Save Our Signs and Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian Rally to Preserve Public History

Real history isn't always comfortable. And right now, that's exactly why it needs protecting.

Two grassroots initiatives, Save Our Signs and Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, are demonstrating what happens when everyday citizens refuse to let public history disappear. 

Armed with nothing more than smartphones and determination, thousands of volunteers are documenting interpretive signage and exhibits that face removal from National Park Service (NPS) sites and Smithsonian museums.

Save Our Signs launched in response to an executive order directing the Secretary of the Interior to identify National Park signage that "inappropriately disparages Americans past or living." Translation: signs discussing difficult chapters of American history, such as slavery, Indigenous displacement, and civil rights struggles, became targets for review and potential removal. 

The SOS initiative invites anyone visiting NPS sites to photograph signage and upload it to the growing community archive at https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/save-our-signs. Think of it as a distributed preservation effort where every park visitor becomes a documentarian.

The numbers tell the story: volunteers have already captured thousands of images from sites nationwide, creating what they call "the People's Archive of National Park Signs." The January 2026 SOS update notes an increase in reports of sign removals, making real-time documentation more urgent than ever.

Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian took direct inspiration from Save Our Signs. When Georgetown University historians Chandra Manning and James Millward learned the Trump administration was demanding Smithsonian reviews to ensure exhibits aligned with directives celebrating "American exceptionalism" while removing "divisive narratives," they sent an email to colleagues asking for help. Within weeks, over 1,500 volunteers mobilized.

The results? In their first seven weeks (as of their latest update), volunteers documented 100% of the current Smithsonian exhibits across 21 museums, the National Zoo, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Nearly 50,000 photographs and videos capturing everything from gallery labels to full exhibition layouts have been documented. 

They call it a "Crowd to Cloud" effort at https://www.citizenhistorians.org.

What makes these projects remarkable is their fundamental democratization of preservation. No fancy equipment required. No credentials necessary. Just citizens who understand that museums and parks belong to all of us, not to whoever currently holds power.

Both initiatives tackle a truth we in the museum field know well: interpretation matters. How we present history shapes public understanding. When exhibits discuss slavery at Mount Vernon, Indigenous removal policies in various states, or Japanese American incarceration, they're fulfilling the NPS mandate and Smithsonian mission to tell all Americans' stories—not just the comfortable ones.

The projects share practical DNA too. Both rely on volunteer coordination through "captains" who systematically assign documentation tasks. Both emphasize low barriers to entry. Both understand that preservation sometimes means simply bearing witness and creating a record for journalists, researchers, and future generations.

For those of us working in interpretation and exhibit development, these efforts offer both inspiration and warning. They remind us that audiences value honest, complex history enough to fight for it. They also demonstrate how quickly interpretive content can become politicized.

Want to help? Visit a National Park and photograph signage for Save Our Signs. If you're near Washington, D.C., volunteer with Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian . Even if you can't participate directly, both projects need funding and awareness.

Museums and National Parks belong to all of us, not to whoever currently holds power.

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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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New Year, New Exhibits Approaches

You know that exhibit in your museum? The one with the hand crank that stopped working last July? Or the touchscreen that's been displaying "Loading..." since Thanksgiving? Maybe it's the fabric panel that's faded to the point where visitors squint at it like they're deciphering ancient hieroglyphics.

We've all been there. January brings that fresh-start energy, and while you might be Marie Kondo-ing your sock drawer at home, it's also the perfect time to take an honest look at your exhibit floor.

The question isn't whether your exhibits need attention—they do. The real question is: what kind of attention do they need?

The Keep, Fix, or Farewell Framework

Think of this as triage for your museum floor. Not every exhibit problem requires the same solution, and treating them all the same way is how you end up either throwing away perfectly good exhibits or carrying dead weight.

Keep & Maintain: These are your workhorses. Visitors love them, they're holding up well, and they just need regular care. Oil the gears, replace the worn rope, refresh that label copy. This is routine maintenance, not crisis management.

Fix & Refresh: These exhibits still have good bones, but they need real intervention. Maybe the concept is solid, but the execution has worn thin. Maybe visitor behavior has changed since you installed it. These need intentional work, but they're worth saving.

Farewell & Replace: This is the "tough love" category. Some exhibits have simply run their course. The technology is obsolete, the maintenance burden is crushing your staff, or visitors just walk past it without a second glance.

