded by a host of smart, talented people, then I would not get the added benefit of different voices, skills and knowledge to help drive a project to an interesting and rewarding conclusion.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development?
I am not someone who spends a great deal of time online, and the literature I tend to read is, well, literature. I think I gain more information about exhibition development from talking to people in the field. I find that our field is really quite generous about sharing information, and we try and do our part in sharing things we have learned as well. I like the camaraderie and earnestness that is a big part of our field.

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in bringing a broader “worldview” into their exhibitions?
I am thoroughly convinced that just about anything can be turned into something interesting and worthy of inspection. You just need to turn the content around and around until it has a compelling twist or angle to it. If you can see the content as something beautiful or even strange, then perhaps you are on to something that will intrigue visitors.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?
I am a fan of the basic core of what I see our field can do. Life can be tough, so if we can inspire, help folks get a fun taste for learning and maybe even facilitate bringing someone into a lovely state of wonder, that’s so important. I am attaching my NYC sister’s letter to me just after 9/11 that touched on just this thing. It doesn’t get more basic than that.

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
The Hamar Bispegaard Museum designed by the beloved Norwegian architect, Svere Fehn. The building, delicately suspended over medieval ruins, serves as structure for both preservation and a grand space for exploration. You can take in the ruins of this 12th century cathedral while perusing early Norwegian artifacts presented in utterly the most handsome way I have ever seen. Now there was a designer who wasn’t constrained by any precedent of exhibition design whatsoever! Here are a couple of my photos plus some links.

Here’s an artifact lovingly presented (top image on this blog): http://iitcoa3rdyr.wordpress.com/tag/sverre-fehn/

Here'a a Flickr set of the building: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/53521870@N06/4970197411/?q=hamar%20bispegaard%20museum

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?
Imagine walking into an Enchanted Physics Forest. Well, that is exactly what we are making right now for Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena! An arroyo will soon replace the empty plot of land. The trees will be going in soon. Mixed in with the forest will be plenty of different-scaled interactives to explore and contemplate. A family might just sit down under the shade of a tree for a while. We are absolutely thrilled to be working on our first major outdoor exhibition and environment.

And all this we get to do with the wonderful scientist Dr. Mike Brown, the CalTech professor of Plantetary Astronomy (and author of “How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming”), who is a board member at Kidspace. This generous and gifted (funny too!) scientist has been such a pleasure to work with as we have developed the Enchanted Physics Forest. He can hardly wait to play there together with his 5-year-old daughter.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

If money were no object then we might as well place it in Paris where we all would be required to meet often for lunch at a café while brainstorming how to reach the incredible vision that our client has laid out to our crack team. You would be there, of course, Paul. And, aside from all my pals here at Hands On!, I would also want bring back from the dead my favorite architect Sverre Fehn to include his sensibilities. The artist Theo Jansen would be with us too. Perhaps it is a museum/laboratory on biophilia. We all would be required to have an extended stay at our client’s country home in Brittany to do extensive prototyping, and Theo would bring his Strandbeests.

Thanks again to Lyn for her thoughtful responses! To find out more about Hands On! check out their website.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Who Searches For Museums?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Google Correlate is a type of search engine off-shoot that finds search patterns which correspond with real-world trends. For instance, researchers noticed the relationships between "flu related" searches (such as "what should I do if my child has a high fever?" or "what is the best cold medicine?") on Google to the spread of actual flu cases around the U.S.

The exploration of such relationships was the genesis of Google Correlate. I thought it would be fun to see what sorts of search correlations show up when the term "museums" was used.

As you can see in the screen shot above, the term "breeding" has one of the highest correlations with the term "museums"! Now before you start increasing the number of "Singles Programs" or "Adult Only Nights" at your museum, you should know that when I did a regular Google search on the term "breeding" the bulk of the initial results relate to animal husbandry and genetics in animals.

Perhaps something of more immediate practical use for museum folks are the terms "rock climbing" and "club." It looks like there may be practical programming and exhibit opportunities to capitalize on there.

The last cluster of search relationships tie into homes and housing concerns, as well as garage plans. Do search engine users (or real estate agents!) see a relationship between museums in a community and home values? Could those with garage plans be thinking of creating their own museums?

There are lots of fun ways to play with search data correlations (including varying time sequences and differences between countries) in Google Correlate. Who knows what insights you might find by clicking on over to do a little data mining specifically related to potential exhibit topics, or even the name of your museum?

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Your 2012 New Year's (ExhibitFiles) Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:04:00 +0000

I normally hate the idea of New Year's resolutions. Why wait until January to start making improvements?

But here are two easy resolutions for museum/exhibit/design folks to make (and keep!) as the yearly calendar transition approaches: 1) Join ExhibitFiles 2) Post something on ExhibitFiles.

What is ExhibitFiles you ask? ExhibitFiles is a website (funded by the National Science Foundation) for museum professionals (and aspiring museum professionals) from around the world to post Reviews of exhibits they've seen, or to post Case Studies of exhibition projects they have been involved with. (There's even a category called "Bits" that lets you quickly post bite-sized observations about a particular exhibit element or feature you may have seen.)

So what are you waiting for? Click on over to the ExhibitFiles website now. (It's a lot easier than resolving to lose ten pounds!)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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More Voices at the Table: An Interview with Chris Burda

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Chris Burda is Senior Exhibit Developer with the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). She translates science concepts for lay audiences through art, narrative and creative learning experiences. Over 25 years at SMM, Chris has had a hand in the development, design, production and management of many exhibits and public programs. Chris is currently lead developer on an SMM team charged with inventing engineering exhibits for the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

While doing graduate work in San Francisco in 1985, Chris was employed as an assistant graphic designer and exhibit builder at the Exploratorium. The experience piqued her continuing interest in the physics of natural phenomena and honed her ability to communicate difficult subjects. In 1992 she joined staff at the Minnesota Children’s Museum to help develop their programmatic master plan and lead the development of a science gallery for young children. Chris is a regular presenter at museum conferences and consults with non-profits in exhibit and project planning. As a community activist and volunteer, Chris applies her talents to climate change education and action. She looks forward to skating and cross-country skiing.

Chris was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks readers:

What’s your educational background?
I have a Bachelors degree in art education from UW Madison, which was an interesting place in the 70s. I keep my K-12 teacher's certification current.

In the mid-80s I took time out for a Masters degree in museum studies at John F. Kennedy University near San Francisco. I tailored the program to include several internships at the Exploratorium. My thesis examined techniques science museums use to communicate controversial issues. Parts of this project included an evaluation of the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Bionics and Transplants exhibit and a survey of all ASTC museums. It should have been a doctorate degree!

I’d like to note an excellent Project Management course I picked up some years back from University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, taught by Best Buy’s lead project manager. Assignments immersed participants in team-based reality projects that addressed current situations in local and regional businesses. Post-it notes were a ready staple, which only fed my worsening addiction.

What got you interested in Museums?
What drew me to the museum field, rather than any heart-felt interest, was a tip from a friend who knew of a job opening in the fabrication shop at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). Exhibits Director Terry Sateran, who came from the theater world, hired me on the spot. He was building a new museum and needed folks with diverse skills. I came with experience in art, theater, education and fabrication. I learned they all come together in creating public spaces and visitor experiences.

Flashback to elementary school. Field trips introduced me to the Chicago giants—the Shedd Aquarium and Brookfield Zoo, Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, Museum of Science and Industry, and the Art Institute. The little gems around town were never on the itinerary.

Early museum memories include a real submarine, suspended airplanes and an amazing model train; a theatrical immersion deep into a coal mine; and cave people dioramas. I can’t forget the dinosaurs and mammoth; the mysterious Foucault pendulum (which I never understood); a series of nine pickled human fetuses; and Colleen Moore’s elaborate Fairy Castle. Seeing live zoo animals—swinging monkeys, leaping dolphins and pacing wolves—was interesting, but I always felt sorry for them. Also memorable were smelly lunchrooms, crowds and long bus rides.

