Museums for Everyone!?!, or, There's more to it than four walls and some artefacts

I'm a serious person.

Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that I take things seriously. Anyone who knows me would guffaw at the thought that I'm "serious", but no one would question my enthusiasm and passion for things I care about.



"Oooh, Ethel, look at the letters behind glass!"

One thing that I take very seriously is the museum field. Case in point: this blog.

I have endless appreciation for those who came before, trudging away through mounds of antiques, clustering objects together for displays and researching said objects before presenting them proudly to the public.

I'd like to take a moment to let the world know that things have changed.

There are endless books, documents and research on collections management, interpretive theory, exhibit design, visitor
experience management... and I could go on. There are people who dedicate their lives to finding the best ways to create the bridge from object/story to visitor, to make these visits memorable, to create an inspiring environment for members of the public to come, enjoy themselves and leave better people.

I can't help but feel a little bit guilty for feeling this way. There are people out there running little museums, visitor centres and historical societies entirely on their own initiative and dedication. Without people like them, these places wouldn't even exist. They are a legacy of the neo-Victorian "collectors" and curiosity cabinets, who have evolved into museums of "look at all this cool stuff!"

"... now let me explain how the drums were fabricated..."
(From an actual tour I took, once. Only once.)

I've been to places like this. Places where you meet the really friendly volunteer who greets you and proceeds to drag you around and chew your ear off on topics that you have no interest in. It's not their fault. No one taught them about "museum fatigue" or even Tilden's Principles of Interpretation, even though they've been around for years. No one ever had the guts to ask them to stop talking about the tractor engines and tell them a story about harvest season at their uncle's farm when they were a boy.

Smaller communities rally around their museums. They are places that you might never visit, but at least you can donate (re: drop off on the doorstep after they're closed) grandma's old milk bottle. No one there is going to tell you that they need information about grandma, her family, the milk jug, or even dare suggest that they might not want it at all.



"You're going to take this bottle and like it!"
(Okay, so not so funny. From an article about a poor
old lady who keeps getting her milk stolen.)

Some small museums suffer from "milkbottleitis". And people don't even realize that it takes time and people (trained people) to properly catalogue all those milk bottles. Not to mention storage for them. And did you know that if you leave it they have to take it? Well, if they are a ethical museum they will; they'll hate it, but they will. God forbid you or your descendant comes running back years later looking for grandma's milk bottle. (Best part is: if you didn't give us info about it, we won't even know which of our anonymous milk bottles it is. And if you left your info, we'd probably call you to come pick it up.)

There's so much more to museums than meets the eye. Staffing, finance, human resources, exhibit design, education, outreach, development, fundraising, collections management, and so much more.

I'm going to break a few hearts and go out and say it:

Today's museums are businesses.

The money doesn't just pour in anymore. (And I wonder if it even ever did.) It takes people with professional skills to create, manage and curate museums that are sustainable, and in this economy, that's what's the most important: sustainability.

It didn't take me long to discover that the touchy-feely new-museum-professional thought of "museums are important, of course people will visit and give us money to run them" was an artefact itself. Now I try my best to help people understand that, too.

So many of us have difficulty with it, but it's not hard to reconcile business with museums. The large national institutions have been doing it for years.

We're still getting the message out there;  it's just harder than ever before and requires some special skills.

A few new small museums have opened up in my area in the past year and I can't help but think; are you crazy!? It's so much more work than I think anyone really realized, and the competition for leisure time is fierce. Is it strange that I feel bad for these people? Opening up a can of worms when all they can see is the joy in the eyes of their (imagined) visitors?

I will give them credit though. Working in the heritage field takes guts.

Guts and a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

It's period-appropriate! I swear!

The Secret to World Peace, or, The universality of the "button spinner"

Today was a long day. Frankly, I should be in bed,  but the sudden and irrepressible urge to share my latest discovery has prompted me to write despite bouts of drowsiness.

I spent the day at a heritage fair. Music, food, museum peeps, members of the general public, me in a Victorian dress... it had it all! I set up my little booth with my fancy banners, promptly took said banners down because they kept falling over in the wind, and thanked my lucky stars that I thought to borrow the old-fashioned toys kit so that there would be something on my table. Said toys let me to a fascinating discovery.

BEHOLD!

The Button Spinner!!

 Yes, it's unimpressive. Yes, it's really simple. But dammit if it's not the most engaging toy in my pioneer toy arsenal!

