Exhibit Design Inspiration: The Glue Society

The Glue Society is a group of writers, directors, and designers based in Sydney and New York.

As you can see from the example of their work entitled "Chair Arch" in the video above, and the image of the melted ice cream truck entitled "Hot with the Chance of Late Storm" they really know how to put creative twists on familiar materials and environments.



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Museums and One Laptop Per Child

ExhibiTricks reader Sean Hooley asked for some space to express his enthusism for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program and its applications to the museum world, so take it away Sean:

This spring I started doing some work with One Laptop per Child (OLPC) as I transitioned from working in interaction design back to the museum exhibit field. While not involved in deployments or the learning team, I have seen the enormous potential of the XO (the '$100 laptop') including talks by volunteers about the great educational opportunities afforded by the laptop.

OLPC just restarted the Give One, Get One (G1G1) program, where people/organizations in the US can pay for 2 XOs and get one, while the other is donated to a child in the third world. So, it seemed like a good time to get museum people talking. Here is an interesting use of the XO, at a science club in Washington, DC: http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/user_groups/olpc_learning_club_d.html

I feel that the museum world would benefit from working with XOs (and vice versa) so I am trying to get people thinking about ways for museums to participate in the US (OLPCs mission is to deliver them to children in the third world). OLPC is making the XO available again in the US (and probably for longer than the 2 months it was for sale last year.) This could allow more opportunities for museums to get involved with the XOs.

Therefore, I created an outline for a section in the community media page of OLPCs wiki for museums and hope that people will edit /add to it. You can also email me or check out some of the links below.

Some ideas were:

1. Museums acting as local XO community centers where XO users can get together, taking advantage of the social aspects of the XO (this is happening at the MIT museum, but why not more?)

2. Museums can create educational activities (applications) for the XO to add to the community (both in the US and abroad), based on their subject knowledge as well as their experiences with informal learning

3. Educating the public about the open source software movement and OLPC's work in developing countries through exhibits/programs, etc.

4. Learning tools for Children's Museums, often within the exhibit halls

This is the wiki page where I just started (still pretty empty and rough) putting museum resources down. I expect to put goals/ideas and other info about museums and the XO, and wanted others in museums to add to and start a discussion about this.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_media#Museums

To participate in 'Give One, Get One’:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A34NLXJLC88VVS

General OLPC Info:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki

Thanks to Sean for bringing up many interesting ideas about the OLPC program!


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Exhibit Design Resource: Think Anatomy

For those of you who work in more traditional natural history museums (with lots of mounted skeletons and specimens floating in jars) you'll love the new anatomy-based portal called Think Anatomy.

Put together by their sister site Street Anatomy, Think Anatomy has assembled a great collection of web-based resources for learning about, as well as gathering content information on, all things anatomical.

Some of my favorite resources so far are the Anatomy Arcade games and the dissection videos from the University of Michigan. (WARNING: not all of this material is good for those with weak stomachs!)

Come to think of it, beyond natural history museum folks, both Street Anatomy and Think Anatomy provide great resources for anyone developing classroom, outreach, or teacher-training programs as well.

Do you have a favorite online resource to share? Let us know about it in the "Comments" section below, or send us an email.

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Good Experience: Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac

I'm not sure when I first came across the "Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac" put together by Mark Hurst, but I've found it a great resource, and something to look forward to as another year draws to a close.

In addition to the other creative ideas Mark puts forth to the public under the "Good Experience" umbrella, I'm also a fan of his "Good Experience Games" site that keeps a running list of fun internet-based games, and I hope to attend the "Good Experience Live" or GEL Conference (especially since it happens in NYC) one day.

Thinking about "Good Experience" --- whether it is customer experience, user experience, or any other type of human experience is essential whether you work in the for-profit or non-profit spheres. But more about that in a future post!

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Exhibit Design Inspiration: Interactive Mirror

Exhibit Design Toolbox: Cast Bird Feet

I've been working with the fine folks at The North Museum of Natural History in Lancaster, PA on a fun project involving evolution (directly) and birds (indirectly.)

As part of gathering together materials, Sarah Clarke from The North showed me these great cast bird feet made of pewter and armature wire. The cast feet are sold by a company called Fur and Feathers Woodcarving, and are primarily used by woodcarvers and decoy makers.

That being said, the cast feet are really cool (and cheap!) and could well be utilized for a number of exhibit purposes, especially in the natural history or nature center realms.

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Exhibit Design Toolbox: More Tape!

Perhaps this posting should be called, "Son of The Sticky Subject of Tape" in honor of our prior posting concerning specialty tapes that exhibit designers should know about.

Claire Pillsbury from The Exploratorium was kind enough to offer some additional suggestions concerning cool, useful, and unusual types of tape, and here they are:

Vet Wrap
A "self-clinging" wrapping material that does not require tight compression.