Akin to museum experiences of my youth were annual family excursions to Marshall Field’s to see their Christmas windows. The displays magically animated scenes from a story, with mechanical characters and props enacting a tale that unfolded as you walked along State Street. (Over years they became less animated and, finally, useless.) A visit to Santa capped off this holiday tradition, along with lunch in the Walnut room, sitting next to the crackling wood fire and the multi-story Christmas tree, which gawkers glimpsed through the clerestory as they rode the escalators.

Being raised by a first grade teacher helped set the stage. Her classroom was a museum, full of treasures from nature, Native American culture, her own family history and the livelihoods and hobbies of her students’ families, who regularly did show-and-tells. She was like Ms. Frizzle in the Magic School Bus, often role-playing characters in costume. I helped illustrate murals and posters for her bulletin boards. Readying her room was a family project. It was our entrée into object-based learning, entrenched in personal story making.

How does working with local communities to create exhibits inform your design process?
It’s a wake-up call. I’m due for another jolt. Working with communities keeps me in touch with reality. The real-world work of community groups out there in the field reminds me that science museums hardly have a corner on informal science education.

In working with community groups to plan, develop and design exhibits and other projects, I learn how important it is to capture everyone’s ideas along the way. People need to feel heard. I use an active listening process, recording, grouping and connecting ideas visually at the same time, sketching little pictures to animate the emerging storyboard. People are often surprised to see their ramblings taking some form in real time. Visualizing the process helps folks focus, make decisions and prioritize their work.

It’s been several years since I’ve worked with Twin Cities Area community-based science organizations (CBSOs), but the impact lingers. As part of the Community Partnerships Serving Science initiative I led five six-week-long project development workshops for 75 CBSOs, inviting in guest museum specialists to assist. CBSOs are groups of impassioned folks, usually unpaid, engaging their local audiences in every science topic you can imagine, from breeding daffodils to advancing renewable energy, inventing robots or brewing beer. They’re often reaching audiences that museums simply miss.

The CBSOs would come to the Museum for workshops; I met them at their respective sites for strategic planning sessions and to coach them in writing project or exhibit proposals. They all received $600, and it was amazing to see what they could accomplish with such small stipends. A few more substantial monetary awards allowed a tight SMM team to collaboratively work with four CBSOs to build small traveling exhibitions. When I meet these folks at events about town, they say that their work with the museum honed their message and broadened their visibility in the community, which increased their membership. It’s rewarding to hear.

I’ve always enjoyed collaborative, community-based projects and find energy in facilitating the group process. Old Mickey Rooney movies are my inspiration. Pooling meager resources, he and his high school friends—including Judy Garland, of course—always managed to create a rip-roaring show in someone’s borrowed basement, barn, garage or the school gym.

My first collaborative design project with community happened in Marshfield, Wisconsin back in the 70s. I taught high school and, as Senior Class Advisor, coordinated and facilitated projects with teens. One year we found two downtown business owners willing to let us transform the clerestory between their buildings into a theatrical streetscape. Everyone brought their skills to the table, including bricklaying knee-walls, designing and lighting shop windows, painting murals, woodworking and scrounging for benches and street lamps. The kids, parents and business folks all came out. It was a blast.

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in bringing more community input into their exhibitions?
Try anything that brings more voices to the table at every stage of your exhibit or project. Here are three strategies:

-       Stage a community workshop. Early in a project, convene key community stakeholders (school teachers and principals, librarians, board members, local supporters, critics and naysayers) to help clarify your problem and brainstorm strategies. Don’t be afraid. Pay them a stipend and, before they leave, ask if they’d be willing to come back as volunteers. Bring them and others back to test ideas, serve as advisors, interpret exhibits or, as groups, actually manage exhibit activity areas.

-       Identify community-based science organizations in your community. Get to know them and you’ll find all sorts of ways to work together. Visit them where they congregate, go to their meetings to meet their audiences and host meet-ups at the museum. Invite them to advise on projects, lead workshops or participate in museum events. Write them into grant proposals; ask them to write you into theirs.

-       Showcase local work in your exhibits. Get to know creative people in your community. Search out area artists, crafters, trades people, entrepreneurs and youth leaders. Find them on the Internet, through person-to-person contacts or through their associations and organizations. Commission work or purchase pieces that help convey your exhibit themes; credit them and invite them to the party. Art pieces—practical (like lighting or seating), contemplative or interactive—lend a personal, creative twist that appeals. I’ve found that the State Fair is a good place to shop.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development? I’ll suggest six books that I use for ideas and inspiration:

• Alexander, Christopher and Ishikawa, Sara and Silverstein, Murray (1977) A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings and Construction, London: Oxford University Press

[Instructs reader in a humanist approach to design, using a sequence of 600 design problems and solutions, from planning a city to planning a bedroom]

• Whyte, William “Holly” (1980), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, New York: Project for Public Spaces

[Book and accompanying film document iconic human behaviors exhibited by people using New York public spaces—sidewalks, street corners, markets, parks and plazas]

• Zumthor, Peter (1998) Thinking Architecture, Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers

[Walks you through a diary-like personal reflection and instruction on observation and design]

• Tufte, Edward (1997) Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, Cheshire: Graphics Press

[Shows ways graphics and illustration can convey dynamic processes without words]

• Underhill, Paco (1999) Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, New York: Simon & Schuster

[Reveals the psychology in attracting and holding potential customers)

• Gurian, Elaine (2006) Civilizing the Museum: The collected writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian, London; New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group

[Explores ways to make museums more central and relevant to society]

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
Etiquette of the Undercaste, by Antenna Theater, is an interactive performance installation; a maze of thirteen rooms that use simple theater props and techniques to put you in the shoes of a homeless person. You die and are reborn into hopeless poverty. The show triggers gut-felt empathy for the disenfranchised. I felt changed in a more positive way by videos of people with disabilities that we developed for Bionics and Transplants: the World of Replacement Medicine—a mind-bending exhibit staged here at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The City Museum, St. Louis, makes you a player in their adventure reality show. I entered the place as chaperone for a group of teenagers, but found myself facing my fears alone most of the time. Curiosity coaxes you into unthinkable situations—like dropping down into mysterious holes in the floor—that test your courage and survival skills. Strangers encourage each other through often dark, artfully created mazes, slides and tunnels. Experiencing all of the funky outdoor climbing structures at night is particularly cool.

In these times, watching immigrants under siege, I recall being moved by two Smithsonian exhibitions: A More Perfect Union revealed the discrimination against Japanese interned during WW II.   From Field to Factory told a memorable story of the continued persecution of freed slaves as they moved north. They displayed an actual contract that would have been signed by Klu Klux Klan members --- it was a shocker.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

That would take some thinking. Here are a few ideas.

- Develop dynamic interpretive help centers and connecting wayside attractions that immerse travelers in a sense of place and help facilitate their journey. Nova Scotia does a nice job.

- Work with regional coordinators across the country—maybe the world— to increase the capacity of community-based science organizations to mobilize their audiences. Call it a revolution.

- Build an energy-efficient, accessible home in my neighborhood. I’ve started this process; we’ll see how it goes. Along the way I’d like to move Minneapolis to establish a housing development policy that requires new homes to be visitable or accessible to folks using chairs. Baby boomers are their money in the bank.

- Help develop community art and science centers around the world that reflect local culture and help address real human needs, like health, food, clothing and shelter and the creation of meaningful work. It’s uncanny to see copies of the same exhibits populating museums and science centers everywhere without adaptation to specific places and situations.

- Develop an engaging urban space. I’m an enduring fan of Project for Public Spaces, a New York organization committed to placemaking to build stronger communities, and am drawn into this kind of effort in varied contexts, such as museums, my neighborhood park and my church. Most recently, I’m jazzed to help pull together a focus group convened by Forecast Public Arts, a St. Paul organization that connects the talents and energies of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities.

