You Can Go Back Home

Contrary to popular belief, cliche or sentiment, I've found that you can go back home. Here I am, back in St. Louis, the most home-like place I've ever lived. It's been a while since I've updated this blog and that's more to do with being overwhelmingly busy than anything else. I have been keeping up with many other museum blogs, continuing to tweet and settling into my new, wonderful job. Before I get started on substantial posts, I want to bring folks up-to-date on my current situation. This will hopefully, give you some perspective on how I will be posting in the future.

• I am no longer working for a museum, instead I'm working for an informal science education outreach non-profit.
• I am serving on the Board of a local Historical Society.
• My new position focuses more on educational program development and evaluation than my last position. 
• Did I mention how much I love my new job?

Some ongoing projects:

• Working with the aforementioned Historical Society to establish educational programming, more fundraising and redesigning the archives. Among other things.
• Established a meetup group called "Nerdy Girls." We're focused on exploring typically "nerdy" things like chess, crafts, historic house tours, etc. 
• Trying to balance all of these things while still managing to wrap presents and have "me" time. 

I'm hoping to talk a little bit in my posts about the challenges of serving on a board, the ups and downs of making significant changes to "how we've always done it," and bridging some of my many activities. Should be a wild ride!

Should I be doing monthly museum links?

It's definitely been more than a week since I posted my "weekly" links. A combo of being busy at work then taking a week-long vacation prevented me from keeping up with my schedule. This week's "weekly" links will cover everything from July 30 to present.

• Here's a great post on finding the "perfect job." Does it really exist?
• If you've ever been to a conference, check out this post on re-thinking conference sessions.
• I have always loved going to the movies and I think this site would be great for a movie exhibit.
• Do you live in a city with an EMP group? I definitely wish I did. EMP did a great post on starting a group from scratch.
• Did you contribute to Museum Minute's twitter conversation yesterday? So why do you work in museums?
• In case you missed it: You can live in a museum! Sort of.
• And here's a shameless plug for my Volunteer Management paper.

Weekly Links: July 23-29

Here's a list of links worth checking out from the week of July 23-29:

• A display of life expectancy and child poverty that shows the discrepencies based on a tube map. Definitely hits home the idea of where you grow up/live determines a lot of things.
• Great online learning resource, Peer2Peer University. I'm taking up a course with the Saylor Foundation on Art History, but Peer2Peer offers much more. Or if you're looking for job skills ALISON is the place to start.
• Commentary tying museum curation to student learning.
• Girl Power! Women changing the face of philanthropy.
• Google just keeps impressing me. Wish I could be in London to see their Web Lab.

That's it for this week. Look for a review of Crystal Bridges soon!

Weekly Links - July 16-22

Yes, I have been terrible at putting these weekly links up. But I'm going to give it another whirl! Here goes:

• Love the creativity of this map. I could see a museum doing something like this with a map of the facility.
• I can't leave Nina Simon's post on increasing attendance off this week's list.

That's it for this week's list. Not much going on. Maybe everyone is on vacation?

Iceberg Ahead!

Titanic Museum Exterior

Over the July 4th holiday, I had the chance to visit two museums in the Ozarks. The first was the Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri. When planning my visit to Branson with my family, I mentioned the possibility of visiting the Titanic Museum to my grandfather. He was incredibly excited at the prospect and I was somewhat intrigued. However, after checking their website, I was slightly concerned about the focus of the museum.  Overall, the museum was reminiscent of a historic site or village. On the other hand, the subject matter was quite morbid to be presented in such a "Disney"-esque manner. I cannot fathom another site that deals with a similar tragedy to present the material in such a way. If the Oklahoma Memorial Museum had used such tactics, I and I'm sure many others would be completely turned off.  


Painting a Picture


Similar to a historic site or village, the Titanic Museum relies heavily on costumed interpreters. Interestingly enough, these interpreters also speak with a British accent, in the middle of the Ozarks. My father also commented that there were a ton of women dressed as First Class maids, but there were only a dozen or so on the voyage itself (this is what my dad read - anyone super interested in the Titanic can definitely do the research if they so desire).


The museum takes great pains to make you feel as if you are on the Titanic. Some areas are more traditional and use gallery spaces to display objects, while other areas focus on recreating the ship. The exterior is just the start. The grand staircase is recreated as well as a First Class Cabin. The communication equipment is displayed as it would have looked on the ship and leads into a recreated command deck. You have the opportunity to sit in a lifeboat as well.


