The Passion of the Visitor

This week, while looking for a museum-related image, I came across the above pictures of Joe Geranio. Joe is a an administrator of the Julio Claudian Iconographic Association, and is generally in love with its iconography (see his website for more). His story is a great example of museum "Affinity Groups". Above you'll see him posed between 2 busts-- photos taken 23 years apart. I love this story for so many reasons- the fascination of seeing him change over time, his fascination with the subject, and the fact that he could go back to the same institution all those years later and take that picture. Finally, reading the comments on his Flickr page made me happy that I wasn't the only one who cared. The Minnesota Local History blog has a great post and comments that talk about the need for and types of Affinity Groups that they have had experience with. These groups can be the lifeblood of history museums today. John Durel and Anita Nowery Durel wrote about this extensively in their paper: "A Golden Age for Historic Properties". I encourage you to read it- it's a great article. As you may suspect, affinity groups are groups of people who formally or informally have a relationship with an aspect of your museum. Joe and his "Julio Claudian" cohorts are an affinity group because they are passionately interested in this aspect of collection, and will come back to it again and again. They are part of the holy trinity of museum visitors. The attention being paid to fostering repeat visitors is worth it, and something I will definitely write about in the future. The fact that I "found" Joe via a random search on Flickr is also a wonderful story. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Creative Commons license on Flickr. I use it for images on this blog when my photo library fails me. Like a trip to the bookstore, it's led me to some interesting people and places as I look for one thing and often discover another.

Thank You, NPR

Last Monday, NPR began a series on museums, and given the current financial crisis*, I just have to say THANK YOU. The first edition starred the heavies: Ford Bell- President of AAM, Philipe de Montibello- iconic director of the Met, and Charles Willson Peale's Cabinet of Curiosities- iconic museum "built around the desire to document the history of discovery in the new world". For those of you that missed the heaviest hitter, here it is:

"If you add up the attendance for every major-league baseball, basketball, football and hockey game this year, the combined total will come to about 140 million people. That's a big number, but it's barely a fraction of the number of people who will visit American museums this year. Museums are big business, attracting... 850 million people annually"

Wow. I mean, we spend a considerable about of hand wringing on attendance and bugets. Does this mean it's paying off? I think it some way it must. The comments on the first story are articulate, and cover plugs for Visual Thinking Strategies to small house museums. Some pro, some con. This one was pretty sweet:

"For every multi-milllion dollar new museum building, there are hundreds of small house and history museums that care for and display items of local significance. They are under-staffed and under-funded but fill an important niche in many places as community centers, meeting spaces and adjunct school classrooms. Before slamming museums as elitist or unnecessary, think about your community without a repository for its history, culture and art." - Peter Wisbey

The second edition profiled Alex Nyerges, director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts who has a museum dream life. The comments were predictable: " Mr. Nyerges is not the typical museum director in America" (Scott Wands). Yes, his story is exceptional- but part of the reason we don't take home the big bucks is a trade-off- we do get to do interesting work, with topics that stretch and grow us daily. I think there are several more shows coming, and like a CNET review, I'll wait til the end to see what the sum is. This series has got me looking for good museum-related podcasts and radio shows. If you know of any, feel free to send them my way: maria [at] gyroscopeinc [dot] com. Thanks. * For institutions facing tough times, the AAM has posted some guidelines on their site here.

Web 2.0 Sessions at ASTC

By Maria Mortati
I went to a few web-related sessions at ASTC that brought up some interesting questions and case studies.

Bryan Kennedy of the blog Science Buzz talked about the Body World Exhibit blog at Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). They used the opportunity of the show to look at issues around body donation and asked questions of ethics (and beyond) via the blog. In using this example where they opened it up to be "messy", Bryan was trying to get the audience to consider what their comfort level is with things like controversy when setting up a 2.0 outreach tool.

Kevin Von Appen of RedShiftNow posed the question of "How do you make the virtual audience physical?" He gave a case study of a world wide YouTube event and subsequent real world "888torontomeetup" they held at Ontario Science Center, and how popular it was. While they didn't end up covering a lot of science, it brought in a new audience to their museum, and created a memorable (and heavily archived) connection.

Nina Simon of Museum2.0 gave a really fun example about how to do "tagging" in the real world. It's about a book drop in the Netherlands where folks returned books into one of two slots: average books and great books. She wrote a fantastic blog post about designing from a virtual metaphor to a real world experience.