Thanks to Chris for taking the time to share her thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

ReWind: Good Prototypers are Office Supply Ninjas!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:46:00 +0000

How best to enable folks to become better exhibit prototypers? One way is by thinking like an "Office Supply Ninja" so I thought I'd ReWind this post on the subject. Enjoy!

Thomas Edison said, "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." His reference was to inventing, but he could have also been speaking about prototyping.

To me, prototyping is an iterative process that uses simple materials to help you answer questions about the physical aspects of your exhibit components (even labels!) early on in the development process.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it's always a bit discouraging to hear museum folks say "we just don't have the time/the money/the space/the materials to do prototyping ..." (By then I'm usually thinking "So how is setting an ill-conceived or malfunctioning exhibit component into your museum, because you didn't prototype, saving time or money?" But I digress...)

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine anyone fabricating an exhibit component without trying out a quick-and-dirty version first. So in today's post I thought I'd lay out the simple steps I use to show how quickly and inexpensively prototyping can be integrated into the beginning of any exhibit development process, and how you too can become an Office Supply Ninja!

STEP ONE: Figure out what you want to find out.

In this case, a client wanted me to come up with an interactive version of a "Food Web" (the complex interrelationship of organisms in a particular environment, showing, basically, what eats what.) We brainstormed a number of approaches (magnet board, touch screen computer) but finally settled on the notion of allowing visitors to construct a "Food Web Mobile" with the elements being the various organisms found (in this particular case) in a mangrove swamp. The client was also able to provide me with a flow chart showing the relationships between organisms and a floor plan of the area where the final exhibit will be installed.

The two initial things I wanted to test or find out about from my prototype were:

1) Did people "get" the idea conceptually? That is, did they understand the relationships and analogies between the Food Web Mobile and the actual organisms in the swamp?

2) Could they easily create different sorts of physical arrangements with the mobile that were interesting and accurate?

STEP TWO: Get out your junk!

As in the Edison quote above, it helps to have a good supply of "bits and bobs" around to prototype with. You might not have the same sorts of junk that I've gathered up over years in the museum exhibit racket, but everyone should have access to basic office supplies (stuff like paper, tape, markers, index cards, scissors, etc.) And really that's all you need to start assembling prototypes. (The imagination part is important, too.)

STEP THREE: Start playing around with the pieces ...

Before I even start assembling a complete rough mechanism or system I like to gather all the parts together and see if I like how they work with each other. In the case of the Food Web Mobile prototype, I used colored file folders to represent different levels of organisms. I initially made each color/level out of the same size pieces, but then I changed to having each color be a different size. Finally, I used a hole punch to make the holes, and bent paper clips to serves as the hooks that would allow users to connect the pieces/organisms in different ways.

STEP FOUR: Assemble, then iterate, iterate, iterate!

This is the part of the prototyping process that requires other people beside yourself. Let your kids, your co-workers, your significant other, whoever (as long as it's somebody beside yourself) try out your idea. Obviously the closer your "testers" are to the expected demographic inside the museum, the better --- ideally I like to prototype somewhere inside the museum itself.

Resist the urge to explain or over-explain your prototype. Just watch what people do (or don't do!) with the exhibit component(s). Take lots of notes/pictures/video. Then take a break to change your prototype based on what you've observed and heard, and try it out again. That's called iteration.

In this case, I saw right away that the mobile spun and balanced in interesting ways, but that meant that the labels would need to be printed on both sides of the pieces. Fortunately, my three "in-house testers" (ages 6, 11, and 13) seemed to "get" the concept of "Food Webs" embedded into the Mobile interactive, and started coming up with interesting physical variations on their own.

For example, I initially imagined people would just try to create "balanced" arrangements of pieces on the Mobile. But, as you can see below, the prototype testers enjoyed making "unbalanced" arrangements as well (which is fine, and makes sense conceptually as well.) Also, we discovered that people realized that they could hang more than one "organism piece" on the lower hooks (which was also fine, and also made sense conceptually.)

STEP FIVE: Figure out what's next ... even if it's the trash can!

Do you need to change the label, or some physical arrangement of your prototype? Using simple, inexpensive materials makes that easy.

Do you just need to junk this prototype idea? Using simple, inexpensive materials makes it easier to move on to a new idea, too. (Much more easily than if you had spent weeks crafting and assembling something out of expensive materials from your workshop...) It's not too surprising to see people really struggle to let a bad exhibit idea go, especially if they've spent several weeks putting it together. Quick and cheap should be your watchwords early on in the prototyping process.

In this case, I sent photos of the paper clip prototype and a short video showing people using the Food Web Mobile to the client as a "proof of concept." They were quite pleased, and so now I will make a second-level prototype using materials more like those I expect to use in the "final" exhibit (which I'll update in a future post.) Even so, I will still repeat the steps above of gathering materials, assembling pieces, and iterating through different versions with visitors.

I hope you'll give this "office supply ninja" version of exhibit prototyping a try for your next project!

If you do, send me an email and I'd be happy to show off the results of ExhibiTricks readers prototyping efforts.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Restocking the Exhibits Exchange

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:35:00 +0000

How do you build "critical mass" for an online project?

A year or so ago, I started a FREE Google Group called the "Exhibits Exchange"

The "Exhibits Exchange" group is a place to post information regarding the many well-used (but still usable) "retired" exhibits and/or components for sale, trade, barter, or exchange. It seems like a no-brainer to me, given the requests for this sort of thing that continually pop up on the ASTC and CHILDMUS lists. There are two great items (a double gravity well, and an entire exhibition!) currently on the Exchange.

So what's the problem? Well, honestly, numbers. Even though we've had some good early success, and found homes for some exhibits, the whole concept of an Exhibits Exchange will work much better with a bigger group of members --- more members broaden the potential pool of both exhibit offerers and exhibit takers.

I'm asking ExhibiTricks readers help in two ways:

1) If you're not already a member of the Exhibits Exchange group, please join up (and tell a colleague or two about the group as well!) It honestly takes just a minute (did I mention it's FREE?)

2) If you have any bright ideas for building up the critical mass of Exhibits Exchange, leave a comment below or just email me directly.

Thanks!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Checking Up On The Exhibit Doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:30:00 +0000

When we threw open the Exhibit Doctor's "office" on this blog last month, a familiar exhibit "ailment" was brought up by Mary Jane Taylor, Research and Evaluation Manager at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia:

"In twenty years as a museum professional, and longer as a visitor, I've never seen anyone come up with an attractive, cheap, durable and easy-to-use system of having a flip book of text or images available in an exhibit. Solutions range from the bulky and impossible to use (thick mountings for pages with heavy-duty grommets and rings) to ugly, disposable three-ring binders from Staples.

"Notebooks" of source material, photographs, and diagrams are a basic in all kinds of museums, so it seems like a problem that somebody should be able to solve!"

I'm happy to report that I received some excellent suggestions regarding Mary Jane's query from ExhibiTricks readers.

Several folks suggested high-tech solutions such as the wonderful Spin Browser from Technofrolics --- which would completely eliminate dog-eared pages! (Is there an iPad app for this sort of museum application?)

But I think something gets lost when you replace tactile objects, especially books, ledgers, and journals with digital facsimiles. It's a bit like "pictures under glass" to borrow a phrase from Bret Victor's excellent rant on the future of interaction design. But I digress.

In the low-tech realm, I immediately thought of the clever "page and rod" design first developed by Jay Erickson from the Minnesota Historical Society. Basically you laminate each label/document page and then carefully clear tape one page edge to a 1/8-inch stainless welding rod, cut to size. The collection of rod/page assemblies then are captured in wooden (or plastic) "end caps" with large cylindrical depressions drilled into them. I recently saw some "flip pages" using this method in an exhibition at the Connecticut Historical Society (pictured below.)