The Good


Despite some of the strange aspects of the museum, it was great at presenting a number of things:

• The "real" experience: When you first enter the museum, you are given a card with a name and story. At the end of the visit, you learn whether the person on your card survived the sinking. I believe this is also used on the touring exhibit. You are able to touch an iceberg - this is actually one of the first activities in the museum and really gives you a sense of horror at the unbearable cold. Later in the exhibit, you can put your hand in 28 degree water and see how long you last. Yes, morbid, but it gets the point across. You're also able to try to climb the deck as it sinks.
• The "real" artifacts: Nearly everything on display is a real object, not a reproduction. For those who are intrigued by the Titanic or like to see the "real" thing, this is a great museum.
• Everything you ever wanted to know: The museum presents everything there is to possibly know about the museum. For me, it was information overload, but I was with a group that read everything and moved slowly. 

The Strange


In a museum about the Titanic, you almost have to expect that it will be morbidly fascinating. The recent 100th anniversary of the event created some strange activities across the US and UK, including memorial cruises and last meals on the Titanic fundraisers. 

• Prices: Like any other museum, the Titanic Museum displayed the prices of things at the time of the sinking. On the other hand, most museums do not display the current price of artifacts were they to go to auction. I found this slightly disconcerting. Why would I, as the visitor, want to know how much an artifact costs today? I'm sure it was expensive to build this museum as many of the artifacts were priced in the six-figures.
• Dogs: In one of the first rooms, live dogs are on display. They are only in the window during certain times, but I found it to be an odd experience. There were dogs on the Titanic, but why would I want to see them in an exhibit? Live dogs!?

Overall, the museum was interesting. I could describe more of the strange things I encountered, but overall, it was a feeling I got when entering the place. After I forked over my $25, I couldn't help but feel I was in an amusement park, waiting for the roller coaster ride to begin. I did not have the same feeling of appreciation for the people on the ship as I had for the people in Murrow bombing. I could not sympathize with the people on the Titanic as much as I wanted to. On leaving the exhibit, we mentioned to a worker that it was somewhat of a sad place. She said something along the lines of we try not to make it sad. Perhaps they missed the lesson of the tragedy entirely.

The Essence of a Gallery Cart

This past week I had the opportunity to work with some of our young volunteers to design a gallery cart for our temporary exhibition. The kids were at first apprehensive about everything, which was strange because they had all been enthusiastic during their interviews. After a couple days, they were all deeply engaged in the process of developing the cart.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I have been inspired by new ideas emerging from activity carts. Currently, I'm working with a student to update all the carts in our galleries. Since we were working with teens, I thought they would come up with some extremely different ideas than what was already available. However, I noticed that at it's essence, gallery carts are really an opportunity to show and tell. The kids were mostly excited to have the opportunity to share their knowledge and they did a great job coming up with talking points.

In some ways, I think we limited them. We had limited time and basic supplies, but also, we provided them with very traditional examples and set parameters based on established ideas. As this was a first try, we have areas to improve upon. We now know the pace of how the teens work. They needed time to get to know one another. We could also have more supplies available or at least have an idea of where to get certain supplies. It would also be nice to work with graphics to make some of our activities look sleek and I think this would help the kids to think of their project as something that "belongs" in the museum.

The most important change will be to change the parameters. Instead of giving them a set of objects and a list of things that must be done, we will provide examples of more innovative carts and lists of ideas for types of activities. The kids were very stuck on certain topics. We will provide more variety in their training.

Next year we have an art exhibit. My idea is to give them an object from one of the animals in the exhibit and ask them to develop an activity or craft and talking points about the animal. This will help to expand the knowledge of the teens and visitors about the animals in the paintings.

Soon I'll be compiling data with my intern and hopefully we'll have more information to help us revise the program! 

Museum Gallery Carts Article

Gallery Cart at the Chicago History Museum

Today, I came across an article in Legacy Magazine talking about the Chicago History Museum's gallery carts. It goes into far more description about their process and results. Check it out if you are interested in creating your own gallery carts.

Museum Gallery Carts: Ubiquitous Yet Overlooked

Last year at the Association of Midwest Museums conference, I attended a fantastic session on Gallery Carts. It started off with exploring what we as a group thought of museum gallery carts. Everyone had a response because, well, many museums have gallery carts. 