Ask the Hard Questions

Before you decide which category each exhibit falls into, gather some real data:

Is it still being used as intended?  Stand and watch for twenty minutes. Are visitors actually engaging with it, or just triggering it accidentally while reaching for the hand sanitizer dispenser?

What's the maintenance burden? Track how many staff hours per month go into keeping this thing functional. If your educator is spending five hours weekly unjamming the marble run, that's not an exhibit—that's a part-time job.

Does it still serve your visitors?  Museums change, neighborhoods change, audiences change. An exhibit that worked brilliantly in 2015 might feel irrelevant now, and that's okay.

What would repair actually cost? Not just parts and materials—include staff time, opportunity cost, and the very real possibility that you'll be having this same conversation again in six months.

Low-Cost Refresh Strategies (My Favorite Part)

Here's where scrappy museum thinking really shines. You don't always need a capital campaign to breathe new life into an exhibit.

Surface Solutions: Sometimes it's as simple as replacing a worn tabletop, painting a scuffed frame, or recovering a cushion. Fresh surfaces signal "cared for" to visitors.

Graphics Refresh: New labels, updated colors, contemporary fonts. You'd be amazed at how much visual fatigue contributes to "exhibit invisibility." A $200 graphics order can make a five-year-old exhibit feel new.

Add Challenge Layers: Your gear table is fine, but visitors master it in thirty seconds. Add prompt cards with new challenges: "Can you make the gears spin backwards?" "Build the tallest tower that still turns." Fresh engagement without rebuilding anything.

Swap the Variables: Keep the structure, change what visitors manipulate. Your shadow wall works great—rotate which objects cast shadows with the seasons. Your water table is solid—swap out the boats for different designs every quarter.

Strategic Component Replacement: Replace just the tired piece while keeping everything else. The pulley system is great, but the buckets are cracked? New buckets are cheaper than a new exhibit.

Red flags that signal an exhibit needs to go:

- Repair costs approaching 60-70% of replacement cost

- Maintenance demands are preventing you from developing new work

- Safety concerns that can't be fixed without gutting the whole thing

- Visitor engagement has dropped to near zero despite refresh attempts

- The underlying concept no longer aligns with your mission

Decommissioning doesn't mean failure. It means you're making space for something better.

The graceful exit: Document what worked and what didn't. Photograph it. Save components that might be useful elsewhere. If it served visitors well for years, honor that. Then let it go.

Repurpose what you can: That sturdy frame might become your next exhibit's foundation. Those motors could drive something new. The plexiglass always has another use. Museums should be experts at adaptive reuse.

Make This Manageable

Don't try to evaluate your entire museum in one week. Pick a gallery or a zone. Spend an afternoon observing, taking notes, and being brutally honest. Then make decisions exhibit by exhibit.

Create three literal lists: Keep, Fix, Farewell. Assign realistic timelines. Fix doesn't mean "someday when we get a grant." It means Q2 2026 with a specific plan.

The museums that feel fresh and vital aren't necessarily the ones with the newest exhibits. They're the ones where someone is paying attention, making thoughtful decisions, and refusing to accept "that's just how it is" as an answer.

So walk your floor with fresh eyes this month. Your exhibits (and your visitors!) will thank you.

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 Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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Frame by Frame: What Two Graphic Novels Can Teach Us About Museum Storytelling

If you're looking for fresh inspiration for your next museum exhibit, pick up a graphic novel.

I recently read Guy Delisle's "Muybridge" and Lauren Redniss's "Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout," and both books made me think hard about how we tell stories in museum spaces. Each provides compelling examples in visual storytelling that translate directly to exhibit design challenges we face every day.

Motion Studies and Sequential Revelation

Delisle's "Muybridge" tells the story of Eadweard Muybridge, the pioneering photographer who essentially invented motion pictures by breaking down animal and human movement into sequential images. Delisle uses the static medium of comics (itself based on sequential art) to tell the story of someone who revolutionized how we see movement.

What struck me most was how Delisle varies his panel layouts to echo Muybridge's own photographic grids. Some pages feature rigid, uniform panels that mimic Muybridge's famous motion studies, while others break free into more dynamic compositions when depicting the drama of his personal life (including a murder trial that reads like a Victorian soap opera).