Flipping pages

Close up of one "end cap"

Ken Dickson offered up a few clever industrial-type solutions to consider. The first is a rotating, changeable system called the SHERPA Carousel

and the second, the Master View system

It looks like both of these items are also available at your friendly neighborhood office supply store, so go take a look. Thanks for the tip, Ken!

Lastly, Stewart Bailey from Intu Design was kind enough to share a design (pictured below) that's works well for his clients:

It’s just pages printed onto white reinforced vinyl banner material, and bound at the spine onto a support so that it doesn’t walk away. I generally use a direct UV print onto the vinyl, which allows double-sided printing. The books feel quite nice in the hand. There’s none of the horrible U-bolt and laminated card stock with grommets, or sintra panels that are so frustrating to use. Pages are as easily changed as with U-bolts. The reinforced vinyl is really tough, and can stand up to heavy use well.

Nice work Stewart! I wonder if the "pages" could be printed onto Tyvek or EcoPlast as a vinyl substitute?

Have your own exhibit issue you'd like to discuss with the Exhibit Doctor? Feel free to email me directly, or leave a message in the "Comments" section below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Hobnobbing with the Historians (NEMA 2011 Wrap-Up)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:57:00 +0000

Different types of museums seem to foster different "tribes" (or affinity groups) of both staff and visitors. So I was happy to get outside of my science center/children's museum/interactive exhibits comfort zone to attend the decidedly history-oriented NEMA (New England Museum Association) Conference that just recently concluded in Hartford, Connecticut.

To be sure, not everyone at the Conference was in the History racket, but the majority were. So this is a group that takes the twin foci of the museum business, "Stories" and "Stuff" very seriously. (Of course that's a tricky task when you have such artifacts range from whaling ships to original Silly Putty packaging.)

You might expect such a conference to be overly concerned with "When" and "What" type questions, but I was pleased to find that this year's NEMA conference kept bubbling with "Who" (as in who are we as museums, and who will our visitors be?) and "How" (as in the process of creating engaging, community-centered, and community co-created, offerings) type questions.

What follows are a few highlights from the conference sessions and activities:

Tuesday night, before the official Wednesday morning start, began with a nice social opportunity by offering a "Pecha Kucha" evening event. I've written about Pecha Kucha before, but briefly it is a presentation format that limits each presenter to a session of 20 slides of 20 seconds each (for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds.) The format is great for getting presenters to focus and sharpen their ideas. The NEMA crew delivered with presentations ranging from "The Pickle Project" to reflections on Route 66. I think every museum conference should start this way!

In keeping with the "Who" and "How" focus, the Wednesday morning Keynote Presentation was actually a panel presentation on "Reflecting Relevance in a Diverse Society." The speakers eloquently and forcefully emphasized the disconnect between the past, and for the most part current, offerings of museums and cultural institutions in the U.S. and the changing demographics of our potential visitors. Basically, museums that attract older and whiter audiences can't expect to keep doing more of the same programming and expect to interest and attract audiences that do not have a museum-going tradition.

Another nice aspect of NEMA's programming format is that they allow individuals (even those running a business or independent museum professionals) to present for an entire 90 minute session by themselves. In my experience, this worked really well and allowed in-depth consideration of such topics as developing apps for your museum (by Rob Pyles of TourSphere), building a strong social media presence (by Caitlyn Thayer of Barefoot Media), and exhibit project management (by Todd Harris of 42 | Design Fab Studio.) The presenters were all thorough and thoughtful and absolutely did NOT turn their sessions into sales "pitches." Bigger conferences like AAM, ASTC, and ACM should take note, and loosen their session formats a bit!

Of course not all the important conversation happens during sessions, and I was happy to reconnect with some old friends and meet some new folks as well. I even went to a Tweet-Up! If you find yourself in Hartford, you could do worse than eating at Trumbull Kitchen or Black-eyed Sally's!

The only false note in the conference evening festivities was the trip to the Connecticut Science Center. Both the event itself, and also the entire museum, were lacking. It's amazing to think of all the money and political capital (not to mention a "starchitect") that went into producing such a fizzle of a place --- a true museum NOT worth a special trip. (But I'll save the specifics for a future post ...)

Luckily, I was invited to present during two sessions. I gave a short talk and helped moderate an activity during the Exhibits PAG (Professional Affinity Group) Lunch on the topic of "Green Exhibits" where I referenced the "Green Exhibits Checklist."

I also was on the panel of "critiquers" for a session that reviewed the "Making Connecticut" exhibition at the Connecticut Historical Society. (Which despite being a history exhibition, had some nice interactive opportunities for visitors, like the spindle component pictured below.) I applaud the staff and designers for putting their work up for review in a public forum before their peers. This, to me, is how we grow as practitioners and share ideas on how to create better exhibitions.

Kudos to the NEMA staff and museum hosts for doing such a great job with the 2011 Conference! Their hard work is a big reason why NEMA continues to be one of the strongest regional museum associations in the U.S.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exhibit Design Inspiration: Doing More with Less (Space)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 02:40:00 +0000

Architects Michael Chen and Kari Anderson of Normal Projects designed the clever NYC apartment seen in the video above for their client Eric Schneider.

There are some wonderfully clever ways shown here to maximize space that should be an inspiration for any museum/exhibit designer that has faced the challenge of needing to fit "5 quarts" of program into a "2 quart" space. Enjoy (and take notes for your next "small" project!)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Food for Thought: Selected Nutrition Exhibit Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:13:00 +0000

I've gathered some cool links based on some interesting and useful food/nutrition resources I've come across on the Web as part of my research for an upcoming health exhibition.

The links below come from a dedicated Evernote "notebook" that I've kept during the entire reasearch and development work on the aforementioned health exhibition. I've posted before about Evernote, but I can't enthuse enough about this FREE multi-platform, multi-device way to keep track of web pages and other digital assets (including images that you capture with your cellphone, computer, or digital camera.) Did I mention that Evernote can search the text in your captured images as well?

But enough about Evernote, now back to the Web resources. Here are seven sites I've selected because I think they're either handy references for anyone working on a health and/or food related project, or they're fun departures from what can often be mind-numbing discussions of Calories and portion sizes. In no particular order:

1) Calories burned in 30 minutes: This chart from the Harvard Medical School is a handy reference to determine "Calorie burns" for everything from Billiards to Bicycling.

2) USDA's MyPlate: The US Department of Agriculture has dumped the old "Food Pyramid" and replaced it with the "MyPlate" scheme. There are still different food groups, but the MyPlate icon is meant to help us all keep proper portions of the food groups on our plates as well. Try to make at least half your grains whole grains!

3) Sugar Stacks: One of the food ingredients we all need to keep careful track of is sugar. But reading a label and finding 35 grams of sugar listed is a bit abstract. Enter the site Sugar Stacks! Here they show you visually how many cubes of sugar each grams listing for a particular food product translates to. It's a little disconcerting to see how many cubes of sugar a can of soda contains, for example.

4) Is Your Meat Made With Meat Glue? Technically "meat glue" is called transglutaminase, and is made from animal blood. Yum! A glimpse at what "processed food" really means.

5) Portion Size Plate: This graphic app from WebMD let's you see the proper size portions you should be eating of particular foods by comparing them to familiar objects like baseballs or decks of cards. It's not just what you eat but how much you eat.

The last two items are things I would have liked to incorporate somehow into the health exhibition, but they didn't quite make the cut. Perhaps you'll find some use for these last two links in one of your future projects?

6) Tiny People's Wonderful World of Food: Seattle-based artist Christopher Boffoli uses food as a jumping off point for his fanciful photographs.

7) Odors and consumer behavior in a restaurant: Researchers found that introducing certain odors, like lavender, into a restaurant increased the length of stay of customers and the amount of food purchased. An interesting study that emphasizes how little we understand about how our sense of smell guides some of our behavior.