Photo: Maryland Pink and Green
Art Cart at the Walters Art Museum

At the session, which included a presentation by the Chicago History Museum and a zoo (I unfortunately do not recall the name of this zoo), I was really inspired by the different directions each institution had taken. The Chicago History Museum had redesigned their gallery carts to interact with students, while the zoo had maintained their carts for all visitors. Yet both had transformed their carts from plain, grey boring to exciting, colorful and inviting, reflecting the theme of their institution or specific activity at the cart.

After the session, I attempted to do some investigation into gallery carts. I saw gallery carts everywhere. There were many at the museum I was currently working for and there were others scattered across the many museums I visited. Yet, there was almost no literature on these carts. These carts are known by many names and I tried many variations with little success. The one article (Here Come the Touch Carts) I was able to locate was written in 1976 and can be found by a quick search of Curator. Though it is informative, many things have changed since 1976.

There's plenty of new (as in since 1976) literature out on how visitors learn in museums, what they learn, if they learn at all. Also, the recent trends in museums are toward participation of visitors, creativity and technology. As for gallery carts, the one trend some carts already use is creativity. As you can see in the Art Cart at the Walters Art Museum, visitors are encouraged to create art while at the museum. While it might not be the most creative enterprise on the museum's part, you can't deny that the visitors are at least exploring their creativity.

Since that session in July of last year, I've been thinking a lot about gallery carts and their purpose in museums. What audience should we be designing carts for? Does it depend on the museum? Should carts only talk about one subject or idea or theme? Or should they be multi-purpose and allow facilitators to change out the activities as needed? There are many questions currently unanswered by the museum field.

This summer, I'm going to be thinking quite a bit about gallery carts. Some volunteers and interns will be working on redesigning the gallery carts at my current institution. I'll try to provide some updates throughout the process, thinking about how our museum needs gallery carts to function while bringing in some museum educational theory. 

In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe you have an answer to my questions above. Or maybe you have questions of your own. 

I'd possibly like to write a paper on gallery carts based on my experiences this summer. If you're working on a gallery cart project in the near future, it would be great if we could collaborate. Comments are appreciated!

Thoughts on Volunteering

As a Volunteer Coordinator, it's my job to think about creating volunteer opportunities and a great environment for volunteers. In my private life, I also volunteer at a variety of organizations. Since I have the background of coordinating volunteers, I often have to keep myself quiet when I volunteer so as not to seem critical. I'm there to help with a project, not to tell people how to run the show. On the other hand, it might be better to tell an organization how they could have done things that would help inspire volunteers and in turn improve the project they're working on. I know it's hard to take constructive criticism as I've been on the receiving end and don't always take it well (something I'm working on).


I've decided to offer a few thoughts on my volunteering experiences. These ideas have influenced how I run my volunteer program and I believe that having been a volunteer has made me better equipped to run a program. In advising anyone who is interested in becoming a Volunteer Coordinator, be a volunteer first.


Make it Easy: This might be the hardest idea on my list. Personally, I run a volunteer program that requires 3 1/2 months of training. However, I try to simplify it by providing a schedule, keeping in contact with trainees and making myself available as often as possible. At big events, I make sure to greet volunteers and direct them to their stations. When beginning a new task, I provide exact instructions.


Give a Reason: Volunteers are likely there for a reason - they believe in your cause, want to get out of the house, want to make new friends. That list goes on and on. But you can get so much more out of a volunteer opportunity when the organization provides information on why what you're doing is important. Sometimes you need volunteers to send out mailings. Encourage them to read the mailings to find out what it's all about. Tell them why what they're doing is important.


Give Feedback: Inform your volunteers of how what they did helped your mission. What kind of impact they made. Let them know that you appreciate their time. There are many ways to do this and there's so many blog posts and articles out there to get inspired. 


I hope this information helps you to craft a great program or to recognize all that volunteers do!

Change With Your Change

Volunteer management is very much about people and sometimes you never know what's going to work for a certain group of people. In many instances, volunteers have been around longer than you've had your job (or even started a career path). This can make change challenging for someone with brand-new ideas that sound great on paper, but don't go anywhere in reality.

http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2011/04/1_it_is_not_the.shtml 

 

In my case, I have attempted to introduce a peer-to-peer recognition system for the volunteers at the museum. Despite heavy marketing on my part (weekly e-mail reminders, feature in the newsletter, talking it up to volunteers, fliers, etc), the volunteers were not participating in this program. Maybe they haven't seen a volunteer do something good (highly doubtful) or they just aren't ready to try out the new system.