The exhibit takeaway: Think about how your visitors move through space and encounter information sequentially. Just as Muybridge broke down a galloping horse into 12 frames, we can break down complex ideas into digestible moments. The pacing matters. Sometimes you want uniform, predictable "panels" (like a series of identical cases showing technological progression), and sometimes you need to disrupt that rhythm with a dramatic reveal or an unexpected spatial break.

I've used this approach in exhibits where we're explaining a multi-step process. Instead of a single massive graphic panel trying to show everything at once, we create stations that visitors encounter in sequence, like frames in a motion study. The physical movement through space becomes part of the learning.

Materiality as Metaphor

Redniss's "Radioactive" is a visual knockout. She uses a unique visual language in which no two pages look alike. Text appears in hand-drawn lettering that changes size, color, and style. Images are layered, scratched, collaged, and printed using a cyan-magenta split that creates this eerie, glowing quality—perfect for a book about radioactivity.

The book's physical form is the message. Pages feel unstable, dangerous, beautiful, and unpredictable, exactly like radiation itself. Redniss uses cyanotype prints (a historical photographic process) to tie the book's materiality directly to the Curies' era and their scientific work.

The exhibit takeaway: Your materials and fabrication methods are part of your content, not just decoration. We often default to standard exhibit systems and conventional graphics because they're easier and cheaper, but sometimes the medium needs to match the message.

When I'm working on exhibits, I think about how materials can transport visitors. Rough-hewn wood for agricultural exhibits. Cold metal and institutional fixtures for exhibits about industrialization or medical history. Soft, tactile materials for exhibits about childhood or domestic life. The sensory experience reinforces the content.

Nice example of materials use from Hiferty & Associates

Redniss also does something brilliant with how she handles scientific concepts. When explaining radioactive decay, she doesn't give us a traditional diagram. Instead, elements appear and disappear across spreads, fading and transforming visually. 

We can do this in exhibits, too. Instead of static diagrams that explain processes, consider how light, shadow, motion, or even the visitor's own movement can reveal or demonstrate concepts. Exhibits where visitors cast shadows that show how X-rays work, or where walking past a panel makes images appear to decay or transform.

Negative Space and What's Left Unsaid

Both books use white space brilliantly. Delisle often isolates his figures against blank backgrounds, focusing our attention. Redniss uses negative space to create mood—empty pages feel lonely, crowded compositions feel chaotic.

The exhibit takeaway:  We tend to pack exhibits full of content because we're afraid of "wasting" space. But emptiness is a tool. Strategic negative space gives visitors room to think, breathe, and process what they've just experienced.

Some of the most powerful exhibit moments I've encountered have been simple benches placed where they overlook something meaningful, or blank walls that let a single object command attention. The space around your content is part of the composition.

Personal Stories, Scientific Content

Both books root scientific achievement in deeply personal, often messy human stories. Muybridge's technological innovations are inseparable from his toxic marriage and a murder that results. The Curies' scientific partnership is a love story, and their scientific legacy is measured in both Nobel Prizes and radiation poisoning.

The exhibit takeaway: We know visitors connect with personal narratives, but we sometimes treat "the science stuff" and "the human-interest stuff" as separate tracks. These books show how they're on the same track. The messy human details are what make the scientific achievements comprehensible and meaningful.

When developing exhibits, resist the urge to sanitize the personal stories or to relegate them to sidebar "fun facts." Let the human drama drive the narrative and let the science grow organically from it. Your middle school visitors will remember Marie Curie carrying vials of glowing radium in her pockets more than they'll remember atomic weight numbers.

The Bottom Line

If you're stuck on an exhibit concept, if your layouts feel stale, or if you're struggling to translate complex content into three-dimensional space, spend some time with ambitious graphic novels. They're dealing with the exact same challenges we face -- how to guide someone through a narrative using sequential images, text, and physical form. They're just using paper instead of drywall.

"Muybridge" and "Radioactive" are excellent starting points, but there are dozens more. Richard McGuire's "Here" tells stories spanning thousands of years, all from one fixed viewpoint in a house. Perfect inspiration for exhibits about places with deep histories.

The best museum exhibits and the best graphic novels share the same DNA: they're both about using visual sequence, spatial relationships, and material choices to create meaning. They both ask readers/visitors to actively construct understanding rather than just passively receive information.

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 Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Happy New PROJECTS!