I hope you find the links and sites above interesting. If you have food or health related Web resources that might be useful for exhibition or program development, please let us know in the "Comments" section below.

The Green Exhibit Checklist

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 19:41:00 +0000

I'm an advisor on a wonderful project designed to create tools for the museum/design industry that help to foster more sustainable project development and exhibit production. Or in simpler terms, helping exhibit folks to be more thoughtful about the broader ecological impacts of our work .

The project is headed up by the fine folks from OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) with funding from the National Science Foundation.

One of the "in-process" products that I'm most excited about is "The Green Exhibit Checklist"

The Green Exhibit Checklist is a tool to evaluate the environmental sustainability of exhibits. The goal of the Checklist is to inspire exhibit/design teams to plan exhibits with environmental considerations in mind. It awards points (along the lines of the LEED process) for five key strategies for reducing the environmental impact of exhibit production:

• Reducing new material consumption
• Using local resources
• Reducing waste
• Reducing energy consumption
• Reducing products with toxic emissions

Rather than focusing on a dogmatic list of “dos and donts” or a list of “must use” green materials, the Green Exhibit Checklist considers sustainable design as an institution-wide, evolving process.

If you'd like to find out more about OMSI's Promoting Sustainable Decision Making project, you can click on over to the website called "Exhibit SEED" or better yet, click here to download a PDF of the most recent version of The Green Exhibit Checklist, so you can start using it yourself!

As a side note, I'll be speaking at the upcoming NEMA (New England Museum Association) Conference in Hartford during the Exhibits Luncheon on Thursday, November 17th on just this topic.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

ReWind: Sugru is great stuff!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Sugru is a great addition to the toolkit of any hacker/fixer/maker/artist.

I've been working on a few projects recently to stick exhibit-y things together or to make small replacement parts that need to be flexible and strong, and Sugru really does the trick. So I thought I'd ReWind this posting. Enjoy!

In fact, "Hacking Things Better" seems to be the company motto!

Plus Sugru has a great story --- creative young woman works with two materials scientists to develop a better (silicone-based) material to fix and improve things.

As you can see on the Sugru website there are lots of clever ways to repair and/or improve even everyday items.

What's your favorite museum/exhibit/design "fixit" material? Tell us about it in the "Comments" section below!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Back to Basics: Reflecting on the ASTC 2011 Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Over 1700 people from around the world converged on Baltimore recently for the ASTC (Association of Science-Technology Centers) conference. It truly was an international affair with delegates coming from Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America.

I was fortunate to attend and be part of two sessions, so here are some of my takeaways on this year's get-together:

If there has been one overarching conference "theme" (there was an official conference theme, but I couldn't tell you what it was ...) that I've been thinking about since I've returned from Baltimore, it's "Back to Basics".

Many of the sessions, conversations, and most striking things in the Exhibit Hall really seemed to be getting back to science center "fundamentals" like exhibit development, evaluation, community engagement, and pure scientific phenomena.

Starting with the science phenomena first, the folks from the Superconductivity Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel-Aviv University were demonstrating what they called "Quantum Levitation" using powerful magnets and thin sapphire wafers coated with a very thin ceramic layer of yttrium barium copper oxide cooled with Liquid Nitrogen. You can see the YouTube video below. If you think it looks amazing in the video I can tell you it was really AMAZING in person, and it was the hit of the Exhibit Hall. (Also the video has gone viral with over 3 million views!)

One of the other popular areas in the Exhibit Hall was the NASA area. Even though the last Space Shuttle has left the launchpad, NASA is doing incredible science, and is quite willing to share their educational resources with museums and the public. (I like to imagine all my tax dollars going to NASA and NSF instead of some the less beneficial and interesting things the government does ...)

As far as sessions, it was interesting to note the sheer volume of presentations geared toward engaging the public with "real" scientific information and research (as opposed to "bogus" information like immunization conspiracy theories.) One of the best examples of this was the keynote presentation by author and reporter Michael Specter.

Mr. Specter delivered many of his talking points from his recent book "Denialism" and provided a vigorous defense of both science and reason by excoriating everyone from Michele Bachman and her irresponsible statements about the HVP vaccine to "raw" milk fanatics. Good Stuff!

As for the conference sessions, I really enjoyed the "nuts and bolts" topics the most.

I participated in the "Knowledge that Works for Small Science Centers" session where the entire range of operational concerns like evaluation, fund raising, education, marketing, and exhibits for small(er) museums was addressed. Some common threads were that museums need to build sane and sustainable operations, while continually thinking about how to increase their internal capacity. The double session was well-attended and judging from the comments and conversations, there is a real need for this type of info. (You can download our session notes and resources from this web page.)

The other session I participated in was entitled "Exhibit Evaluation: Useless bureaucratic hurdle or valuable tool?" As you might gather from the title, there was lots of frank discussion and audience participation. How can you not love a session that name checks Mary Poppins, Frank Oppenheimer, and The Spanish Inquisition?

From my perspective, the good news is that people are passionate about figuring out what "works" in exhibit and education programs in museums. The bad news is that there are many different ideas about what makes for useful and effective evaluation, and it seemed that many of the evaluation folks felt that the exhibits folks just "don't get it."

All that being said it was interesting and spirited. Emily Schuster from ASTC gave a fair and detailed recap in this blog post from the ASTC website.

One of the last sessions I attended "Are Your Exhibits Safe? A Walking Workshop" was an important look at an often neglected topic --- that of safety. Exhibit fabricator extraordinaire, Charlie Shaw (pictured below) took us on a "walkabout" through the Maryland Science Center where we took apart and opened up exhibit components to study both the good and bad design features in regard to safety. A super important topic and usually not something that comes up at an ASTC conference --- so kudos to the presenters!

Off course, like most conferences, many interesting conversations happened outside the "formal" presentation times (did I mention there was a Tinkerers' Ball at the American Visionary Art Museum?) I'll certainly be mulling over my ASTC 2011 experiences to share in future ExhibiTricks postings.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Off to ASTC 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:09:00 +0000

I'm off to Baltimore for the annual Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) conference.

I look forward to meeting up with colleagues from around the world, as well as having the opportunity to be part of two interesting sessions.

The first session, "Knowledge that Works for Small Science Centers" will be a "nuts and bolts" session on a variety of topics of interest to small(er) museums --- from marketing and evaluation to educational programs and exhibits. I'll be doing a bit of double duty speaking about both exhibits and using social media.

The great part of this double session is that we'll have concentrated "break outs" at small tables for an opportunity to discuss specific topics in more detail. Come join us on Sunday, October 16th from 2:15 to 4:45 PM in the Convention Center!

The second session is entitled "Exhibit Evaluation: Useless Bureaucratic Hurdle or Valuable Tool?" The title probably gives you the clue that this will be a no holds barred session with lots of audience participation. Evaluation is a topic that is hard to be neutral about so I expect some great discussion. Come join us on Monday, October 17th from 10:45 AM-12:00 PM, also in the Convention Center.

I'll also try to give updates from the conference --- session recaps, exhibit hall updates, and the conversations in-between. So stay tuned to ExhibiTricks, or check out my Twitter feed (@museum_exhibits) as well.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Two Exhibit Doctor "Cases"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:05:00 +0000

My post a short while ago about some new ExhibiTricks features has gotten a good response.

Here are two pending ideas for The Exhibit Doctor that I'd like to start to dig into (and also like to receive comments and input from ExhibiTricks readers!)

First off, Mary Jane Taylor from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is on the lookout for ways to collect and display information in "flip books" or notebooks. Here's part of her email:

"In twenty years as a museum professional, and longer as a visitor, I've never seen anyone come up with an attractive, cheap, durable and easy-to-use system of having a flip book of text or images available in an exhibit. Solutions range from the bulky and impossible to use (thick mountings for pages with heavy-duty grommets and rings) to ugly, disposable three-ring binders from Staples.