There was one little boy who kept coming back to my table. "I've thought of a new trick!" he'd say as he found a way to get it to spin behind his head. Or knee. Or vertically. I demonstrated it so many times that I can't count. Children, adults, grandparents, teenagers, everyone wanted a turn. And while the cup and ball is always a popular option, the button spinner's simplicity is what makes it so awesome.

"I don't get it," says the 20-something girlfriend watching her boyfriend grin like a small child when he figures it out.

He hands it to her to try. She fumbles several times, stating, "I don't get it. It's dumb."

"Here, let me show you," he replies patiently.

It takes about a minute, but her face fills with awe and she exclaims, "Oh my god! I've got it." She's quiet for nearly a minute, mesmerized by the button on a string. "Woah, I could do this all day."

This was pretty much how my day went. What I found the best, however, was the regular stream of New Canadians who came up to the table and said, "Wow! I used to play with those back home! But we used to use bottlecaps/real buttons/wax/milk lids." Watching them teach their Canadian-born children a toy from their childhood filled me with super-awesome feelings of museum goodness. Especially when I shared the history of the toy, including the stories of the others I had met throughout the day.

Wondering where it was played with? I now present to you:

The United Brotherhood of Button Spinning



 

French Guiana

Uzbekistan

Trinidad

India

China

El Salvador

So there you have it. The humble button spinner: bringing back fond memories for people everywhere.

The Post of Museum AWESOME!

Oh God, it's been forever. So much has happened since my last post. The museum is open, for one; I'm not there anymore, for two.

In the space of time since I last wrote, I had a job interview and have been at that new job since mid-June. Needless to say, I've been busy. I have now moved out and away from the museum to an office (so, yes, cubicle woes for yours truly). I'm still planning out biggest event of the season, since my job was just posted last week, but I now have the awesome and thrilling task of planning and assisting with the audience development and visitor experience for the three sister museums! Yay! In the spirit of celebration, I thought I'd share something that's been floating around my mind for a few weeks.

When I go to the cottage, I try to get away. I usually pick up a trashy book on the way down there, but the other week I picked up Neil Pasricha's The Book of AWESOME! instead. It's really my kind of book, for many reasons. Firstly, because I have the incessant habit of saying that things and people are "awesome!", secondly, because it's such an upbeat and optimistic look on life; I mean, I love thinking about the "cool side of the pillow", "when people give you a little wave when you let them pass you in traffic" and "popping bubble wrap".

Pasricha's book has inspired me to think up some museums/heritage things that are awesome. Some are silly, some are personal, some might be downright weird, but I'm hoping that all with give you a little smile. Without further ado, I give you:

The Post of Museum AWESOME!

• People Who Ask Questions On Your Tour
• I know some guides and interpreters who might disagree with this, but I can't think of anything better than when people ask questions on a tour I'm giving. It means that they're interested, invested, engaged! Even better if it stops being a tour altogether and becomes a conversation that we're just having in a museum. AWESOME!

• Sock Feet in the Historic House
• I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I walk around the museum with no shoes on. I've done that at several of the historic sites I have worked at and it's always an unplanned and euphoric thing. Like a harkening back to my childhood. You're sitting in your office, working long hours when the museum is closed. You take off your shoes to get comfortable. Then you want some coffee. But it's in the lunchroom. There's no one there. Who's going to tell? So you walk down the hall to get your coffee. But you can't do it without taking a detour; it's impossible. Something about stocking feet rejuvenates the human spirit. There's a spring in your step as you skip around and a small part of you thinks: "It's just like I live here!" So you pad around the rooms, feeling a sense of freedom and joy that can only come from having such a privilege. AWESOME!

• Perfectly Applied Tiny Accession Numbers
• Ah, haven't done it in a while, but there's nothing so satisfying as writing perfectly legible accession numbers with a pigma pen on newly dried B72. Tiny, perfect, more legible than your predecessor's. AWESOME!

• Hugs/Gifts from Young Visitors
• Children at the museum are great! Some are so happy to be there and occasionally share their innocent unconditional love with you. The best: colouring pages they present to you out of the blue, the leg hugs when you finish preschool outreach, the fact that they remember you from their last visit even when their parents don't. Sometimes awkward, but always AWESOME!

More to come! Or better yet, let me know yours!

And so it begins. Again.

I spoke in one of my previous posts about the cyclical nature of museum work. While many projects are one-offs, and things do change (more often for the better), the annual museum cycle is just too obvious not to notice. It's especially noticeable at a seasonal museum like mine, where we're closed for most of the year, and new staff will create a surprisingly different experience every open season.

The sister museums opened last Sunday after much planning, prep and two weeks of staff training. Training is always an exhausting and terrifying ordeal; shaping new interpreters into my ideal, setting up expectations and praying that I like them and that they like me.