2026 sounds like a date from a retro sci-fi novel where we should all be commuting via jetpack. While the jetpacks might be on backorder, the future is definitely here. And looking at the calendar, the "Holiday Fog" has finally lifted. The confetti has been swept up, the champagne flutes are put away, and now we are left with the most exciting (and terrifying) thing in the museum world:

The Blank Whiteboard

Maybe you have a gallery that’s been collecting dust since 2022. Maybe you have a grant deadline looming that requires "innovative engagement" (whatever that means this week). Or maybe you just have a team that is talented but tired, and needs a creative jolt to get the gears turning again.

If you are looking at 2026 and thinking, "We need to do something different this year," then you and I need to talk.

Why 2026 Needs More POW!

At POW! we don't do "business as usual." We don’t do dusty cases or labels that read like textbooks. We believe that if a visitor isn't smiling, surprising themselves, or getting their hands dirty, we haven't done our job.

This year, I’m looking for partners who are ready to embrace the idea that you don't need a million dollars to create a million-dollar experience. You need ingenuity, a bit of bravery, and a lot of prototyping.

Here is how we can partner up to make your 2026 projects awesome:

Whirlwind Workshops: Does your staff feel stuck? I’ll come in for a day (or two), dump a pile of materials on the table, and teach your team some prototyping tricks! It’s hands-on internal capacity building that actually sticks.

The "Un-Sticker": Have a project that has stalled in committee meetings hell? Bring me in as a creative catalyst. I’m great at cutting through the noise and getting to the "fun part" of the visitor experience.

Life is too short for boring exhibits!

Let’s make 2026 the year we stop talking about innovation and start building it.

If you’re ready to add a little POW! to your museum this year, then let’s talk about how we can turn that blank whiteboard into your visitors' favorite new experience.

Happy New Year, and Happy NEW PROJECTS!

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 Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Three Chatbots Walk Into a Museum...

If you've been following museum tech trends lately, you've probably noticed AI chatbots popping up everywhere. Instead of just reading about them, I decided to roll up my (digital) sleeves and build a few exhibit-focused chatbots to see what all the fuss is about.

Spoiler alert: It's pretty fun, surprisingly educational, and maybe even useful for museums!

Why Museum Chatbots?

Visitors come to museums with wildly different questions, interests, and attention spans. Some want the quick Wikipedia version, others want to dive deep into primary sources, and still others just want to know where the bathrooms are (Pro Tip: chatbots are *terrible* at that last one).

But what if you could give visitors a way to have an actual conversation with a historical figure or topic expert? Not in a creepy uncanny valley way, but in a "here's another tool in your interpretive toolkit" kind of way.

Three Chatbots Walk Into a Museum...

I created three different chatbot experiments, each with a different personality and purpose:

1. George Washington: First President, First Chatbot

This was my first attempt, and I went straight for the big guy himself. The George Washington chatbot is designed to answer visitor questions about his life, Mount Vernon, and 18th-century America—all while staying in character and citing actual historical sources.

Want to know about his dentures? His relationship with enslaved people at Mount Vernon? His thoughts on political parties? George (or at least this digital version) will chat with you about it. The key here was making sure responses were historically grounded and included source citations, so visitors know this isn't just making stuff up.

2. Ivan Vazov: Bulgaria's Literary Lion

Okay, this one's a bit more niche, but hear me out! Ivan Vazov is Bulgaria's national poet, and I created this chatbot to help English-speaking visitors engage with Bulgarian literary history. 

This bot can discuss Vazov's works, the Bulgarian National Revival period, and even translate some of his poetry. It's a great example of how chatbots can make culturally specific content more accessible to international audiences without oversimplifying it.

3. Paul Orselli: Yes, I Made One of Myself! 

In the spirit of full transparency, and maybe a little ego, I created a chatbot version of myself to answer questions about museum exhibit design, visitor engagement, and the ExhibiTricks blog. 

This one's less about historical accuracy and more about sharing professional expertise in a conversational format. It's like having a museum consultant available 24/7, except this one never gets tired of explaining why hands-on exhibits shouldn't be overly complicated.

What I Learned

The Good:

• Creating these chatbots was surprisingly quick and iterative. You can test, refine, and improve the personality and accuracy pretty easily.

• They're genuinely useful for handling the "long tail" of visitor questions that traditional labels can't address.