"Notebooks" of source material, photographs, and diagrams are a basic in all kinds of museums, so it seems like a problem that somebody should be able to solve!"

I've got some initial ideas that I've been gathering for Mary Jane, but if you've seen an elegant way to gather and display this type of exhibition information feel free to drop me an email or share your "exhibit flip book" ideas in the "Comments" section below.

The second idea in the Exhibit Doctor hopper was submitted by Mary Anna Murphy, and this is from her email:

"This isn't a very knotty problem, but I've run across it again and again in installing 2D works in a non-traditional gallery setting such as a mall, an office that worships its walls, or even the Russell Senate Office building rotunda. None of those places have walls that want nails or hangers. I'd be interested in seeing how other folks have managed to make their displays. Oh, and it always has to be low budget."

If you've got some ideas to share on Mary Ana's question, again drop me an email or share your comments below.

In both these current Exhibit Doctor cases, and in future ones as well, I'll be gathering information from all the sources and resources I can, and then I'll write up a full report (with images and references here feasible) to share (for free of course) here on ExhibiTricks and also on my website.

So if you can help out with this first set of queries please do! In the meantime, if you have other Exhibit Doctor questions or would like a crack at the ExhibiTricks SoapBox feel free to contact me about that too!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Putting Visitors First: An Interview with Beth Redmond-Jones

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:38:00 +0000

Beth (at far right) with her family in Teton National Park

Since 1988, Beth Redmond-Jones has developed, designed, and project managed exhibitions for museums, interpretive centers, zoos, and aquariums, including Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Bay Area Discovery Museum, the Alaska SeaLife Center, Exploratorium, California Science Center, National Park Service, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her expertise lies in creating multi-layered visitor experiences that include graphics, text, low and high-tech interactives, live animals, media, theater, and immersive exhibit elements. Her in-house experience includes Director of Exhibits at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Assistant to the Director of Public Programs at the Exploratorium, and Assistant Registrar at the Tucson Museum of Art.

Beth was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks readers:

What’s your educational background?

I have an MA in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University and a BA in Art History with a double minor in studio art and biology from University of New Hampshire. I grew up in a family of architects and spent a good part of my childhood watching (and helping) my family flip houses. The design and construction aspects I feel have helped me to become a better conceptual designer, and to consider all aspects of how an exhibit could work and create an effective environment.

What got you interested in Museums?

My mom and dad were really good about taking me to museums and zoos when I was a kid. My favorites were the Cincinnati Zoo and seeing the white Bengal tigers. The other was the Natural History Museum in Cincinnati. They had this amazing immersive experience where you walked through a cave, and there was a waterfall, and it was wet and cold. I was transformed into a spelunker. I would go through it multiple times during each visit. I was also fascinated by the museum's taxidermied specimens. They were amazing.

Then, when I was seven, my mom told me we were going to have lunch with a friend of hers at the Cincinnati Art Museum. At that point in time, art museums were boring to me, and the thought of having lunch with her and one of her friends at a boring museum was "a total drag" (one of my favorite expressions when I was seven.) What she didn't tell me was that her friend, Millard F. Rogers Jr., was the Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, who ended up serving as Director for 20 years.

Well, that lunch began my love of museums. Millard took me behind the scenes to show me collection storage and when we walked in, staff were opening a crate to reveal a Greek sculpture (I hated Greek sculpture then, but it was still a cool thing to watch) and they began discussing how to remove it from the crate and how it was going to be displayed. Seeing that sculpture in its crate, and listening to their conversation, was all it took. I was hooked.

Given your varied background, is your approach to exhibition development different in the context of different museum types? No, not at all. Visitors always come first. Working for Kathy McLean for so long taught me the importance of putting visitors first: determining their base line knowledge of a subject, their assumptions, and their misconceptions, then evaluating concepts throughout the process.

The challenge I sometime find with the exhibition development process, however, is getting the rest of the team on board of talking with and listening to what visitors have to say all through the process. Some of my past clients did not have experience working with and including visitors in the exhibition development process, so this has been where I've had to refine my approach—getting the team on board to take visitor input seriously and create an experience that achieves the goals of the team while responding to the needs and interests of their visitors.

I really like the ambiguity of the process. Letting things sit, simmer, percolate, whatever you want to call it. Yet, I know it can frustrate others. Many of the team members I have worked with over the years want to make a decision and call it a day. I think it's important to put ideas on the board, move them around, refine them, keep some, toss others. It's an iterative approach, one that I think creates a better experience.

On occasion, I have used the IDEO method cards which are a fun way to spark new kinds of design conversations with non-designer team members. It has led to some very insightful and fun discussions which led them to come up with some innovative design concepts for exhibits.

Does being a parent inform your exhibit design work?

Definitely. I have two girls and they couldn't be more different from one another, and they are also eight years apart. So their interests, attention level, and desired experiences are really different from one another. They are constantly giving me their input on an exhibition I'm working on, whether I want it or not. But I really love that—they want my exhibitions to be engaging as well.

At various times over the years, both of them have looked at fonts for readability and read labels out loud for understandability. They are often my first level of evaluation. Most recently, my youngest was looking at typefaces and logo treatments for a children's exhibition I’m working on. She picked out problem areas that no one else on the team noticed. It was really helpful.

As a parent, I've also been exposed to experiences that I may not have been exposed to if I hadn't had kids, such as Adventure Playground in Berkeley, CA, or even children's museums. Seeing how kids learn, engage, and behave in a variety of environments has allowed me to think about exhibit experiences that engage that younger audience in a different way.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development?

The online museum resources I follow on a regular basis are the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) list-serve and web site, ExhibitFiles, Nina Simon's blog, Museum 2.0 and of course ExhibiTricks! I also check out IDEO's web site on a regular basis.

Other resources are books and magazines. First and foremost is Kathy McLean's book Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions, Beverly Serrell's book Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, and Sam Taylor's book Try It! Improving Exhibits Through Formative Evaluation. In my opinion, these are necessary items on any exhibit developers bookshelf.

Other favorites are Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions edited by Kathy McLean and Wendy Pollock, Nina Simon's book The Participatory Museum, and of course, Exhibitionist, the journal published by the NAME, and Curator magazine. I also read non-museum magazines like ID and Wired to see what's going on in design and technology outside museums.

There is one other resource that I have pinned on my wall. I'm not sure where it came from, but I know many exhibit developers who have it above their desks:

What Do I Do?

Visionary: Inspire the process.

Curator: Without the Ph.D. or the years of preparation, but with the pressure for accuracy.

Researcher: Compile background, interview experts.

Secretary: Listen to the Board, listen to the administration.

Thinker: Synthesize all of it to get the main message.

Warrior: Defend the main message.

Whiner: Complain when the main message is being ignored.

Translator: Turn words into a three-dimensional, interactive, exciting exhibit.

Teacher: Educate the designers who are too busy to learn about the content they’re exhibiting.

Evaluator: Speak with visitors.

Advocate: Speak up for visitors.

Project Manager: Make charts, write purchase orders, manage, make it happen.

Therapist: Make sure everyone feels a part of the process, that everyone’s ego is stroked.

Parent: Prevent squabbling from bringing down the house.

Laborer: Actually build the thing.

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing their exhibitions?

1. Use real stuff. Use your collections. Put them in context. Tell your story. Be true to your institution.

2. Talk with your visitors, even informally.

3. Don't be afraid to experiment with new exhibit techniques. Try new ways to engage your visitors. I've seen very simple exhibits that activated the visitor conversations—some exhibit cases, a few good objects, a couple of engaging questions, and post-it notes for visitors to write a response and a wall to post them on.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?

Who knows….museums are challenged by changing demographics and the economy. I think museums need to be true to themselves and create passionate experiences that resonate with audiences. We need to be places where people want to go and hang out, create things, and visit with their friends—not be a place to check off a list. Museums need to become an integral part of the community.