As this program wasn't working, I decided to expand to staff. At first, nothing but a few comments about how cool this program sounded. Then after a big event at the museum, the recognition cards came pouring in (12... that's quite a bit for a new program). Due to this response,  I'm focusing this program more on staff recognition of volunteers rather than volunteers recognizing volunteers and hoping that they go with the flow.

http://www.quiddlebee.com/comics/go-with-the-flow/ 

 

Using Grantwriting Principles in Program Planning: Part 3

Please check out Using Grantwriting Principles in Planning: Part 1 and Part 2 before reading this post. In those posts, I cover purpose, goals and objectives - essential parts to planning a program and writing a grant. I also discussed the importance of using grantwriting principles to explain your program to those who might have questions. In this post, I will cover methods and evaluation.


Methods


Methods include your program description and processes used to achieve your desired outcome, goals and objectives. This is the implementation of your program. Your goal may be to reach more children at your museum, but how will you do this? Sometimes your objectives include this and often times you need to know your methods before writing your objectives.


My methods for the internship program I'm launching include provide an internship conference for all interns. This will allow interns to share their work, learn from other interns and learn how to present at conferences (a major part of working in museums). That one method helps achieve multiple objectives of my program.


Evaluation


This term may or may not be familiar to you as some museum studies programs teach it, while others do not, and some museums use evaluation, while others do not. You have probably at least seen a survey or heard of a focus group, if not participated. In grant writing terms, evaluation is to see if you accomplished your desired outcomes. 


For museums, evaluation covers a number of different objectives. For more information on evaluation in museums, please visit Indiana University's website which goes into great detail on this topic. The type of evaluation I will be focusing on is summative.


Evaluation for grants is to provide information to the funder about the success (or challenges) of your program. If you are not applying for a grant, evaluation can be a great way to determine your own successes and areas for improvement, especially if this is a program you plan on doing again. You can also use the information to demonstrate the impact your program is making to your supervisors. Surveys, interviews, focus groups are some of the ways you can discover this information. Be sure to read up on best practices and confer with HR before distributing a survey or conducting an interview.


Informal Science is a great resource for evaluations. It provides information on ongoing projects and past evaluations. Check out the summative evaluations to get some examples for inspiration. Also, look into front-end evaluation. Doing a front-end evaluation may be a way to help justify starting your program.


Recommended Reading:


Introduction to Evaluation, American Association of Museums
Practical Evaluation Guide, Judy Diamond, Jessica Luke & David Uttal

Using Grantwriting Principles in Program Planning: Part 2

In my last post, Using Grantwriting Principles in Program Planning: Part 1, I wrote about how using grantwriting principles has helped me to develop my own programs. In that last post, I discussed how to create a purpose to help guide your program. This post will focus on goals and objectives.


Goals and objectives are key parts to any grant. Funders expect to see this information as it gives them more details on what you expect your program will accomplish and how their money will help fulfill your "purpose." As a refresher, the "purpose" is the why of your proposal. The goals and objectives will give further proof as to why the funder should care and how it ties your program to their own mission or funding interests.


Goals


Goals are more specific than your purpose, yet more vague than your objectives. Your purpose will be lofty and broad, but your goals should show, in concrete terms, how the purpose can be achieved. You will want to clarify what your program will accomplish with details that show it can realistically be achieved. 

For example, my purpose for my new internship program is to nurture future museum professionals. This could be accomplished by any number of programs, such as a graduate course, fellowship, job, etc. My goals should narrow down how my program will accomplish that purpose.


Some examples may be:

• To provide real life museum experiences for students.
• To ensure interns have meaningful tasks that relate to their coursework.
• To prepare interns for a future museum job.
• To develop opportunities for interns to collaborate and learn from each other, as well as museum professionals.

Objectives


Objectives must address measurable outcomes of your program. Sometimes I think of this as questions on a test because you may end up looking for specific answers. In my example, I might see my interns can describe best practices of museum work or identify questions a museum might ask before acquiring a temporary exhibit. It would all depend on their internship. Some of the outcomes may be more qualitative (like short answers on a test). I might expect the students to be able to describe their internship in relation to what they've learned in class. Or I might want students to have completed a project that helps the museum in some way.


Why use it for programs?


Like I've said in my previous post, I find this information useful to have on hand when explaining my decisions. The goals and objectives will help explain my methods to people that I will need buy-in from. I'll need my boss to approve this program, but also, I'll need curators, collection managers, administration and other departments to see why we are doing things this way so I can effectively implement the program.