• The ability to cite sources means visitors can dig deeper if they want to verify information.

The Not-So-Good:

• You need to be really thoughtful about accuracy and bias. These tools can confidently state incorrect information if you're not careful.

• They're not a replacement for well-designed exhibits or human interpretation—they're a supplement.

• Accessibility is still a work in progress (think: screen reader compatibility, multilingual support).

Should Your Museum Make a Chatbot?

Maybe! Here are some questions to ask first:

• Do your visitors have questions that go beyond what your labels can address?

• Do you have good primary source material or expertise to draw from?

• Are you comfortable with AI as an interpretive tool, with all its limitations?

• Can you commit to maintaining and updating it over time?

If you answered yes to most of these, it might be worth experimenting. Start small, test with real visitors, and don't be afraid to iterate.

Try Them Out!

All three chatbots mentioned above are live and ready to chat. Click the links above, ask them questions, and see what you think. Are they useful? Gimmicky? Somewhere in between? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

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 Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

The "Forever Ready" Exhibit

We’ve all seen it. You walk up to a fascinating-looking interactive exhibit, ready to dive in, only to find it in a state of chaos. Pieces are scattered everywhere, the "start" state is unrecognizable, or worse, the previous visitor left it in a "game over" condition that you can't figure out how to undo. (If I see one more already solved “ecosystem puzzle” exhibit at a Nature Center again, I’ll scream!)

In the world of interactive exhibits, the “Reset” is everything.

The "Reset" is one of the most critical (yet often overlooked) aspects of interactive exhibit design. 

If an exhibit isn't ready for the next visitor immediately after the previous one leaves, it's “broken.”

If an exhibit requires a staff member to tidy it up every ten minutes, it’s not an exhibit; it’s a chore. <cough> mini-supermarket exhibits at Children's Museums <cough> 

The Holy Grail of interactive design is creating experiences that naturally return to a "visitor-ready" state the moment the first user walks away. 

Here are three different types of exhibit elements that handle their own housekeeping, ensuring every visitor gets a fresh experience:

1. Gravity to the Rescue!

You can’t beat gravity as a free source of energy (and cleanup). The classic Tennis Ball Launcher is a great example of reset.  The visitor pulls a rope to raise a bowling ball inside a close-fitting acrylic tube. When the ball drops, a stream of air rushes through a smaller connected tube containing a tennis ball. 

Whoosh! The constrained air sends the tennis ball flying! 

When the tennis ball reaches its apogee? Gravity takes over and returns the tennis ball to its original position, ready for the next user.

• Why it works: It uses physics, not staff, to clean up.

• See examples of CW Shaw’s Tennis Ball Launcher here

2. The Magnetic Gear Wall

"Loose parts" exhibits are engagement gold, but they are also a "reset" nightmare. If you have a bucket of small pieces, they can end up in pockets, on the floor, or in the wrong exhibit entirely.

The Magnetic Gear Wall solves this by turning the entire vertical surface into a storage unit. The gears stick where you leave them. While the pattern changes, the functionality never breaks. The next visitor doesn't encounter a pile of junk; they encounter a collaborative work-in-progress that is instantly playable.

• Why it works: The "mess" is the exhibit. There is no "wrong" state.

• See an example: Magnetic Gear Wall at the Discovery Museum in Acton, MA

(Notice how the gears are always presented effectively, whether arranged in a line or a chaotic cluster.)

3. "Phygital" (Physical/Digital) Exhibits

Sometimes you want the tactile joy of a giant "Lite-Brite" but without the agony of picking up hundreds of little plastic pegs.

The Everbright is a giant grid of dials that change color as you twist them. It satisfies that tactile itch but offers a massive maintenance advantage: Auto-Erase. You can program it to wipe the screen clean with a satisfying ripple of light after a period of inactivity. It’s always a fresh canvas for the next artist.

• Why it works: It mimics a mechanical experience while clever engineering handles the reset instantly.

• See an example: The Everbright

(Their site specifically highlights the "self-resetting" feature as a major perk for staff-less spaces.)

The Takeaway

When prototyping your next interactive, ask yourself: "What’s the Reset?"

If the answer involves a staff member constantly picking up loose pieces or a confused visitor pressing buttons randomly, keep iterating!

 

Have a favorite "auto-reset" exhibit example? Share 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 Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"