Other topics covered, such as:

• On a museum website or blog, should you make the "official" voice visible? (yes, usually)
  
• In terms of child safety and museum sites, they suggested that you don't ask "problem questions" of kids during the log in to avoid issues such as COPPA conflicts later.
• On extending the visit: the Franklin Institute (I think) has a face aging interactive on the museum floor that posts the picture on the web site. 75% of visitors log in from home to retrieve it. What a great opportunity for them to ask provocative questions about their thoughts on aging, plastic surgery, you name it. You could enrich AND extend the museum experience.

In the session Making Exhibitions Memorable that I cartooned about yesterday, Renato Valdes Olmos discussed how exhibits have permanence, but little reach outside the museum walls. He reinforced the importance of following those who are blogging or flickring about your exhibits, because again, that extends their reach, and leaves a record. He brought up the artist Banksy, who made a fictitious pet store exhibit and how word spread in a viral fashion via Twitter- which got people to go find it. That approach might not play out so easily for a science museum with a permanent collection-- the Banksy piece is a temporary art exhibit.

The thing I keep hearing is this: provide multiple vehicles for visitors to comment and spread the word about their experiences at your museum. Listen to what they are saying, and respond. The interaction itself will provide great fodder for expanding your relationship with your visitors, and in turn, your impact on their lives.

For me, this boils down to being open, hospitable, and responsive-- and utilizing web 2.0 to do it.

ASTC Session: A Science Cafe How-To

Just a quick hit on a very informative session about Science Cafes: how to start them, run them, and why your museum needs them. What are they, you ask?

"Science cafés are live events that involve a face-to-face conversation with a scientist about current science topics." (Nova/Science Now)

I will post a complete download on this session in the coming days. For more information, go to the Science Cafes web site through the Nova/Science Now program. There are some excellent resources and PDF guide you can download. Start one today! Thanks to gailf548 for the pub shot, and Mark Glusker for the calculating machine.

Denver Redefines "Community Museum"

I am a passionate believer in the power of community. Small, large, microcosm- it doesn't matter. So I get pretty excited when I hear about projects such as the Denver Community Museum ("Present Day Artifacts Made by the People for the People"). Thanks to Brent Carmack of the Fort Collins Museum for bringing this to my attention. From their site: "The Denver Community Museum is a temporary museum located in Denver, Colorado. Carried out in the form of a pop-up gallery, the museum will exist for less than one year - an institution with an expiration date. Contents for the Museum's monthly, rotating exhibitions are based entirely on community submissions. The Denver Community Museum is a not-for-profit project, which is free and open to the public." Basically, they put out a call for entries... to the neighborhood. Such as "Mummify something you would like to preserve - any shape/size, using any materials you desire. Share any relevant mummy stories, facts, accoutrements or charms for display." They accompany it with a photo suggestion, and then put on a show at the end of the month of submissions. Here are some of the things I love about this idea: - their identity is specifically in line with the community: it's about them, literally - they have created a ritual around the exhibits changing on a monthly basis - they have also created a sense of anticipation + surprise - each new exhibit will reveal something about the people around you - it's temporary - it's free Here's what I'm not so excited about: - it's temporary - it's free Founder Jaime Kopke was quoted as saying: “The idea is to create a community archive that is both accessible and relevant to Denver residents... The fact that the DCM is a limited time only engagement adds a level of excitement that you may not normally experience in a museum.” I love that someone wanted to make a museum that was purely reflective of and relevant to its community... but why does it have to be temporary? Shouldn't finding new ways to engage your public be a persistent curatorial goal? Is it the deadline that forces public and staff alike to stay on schedule and focused? How might other institutions adopt this deadline strategy? Who says we can't be exciting?!? Also, free is nice, really, but these days, not so sustainable (and I don't mean in the enviro sense). What about sliding scale admission? I think the Met uses this approach. Enough quibbling- this is a great idea, and I hope many local museums take notice. I know larger institutions have grappled with community engagement, but the intimate scale works too. It's just more... neighborly. This brings me to a point which I'll be writing about soon-- that is small + nimble institutions are perfectly suited to maximize on community engagement AND web 2.0 technologies. PS: I hope to visit in December, but if you have any photos to share, let me know.

Touch, Don't Touch!