I'm not going to lie and say that I don't care what others think. I do. Well, I should clarify that I care what people I care about think. My friends, my family, my colleagues, my boss, my staff... I need them to understand where I'm coming from so that everything runs smoothly. This is especially the case with my staff, since I'm going to rely on them immensely for the next four months. If we don't mesh together, it'll make things a heck of a lot more difficult.

As much as I'm sure some people would dig drinking
in the workplace "Mad Men" style, I don't think it's quite
"museum appropriate".

I've said before that I don't think people spend enough time on teambuilding and socializing in the workplace. Now, I don't mean that we should be having wild parties, or waste tons of time. I simply mean taking some time to get to know your colleagues and employees; know a little bit more about them, their lives, what interests them, etc. I'm not going to pretend that playing "get to know you" is simply in the interest of having fun and making things all "touchy-feely". There's a practical aspect to it, too.

And, I'm not gonna lie, it makes me feel a bit guilty to even think about it.

I actively cultivate relationships. Like gardens, only better than gardens, since I can't really manage one of those without having tons of weeds. Perhaps that's the irony of it all, since, frankly, I don't have many close friends; I tend to focus my energies on a few.

Professionally, however, I want, no, need to have good relationships with my peers, staff and colleagues. Perhaps it's a reflection of the inherent isolation of my museum, combined with the fact that I'm it's only full-time employee for 8 months of the year. I need help and support from my colleagues, superiors and staff in order to make it work.

Besides, it makes everything so much easier when everyone is friendly!

It's simple really, and just a bit of good manners. It means not rolling my eyes when my staff ask "But... why?" for the hundredth time. Smiling when I see a colleague after a while, even if I'm exhausted. Calling someone right back to help them with their work, even if it means that mine might be delayed. Taking the time to talk with the old lady who visits a couple times a week, even if I've heard this story twenty times before. Starting a phone call with "Hey! How are you doing?" instead of, "So, I need you to do this for me." It takes a lot of extra energy, but it means that when I need them, they'll be there for me. If that's selfish, so sue me. In the end, it means that we'll work better together.

So, when things get crazy, the work starts piling up, the phone keeps ringing off the hook and I have to re-do my program plan for the upteenth time, I'm going to remember the importance of a positive work environment.

Co-worker pizza party picnic anyone?

Spring Fever!!

Remember back in August when I wrote that sad, sad post about the museum closing?

Well, I've now come full circle. My intern and I were out at the museum on Tuesday and it was buzzing. We've had unseasonably warm weather this week (30 degrees in March?!) and when we arrived in the morning there were two pickups on the grounds. One guy was working out in the washroom block, getting it ready to open, and the others were checking out our endless flooding problem in the basement and preparing for our spring clean.
One quick look at the house confirmed my greatest of joys: the shutters are off!!

In a tradition that I appear to be setting, it called for a little dance around my car, followed by a re-exploration of the house sans-shutters. Everything is different with the light of day. I feel re-energized and inspired; making me think, yet again, about that theory that museum professionals embody their museums. It makes me wonder if my figurative shutters were up all winter?
I can just feel the joy, the promise that 2012 will bring. We've got a bunch of new programs, and I've even got about 14 kids already registered for programs starting in July. (July!)

One of my new volunteers sent me a poem that a friend said made her think of my museum. It was bittersweet, but really hit home to me.

THE HOUSE WITH NOBODY IN IT

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

HENEVER I walk to Suffern along the Erie track

I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.

I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute

And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

 

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.

I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;

For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

 

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,

And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.

It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;

But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

 

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid

I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.

I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be

And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

 

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,

Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.

But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone

For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

 

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,

That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,

A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,

Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

 

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track

I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,

Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,

For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

So beautiful and sad, isn't it? I kept wavering between offended and touched.

I care about my museum. And we do take care of it, no matter what it looks like. (Haven't these people ever heard of stabilization vs. restoration!?) Regardless, the poem won't be accurate for much longer.

I'll be back there soon and both our hearts will be mended. 

Visitor Experience 101, or, Touchy, Feely Museums

I've been thinking a lot about Visitor Experience lately. Not just the visitor experience at my museum, but in general, hence the capital "V" and "E".
I have an idea of what Visitor Experience means, but sometimes I'm not sure if others really do, or if I've gotten it wrong, really.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "experience" as "an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone" and/or "to feel (an emotion or sensation)". I'd have to say that my definition would be a bit of both.

