History Bits - Musings of a heritage professional: August 2012

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.

Photo : David Hurst
Eileen Halsall of Harrison Road, Chorley, takes steps to stop the thief who keeps stealing her milk

"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!

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