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?

Some of my favorite museums are the American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), Monterey Bay Aquarium (Monterey, CA), Pittsburgh Children's Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), The City Museum (St. Louis, MO), The Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles, CA), Minnesota History Center (St. Paul, MN), and the Bob Marley Museum (Kingston, Jamaica).

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

I'm currently the project manager and exhibit developer for a new exhibition M is for Museum at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA. This 8,000 square foot exhibition opens October 15, 2011 and is targeted for 5-13 year olds. It is based on the ABCs with each letter representing something the museum does or collects. For example, A is for Artifact, C is for Collect, F is for Fossil, L is for Look, and T is for Taxidermy. It is the first hands-on, kid-centric exhibition the museum has developed. It includes hands-on interactives, multimedia, and hundreds of artifacts and specimens from the museum's collection. We really wanted to focus on breaking down the wall between front-of-house and back-of-house.

One of my other clients is the Utah Museum of Natural History, the Rio Tinto Center. I'm working with them to develop interpretation that calls out the LEED aspects of their new LEED gold building that opens in fall 2011.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

My dream exhibit project would be an exhibition on mental illness or autism. Both of these conditions have had a huge impact on my life. There are so many stigmas and misinformation associated with these conditions, that I would like to create an experience that would allow visitors to have a better understanding of what it's like for an individual to live with these conditions. It would be an opportunity to bust the stigmas and open people's eyes to some of the amazing people and qualities that these conditions create.

Thanks again to Beth for taking the time to share her thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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Coming Full Circle: Some ExhibiTricks Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:36:00 +0000

It's been 360 posts and over four years since I first started the ExhibiTricks blog. I've been thinking a little bit since this Summer about some changes and additions I'd like to make, so I thought I'd let you know what's coming up.

First of all my sincere thanks to the tens of thousands(!) of folks who tune in every month --- I hope you'll continue to find useful/interesting things here. I'm planning on continuing with what seems to have settled into a weekly posting mix of commentary, design inspirations, and tips about useful exhibit resources and materials, along with interviews with some of the smartest and most interesting exhibit folks in the biz. (Speaking of which, next week we'll have a great interview with Beth Redmond-Jones.)

So that all stays. But I'd like to prototype three new and additional features that I hope will foster a bit more interaction with (and between) my ExhibiTricks readers.

The first new feature is SoapBox, and basically it's a forum for anybody who'd like to pitch an idea, or vent a rant, or just express some creative exhibit-y thoughts in a public forum. As long as it has at least a tangential museum/exhibit/design connection, I'm happy to give you the podium. If you're interested in being part of SoapBox, just send me an email.

The second new feature I'm calling ReWind. After 360 posts and counting, I've started to develop a nice "back catalog" with some really useful information and inspiration that even I dip back into on a continuing basis. It is all searchable, but it also is a bit unwieldy, so I'll regularly dip back into the ExhibiTricks vaults and pull out some "evergreen" posts to add some new intro thoughts and updates to.

Last, but not least, is the Exhibit Doctor feature. Much of my consulting work, as well as just collegial "shop talk" with folks at conferences or on the phone is about solving common exhibit problems that keep coming up again and again in different museums, and in different contexts. So I'm soliciting suggestions for nagging exhibition problems that you'd like to submit to the Exhibit Doctor (that's me.)

If I choose your idea/problem, I'll include free calls, emails and research to thoroughly dig into your problem and to provide good resources and options to address your knotty exhibits issue. The only "catch" is that you allow me to capture all of the process and post it on the blog. If you'd like to make an appointment with the Exhibit Doctor, send me an email with your pitch or problem.

So that's it for now. I hope the three new features interest YOU and start adding different facets to your ExhibiTricks experience. Obviously ReWind will start right away next week, but I suspect SoapBox and the Exhibit Doctor will take a bit more time to gain traction.

I'm looking forward to the next 360 postings!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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A suggestion for the MacArthur Foundation: Give Arthur Ganson a "Genius Grant"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:32:00 +0000

The MacArthur Foundation just announced the class of 2011 for the "genius grants." And while I sincerely congratulate this year's winners, for the past several years I keep noticing that there is a name missing from the list of awardees.

That would be the artist and creator of kinetic sculptures, Arthur Ganson.

If anyone has "shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" to quote the grant standards, it is Arthur Ganson. To further quote from the MacArthur website: "There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work." Again an apt description of Arthur and his work.

Rather than speak in greater detail for Arthur or his work, I'll just direct you to his excellent website, and the wonderful video from the TED Conference embedded at the top of this post.

Creative work is often un(der)appreciated work, and while many wonderful artists, craftspeople, and facile thinkers will never receive the recognition they deserve, I hope that Arthur Ganson soon becomes part of the cadre of MacArthur award winners.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exhibit Design Toolbox: babyCAD

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:48:00 +0000

I'm all for FREE tools that help exhibit designers, so let me commend babyCAD to your attention.

BabyCAD is an online tool that lets you intuitively create exhibit installations. It's clear that right now babyCAD is geared more toward trade show and pop up exhibits, but that being said, I really liked how quickly and intuitively I could knock together a respectable rendering with multiple exhibit elements.

The babyCAD program allows you to choose from a set of items arranged by categories that you can adjust to fit particular exhibit and display situations. Two additional features that I like are the ability to add "skins" (like logos or artwork) to selected elements, as well as the ability to save your creations (that you want to share with clients) as either a PDF or a custom Web link. The Web link is a URL that allows clients to control all the 3D-viewing aspects of your exhibit rendering in babyCAD without editing capabilities.

If you need to design kiosk-based or portable installations in your institution, babyCAD is well worth a look.

So what are you waiting for? Go to the babyCAD website and give it a whirl!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Why We Do What We Do: An Interview with Sean Duran

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:18:00 +0000

Sean B. Duran is the Vice President for Exhibition and Design at the Miami Science Museum. Before that, Sean held a progressive series of positions at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia where he was the leader of content and design development teams for exhibitions and public programs that interpreted the research of the Academy’s Center for Systematic Biology and Evolution.

Sean's recent exhibition projects include Moving Things, a light hearted look at how things move; serving as co-PI on Charlie and Kiwi’s Evolutionary Adventure, an NSF-funded research and touring exhibition project; Heart Smart, a science research project and personalized, trilingual exhibition experience where the exhibition components record data about the health of individual museum visitors; the NSF funded Amazon Voyage, a touring exhibition that has been seen nationally by more than one million visitors; and The Dinosaurs of China, a massive twelve thousand square-foot collaborative exhibition partnership with the Beijing Museum of Natural History.

A particular focus of Sean's work is bilingual communication in exhibitions and he has been core to the development, testing and implementation of bilingual design protocols for all visitor-oriented projects. Sean’s attention is now turning to the growing momentum behind the development and construction of the new downtown Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, a 250,000 square-foot science museum and aquarium scheduled to replace the small, aged, though well-loved, current museum. Sean lives in Coconut Grove, Florida with his wife, a trained chef and informal educator, and daughter, who is in second grade and loves the ocean.

What’s your educational background?
I went to Saint Vincent College and Seton Hill University where I did a BFA, and University of Pittsburgh where I studied history, science and museum studies. Dr. Paul Chew was the president of a small regional art museum and my advisor. He hired me part-time at the Westmoreland so I was thrown sink-or-swim into how museums do what we do. I’m so sorry he’s now passed on because I often think I’d like his current view on things.

What got you interested in Museums?
I think museums are in my DNA. My dad was a staff taxidermist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and I have a certain fondness for the smell of naphthalene wafting through a workspace. Some earliest memories are of sawdust-covered museum-basement floors, stacked sauropod bones and the decayed Viking ship at the thoroughly old-school 1970’s era Carnegie.