How many times have I written about making visitors feel comfortable, welcome, at home or some other such emotion at the museum? Endless times. For me, the Visitor Experience is all about emotion, feelings, not so much about the product itself. Yes, the product is important, but I can't help but think that it should be secondary, somehow.

We're currently working towards improving the visitor experience at our museums right now. My boss keeps asking things like, "So, imagine I'm a visitor and I arrive at the museum; what do I see?" Questions like these are awesome because they make you think about the program or event in a different light. So often we only think about the program on a surface level and follow a formula, repeating the same things over and over, like a template. But things get stale.

So we're revamping things, and it's awesome.
But the question I want to ask is, "If I'm a visitor and I arrive at the museum; what do I feel?"

I was asking some friends the other day what the visitor experience was going to be like at their museums in 2012. I was a little bit surprised, however, when they essentially answered me by giving me a list of things that visitors are going to do. No real mention of what visitors will feel or "experience".

Traditionally, we develop a program in our head and then find ways to deliver the message and make it a pleasant experience as an afterthought. But I think it should be the other way around; we need to think about what we want people to experience, then develop the program, event, or exhibit around that.

The reason I've been thinking about this is because my intern delivered her first museum program last night. Not her first program with me; her first program ever. I felt that I needed to give her some advice since she admitted to being a bit nervous. It was a snowshoe hike and she knew all the information; she'd been studying the program delivery plan all week.

I told her not to worry, and to remember why people were there. "They aren't here to learn about Geoheritage [the topic]. Let's not kid ourselves. We're going to offer them something so they learn, but that's not why they're here. They're here for fun, to get out, to meet people, to try snowshoeing. Don't get hung up on the info and the delivery. Be yourself, welcome them to the museum and show them a good time."

She did awesome, for the record.

The Programming Buzz, or, Marshmallows for Everyone!!!!

Phew! It's been a while. A long while.
I'd been beginning to wonder if a blog was a good idea at all, seeing as I felt no inspiration to write.
Cue 2012. Cue my spiffy new intern.

Cue the first program of the season. <fist pump>

That funk that I felt when the museum closed in September never really went away. Until last night, that is: snowshoe programming!!!

For once, it's a picture from where I work.
Took this last year at the Winter Survival Skills Workshop.

I had put off writing the program plan for ages. I really should have had it done before the holidays, but didn't end up writing it until Thursday night. To be fair, I'd done all the research (it was to be a nature-themed hike), and had even written an article about it to submit to the local community papers, so I knew what I was talking about. I just couldn't get myself to write the damn thing. Meh, chalk it up to procrastination.

I was pretty chill before the program, thinking, "Hey, I've done this before, no biggie." I had also had the idea to make homemade marshmallows for the participants after the hike, you know, a little extra free prize like I discussed in a previous post. My awesome intern made them for me; delicious, fluffy little marshmallows. My boss was having a hard time coming to grips with whether marshmallow-making was a good use of our time, but if they're a hit, apparently myself and my sister museums will have to serve them at all winter events. We'll see.

So I wasn't really that nervous leading up to the program, until we got there. Then it hit me that my intern was going to be following me, and did I really fully understand the winter survival strategies of the frog and downy woodpecker? There was even a random journalist/photographer who showed up. (Really, I'd love it if you guys would call. It's just a bit awkward when you come and I'm still setting up.) So I'm chatting with the journalist and thinking at the back of my mind about the tour. People start showing up, and we're ready to leave.

I should let you know that it was freaking cold last night. There was even a frostbite warning in effect, but people showed up nonetheless, which is great. We had a total of 8 people and they followed me dutifully around the site. The biggest hiccup was before the program started when, since it was so cold, we broke three pairs of my snowshoes because the frozen plastic straps just snapped. (Oops!) We got back to the campfire a bit too soon, and the fire wasn't started yet, but I asked if people minded going in the house instead. Since it was so cold we opted for that option and sipped hot chocolate and ate awesome marshmallows while we warmed up.

I pride myself on a very intimate and personal visitor experience, which is frankly what I would want. I want the people to feel like my friends or guests, at least, because that's what they are. Last night was no exception and people actually stayed in the ballroom and we chatted about snowshoeing, the museum and other random things (including the history of marshmallows) for at least half an hour.

Anyway, it was awesome!!! After the program I felt such a buzz that I couldn't help but break out in dance; a sentiment quickly mirrored by my intern and the part-time helper. Talking to people, getting to know them, sharing what I know... that's what I do. And it's so fulfilling that it's surprising that I forget about it when I'm stuck in my basement office at the other museum. Maybe it was all the sugar, but now I can't wait to do it again!

I could eat these for breakfast!