Instant-bonding Glue Dots
Adhesive "dots" that require no drying time, are clean and easy to use, and work on a variety of materials. Glue Dots bond instantly to any surface.


Terrifically Tacky Tape
This is double-sided craft tape with red liner that is super strong. (The bond actually increases after the first 24 hours it is applied.)

This is the same kind of ultra-thin, very sticky tape as "3M 4910 VHB Tape" but TT tape comes in shorter-length rolls so it is less expensive.


EMPTY EMPTY and PACKED PACKED tape rolls from Benchmark.
Use on crates for traveling exhibitions so you don't mix 'em up!
(Benchmark sells lots of other interesting exhibit and mount-making supplies as well.)


3M Dual Lock Reclosable Fastener System
Clear self-mating reclosable fastener with clear acrylic adhesive on the back. This is the "mushroom" topped style, rather than hook and loop, so it fastens to itself and doesn't collect fuzz like the "hook" half of velcro.


Colored Plastic Vinyl Floor Marking Tape
Great for outlining areas on floors or walls. These tapes are highly adhesive and resistant to water, oil, fungus and chemicals, have a semi-gloss finish, and can be written on with permanent markers.


1/4"-wide Colored Plastic Vinyl Tape
Also from Identi-Tape, these 6-mil vinyl adhesive tapes are available in a 14 colors plus clear in 36-yard long rolls. These tapes are ideal for constructing lines and tables on dry erase boards, identification of small tools, decorative striping, etc.


A tip of our taped-up topper to Claire for her sticky suggestions!

Did we miss any of your favorite sticky supplies? Let us know in the "Comments Section" below!

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Before You Start A Museum, Read This.

We've written previously about the closing of COSI Toledo (here and here) and the issue of sustaining a museum once it opens.

I'm happy to report that on the third try, the voters of Lucas County have passed a 5 year tax levy to provide support (read cold hard cash) to COSI Toledo.

This gives the fine folks at COSI Toledo (that's the current name, but it sounds like that might change soon, as they distance themselves from COSI Columbus) a little breathing room to restart and continue building ties to the local businesses and schools.

However, this tax levy brings up a dirty little secret about museums: they don't, or can't, generally support themselves on earned income --- museums need constant infusions of cash (via endowments, tax levies, generous donors, government grants, or winning lottery tickets.)

Well, o.k., the lottery tickets are a slight exageration, but really the odds of starting a museum that continues to grow, expand, and thrive (as opposed to constantly struggling and becoming shabby) strictly on earned revenue, are high odds indeed.

That's the part of the story that never comes up when the feasibility documents with the rosy budget and attendance figures are passed around. That doesn't mean that new museums shouldn't get created, but you better make sure your source(s) of outside cash are firmly in place.

What do you think? Should anyone try to start (or restart!) a new museum in today's economic climate? Let us know in the "Comments Section" below.

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Museum Exhibit Design: The "New" Detroit Institute of Arts

As a followup to my recent posting about interactive experiences (or lack thereof) in art museums, I thought I'd share two different points of view about the "reinvention" of The Detroit Institute of Arts (or the DIA as it's known to locals.) For context, the DIA has reopened last year after completely reconfiguring its galleries and its institutional approach toward the visitor experience.

The first (immediately below) is a report from the radio show Studio 360 that details an interactive "virtual dining" experience that serves to highlight some of the DIA's decorative arts collection.


Personally, as someone who was born and raised in Detroit --- I count the DIA as one of my favorite museums --- I can't wait to get back to Detroit to see the "new" DIA. The dining interactive sounds like a wonderful way to engage visitors in a difficult, but interesting, area of the collection.

Clearly not everyone feels the same way. Enter art historian Christina Hill, who wrote this opinion piece for one of Detroit's alternative newspapers, The Metro Times.

Ms. Hill comes off as a bit of an art snob, in my opinion. As an art historian she may well have the education and experience to take away "volumes" of information from every encounter with a work of art, but I doubt that every visitor (or potential visitor) to an art museum has the same capacity. I'm at a loss to see the downside of thoughtfully integrated interactives in an art museum.

What do you think? Should art museums remain purely temples to art? Are interactives in an art museum condescending to the primary audince? Are interactives just a "cheap trick" or do they "dumb down" the primary experience? Add your own thoughts in the "Comments" section below.

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Exhibit Aphorisms Deck Contest Winners

We have our two winners of the Exhibit Aphorisms Deck Contest:

• Sona wins the first deck for her quote: "The display should catch the eye, the content should catch the mind."

• And randomly selected from the new ExhibiTricks email subscribers, Tim C. takes home the other deck.

Congratulations to both Tim and Sona, and thanks to everyone who entered a quote and/or subscribed during the contest.

Because of the positive response, we'll be having another ExhibiTricks contest with exhibit-related prizes coming up soon, so stay tuned!