How does working with teams to create exhibits inform your design process? (Or does it?)
People bring much of themselves to the design process, and Miami is an incredibly diverse place so I work with community members and colleagues from quite literally all over the world as many of us in exhibition work do. So there is great strength in that diversity. Most museums are not on track to become welcoming to all. Non-whites veer away from museums and this trend isn't new and not likely to change until Latinos and African-Americans cease to be so rare on museum staff - or better yet, are commonly running museums.

On the bright side, Museum magazine quoted John Zogby who called the millennial generation the first "globals" and they have embraced diversity so thoroughly that distinctions of race, gender and sexual orientation are fading into the background. If museums engender the kind of participatory experiencers they seek, maybe the barriers won't be so severe.

Tell us a little bit about how your “non-museum” skills/activities inform your exhibit design work? Non-museum activity? Can watching baseball at 9:30 at night inform exhibit design work? I guess not, that’s just recharging batteries. My 7 year-old daughter is probably been the best non-museum-activity-museum-activity I’ve ever had. Its not a very diverse focus group but it puts a face on why we do what we do. It’s simply humbling to create museum experiences that may inspire a young person's interest in science and critical thinking. We get the government we deserve and if she grows up to vote from the position of an informed critical thinker, that’s success on both axes.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development? I think volunteering is a great way to find out about exhibition development. Everyone has something they can contribute and museums are hungry for the help. And through online networks, exhibition teams can include anyone interested in participating in the development and design of an exhibition. I like what Liberty Science Center did in this way with their Cooking exhibition.

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing their exhibitions? Don’t lock yourself in to any one approach or process as every project has its opportunities. If you only define success as perfectly following a specific flow of steps you’ll likely miss some opportunity to make something really special.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums? Who can say… humans are innately experimental. We recently finished up an exhibition area with a fairly small footprint called "Room for Debate". The interactives in this room include a Snibbe infotiles wall, a nice feedback video kiosk by Brad Larson, a pair of carbon calculators, and other elements aimed at promoting discussion around visitor's lifestyle choices and resulting environmental impact.

The entire space was made from found materials (like magazines that were rolled and stacked to form a wall and repurposed cremation tubes that were lined up to form another) or, green materials (like wheat board, sustainably harvested woods, and recycled plastics). These were tagged with hanging labels so visitors could compare the merits or challenges of the different substances. Graphics were printed with soy inks directly on hunks of old shipping crates that had arrived at the museum for one reason or another. We are doing some remediation stuff now - adding more labels – even more comfortable seats - scheduling demos right inside the space - - no surprises.

I think the greatest challenge museums face as we venture into the “new frontier” is how to strategize the response to demographic shifts that are presently transforming the social landscape of the United States. Ethnicity (and age) will have the largest impact on museums as the definition of mainstream requires revision. Like, what we were shooting for in the “Room for Debate”, museums need to become places where people want to hang-out – not places they feel they ought to visit – so as demographics change, museums need to become places where all people do feel welcome, do hang-out, engage and contribute.

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
That’s hard to say, but I’m interested in exhibitions that trust their audience enough to employ humor as a delivery strategy. For example there was an exhibition at the Skirball in Los Angeles called “Jews on Vinyl”. …..it was a simple, not exhaustive exhibition and I think this supports a point that in terms of humor in exhibitions, risk is equable with scale suggesting smaller and less expensive stuff has a better chance of surviving the committee.

Non-museum people Josh Kun and Roger Bennett were the duo behind Jews on Vinyl. The Skirball allotted them about 600 square feet of light filled space where they arranged comfortable furniture, like a hipster’s ‘50s living room. There were ipod listening stations loaded with play lists. One was titled You Don’t Have to be Jewish – another contained 50 versions of Hava Nagila. ……and they hung the requisite “wall of vinyl” . The space was welcoming; it feel comfortable; a place to laugh with others. I was so taken with this exhibition I called the Skirball and spoke to Erin Clancey. She had managed guest curators Josh and Roger and she confirmed that “welcoming” was in fact a core intent. They wanted visitors to be able to interact with the records as they would in their own homes.

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?
Long term, my near-full attention is turning to the growing momentum behind the development and construction of our new downtown Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, a 250,000 square-foot science museum and aquarium scheduled to replace the small, aged, though well-loved, current museum.

More recently we just completed the “Stingray Sea Lab” touch tank space and another new exhibition called "Moving Things", about exploring the most efficient way to move things from one place to another. The stingrays were especially fun because we repurposed an underutilized space - the museum's gift shop (we now do the same level of sales from a kiosk in the lobby). We opened it up to the elements by removing a metal and glass wall along one side creating a sheltered indoor/outdoor space. We used a light tube through to the roof to augment natural light to the algae tank and selected LED lights for all of the fixtures reducing the energy load. The algae in the tank is plumbed to do a portion of the work cleaning the water so we have also reduced some of the load on the filters by incorporating these natural elements.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?
Since there is no such thing as an infinite sack of cash, I’d say my dream project is the one we’re doing right here developing and building the new Miami Science Museum.

Thanks again to Sean for taking the time to share his thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers! You can follow the progress of the new Miami Science Museum on their blog.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

The Numbers Game

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:54:00 +0000

Museums, like most organizations, run by the numbers. Budgets, Schedules, Opening Dates, and most of all, Attendance Figures.

Museums are a little obsessed with attendance numbers. Like the results of standardized tests in the Education world, we in the Museum world want to use those attendance numbers (and visitor demographics) for validation --- especially with funders.

Take that nice infographic at the top of this post for example. (Thanks to Philip Katz from AAM for providing this info!) It shows that the annual attendance in 2010 for all U.S. museums was approximately 850 million. Wow! That's a lot! Especially when you compare that number with the combined bar on the right which totals up the annual attendance for major league sports and theme parks at 471 million.

(For you data heads, AAM says that the typical annual attendance is 850 million (defined as discrete on-site visits). By comparison, the major pro sports (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) had 132 million paid attendees (in 2010) and theme parks attracted 339 million (in 2009). AAM relies on the statistics gathered by the Motion Picture Association of America in their 2010 Theatrical Market Statistics [see http://www.mpaa.org/policy/industry], rather than going back to the original sources.)

But beyond providing a little cocktail party trivia, or a clever opening line for a conference speech, what do those numbers really tell us? What's the context?

Are we to believe that people somehow value museums more than major league sports or theme parks? If so, why don't we have more "museum fans" wearing jerseys and lining up every day outside before opening time? (Or better yet, scalping tickets to get inside!)

I'm grateful for every museum and every museum visitor that the 850 million number represents, but I'm also worried about the people (increasingly young and non-White) who aren't represented by those numbers.

I'm concerned that we as a field will think that somehow we're "beating" theme parks and major league sports when we should be concerned that alternative "edutainment" venues are appropriating our best ideas and techniques and using them to eat our lunch.

I applaud AAM's efforts to ask how can we use these numbers to become part of a far-reaching discussion with museum visitors (and those not yet regularly visiting) and policy makers.

Because it's not just a "numbers game." It's how we use the numbers and data to improve and continue to push all museums forward in these tricky economic times.

Onward!

UPDATE: Please share your financial data to help AAM fight for all museums on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. In the past, museums across the nation contributed data to AAM's Museum Financial Information survey; now museums can contribute the same key data through AAM’s secure online tool, Museum Benchmarking Online (MBO) (www.aam-us.org/MBO). Museums need credible, comprehensive data to make our case to policymakers – especially when they start cutting budgets. MBO is a quick, easy way to support the advocacy efforts of the entire museum field.

Go to www.aam-us.org/MBO for details, including a list of the data being collected, a checklist of the documents you’ll need to assemble, a video introduction to the system, and highlights of the additional benchmarking capabilities for subscribers. You do not need to subscribe or be an AAM member to enter your museum’s data. For the good of the museum field, please take a few minutes to share your vital statistics with AAM. If you have questions, send them to benchmark@aam-us.org.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)