This quote comes courtesy of the Linda Moore, curator at the Fort Collins History Museum. It was overheard at the "Poor of Me, Good of Dog" May Wilkins exhibit, where they put out typewriters for visitor use. After I stopped feeling old (and laughing) it reminded me of a dilemma I sometimes saw at the Exploratorium. A new parent would come in and tell their children "don't touch" but figure out about 1/4 of the way through that it was all about touch. I once worked on a project where I agonized about what type of barrier to use. It was a natural history exhibit that had numerous taxidermied animals and delicate artifacts. Like most designers, I didn't want to put up a visual barrier. The director said that we only needed to put up a simple cable. His argument was that the psychology of crossing the line would be so great that visitors wouldn't need more than that. In the final build however, they made the sides of the exhibit so steep, no one could reach the artifacts, cable or not. At Gyroscope, we addressed this problem at Exploration Place in Wichita by putting dried wheat grass as a no-touch barrier slightly above the rail. It has been very effective, yet makes the visitor feel that they can have some contact with the objects since they're not "under glass". It's wonderful to leave objects out- it helps visitors feel closer to them. But what happens when you're in a history museum context and you reverse the expectation as visitors move from gallery to gallery. Some cases where you want visitors to touch, and most others where you don't? I know that I get into a "mode" when I'm at certain museums- where I almost feel reluctant to move from passive to active. At the recent Bay Area Now 5 show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, I noticed a number of the artists were using "takeaways" as part of their pieces. They gave large prints and questionnaires (ala Felix Gonzales-Torres). This is not always clear to visitors, and the guards have to sometimes tell folks it's Ok. This got me to wondering about how to make it clear and inviting as people shift from gallery to gallery with an ever-changing set of expectations? One thought I have is to be a little more deliberate. For example, create a "interactivity ramp" between elements when a visitor is in an environment where they don't expect to interact. That model might look like this:

I'm going to try this out in a future project, and I will let you know how it goes. What methods have you used to foster interaction in unexpected places?

Visitors as Curators

In an era where people can select the news they want to hear, they are making their own decisions about their experiences in museums and galleries. As we know, they can blog, comment, and even give each other context about what they experience. After all, it is their experience. The question for museums is how to help individuals make meaning out of these choices? How do you reach them? How do you validate their experience... and add to it? One answer is find out what people are saying. Give them ample opportunity to post what they think about your exhibits. For example, you could offer them the opportunity to respond with a multi-pronged approach, divided along favored types of input:

• Tween/Teen set: you can offer a "text us at 555-1212", then post vetted comments online or in the museum
• Bloggers: you could advertise the blog for the museum or exhibit in-house and invite them to comment. Provide them with a terminal on-site so they can record their experiences immediately. You can moderate their posts, if necessary.
• Luddites: provide the greenest option of them all- a notebook (a real one, not a computer). Scan in their comments from time to time. Rip out the offensive ones or find a funny sticker to put over them.

Then link to other sources of information about the topic du jour for your visitors. Sites they may or may not normally associate with the subject. Provide backstories to your own research on the topics- such as, a historical museum may have an interesting story about how they acquired a certain object. Of course it's important to balance all this interconnectedness with the key topics that the exhibit is raising and not get off-track. After all, visitors are coming to your web site or museum because they want to learn something they didn't already now (if you're looking for some ways to think about this, there are a few models mentioned here). Finally, respond to what they are saying. Figure out what the recurring questions are, and find a way to make public the fact that you are listening and responding. If you have a very prolific or passionate visitor, invite them to guest blog or have an interview with them that you can post on-line and in-house. If you have questions about the investment of time, there's a good article at Museum 2.0 called "How much time does web 2.0 take?". This interconnectedness is here to stay, and it's good news for museums. It means you have more opportunities to extend the visit, and reach new audiences, which I'll write more about in future posts. Way back in 2005, Michael Haley Goldman of the Holocaust Memorial Museum and Kathryn Haley Goldman, Institute for Learning Innovation wrote a paper for Museums and the Web which predicted: " I see in the future more collaborative experiences, more real-time collaboration, but also [an] untapped market for curators to use the power of the Web to collect stories. – to solicit content from the users, of wanting to get broader range of experiences, to build collaborative virtual collections." The future is now. Is your institution ready? -- Suggested reading: Brooklyn Museum's "Click" Exhibit

Welcome to Museums Now

By Maria Mortati

This blog will be a place to examine issues for museum-related institutions, as well as a place to explore provocative ideas about the museum world. As institutions reach out to their audiences in a landscape rich with options, the pressure is on to stay relevant or better put-- connected.

Why Museums... Now? 

I work at Gyroscope Exhibits in Oakland, California as an Exhibit Developer. I've also worked in-house at the Exploratorium. The interesting thing about working "on the outside" is that we get to see inside a diverse set of institutions, and cultures. We learn a tremendous amount with each project, and we are constantly writing and sharing with our clients. This is an ideal vehicle for us to share what learn with you. From time to time other "Gyroscopians" will guest blog, as we have diverse backgrounds in our office- from science center administration to architecture, early childhood education, and interaction design.

This week I'm going to delve into the topic of institutional identity, and explore some ways to think about it in our highly editable world.