Searching for Index Cards in Bulgaria

I recently returned from a trip to Bulgaria as part of the Fulbright Specialist program (which I will report on in more detail in a future ExhibiTricks post!)

But for now, I want to talk about index cards.  In the U.S. these small rectangles of card stock (examples pictured above at the top of this post)  help people organize everything from recipes to doctoral dissertations.  So I thought nothing of it when I asked my Fulbright project partners at Muzeiko in Sofia to order some index cards for us to use during our staff development and exhibit training workshops together.

It turns out that index cards are not really a thing in Bulgaria. 

Even after exchanging a number of emails with pictures and links, my project partners at Muzeiko reported that if I wanted to use index cards for our exhibit development exercises, I would have to bring my own.

So I put a large supply of index cards into my suitcase and we happily used those cards to sort through exhibit ideas and possibilities together in Sofia.

The folks at Muzeiko immediately saw the advantage of these handy little tools and remarked that they were "better than paper slips" at organizing ideas because the index cards were durable and savable and could also be folded or punched through to help connect and express ideas.

Also several of the participants mentioned that they didn't really think about "chunking" ideas (or breaking complex ideas into smaller parts) when they were developing and designing exhibits -- perhaps because they didn't have a tool like index cards to work with?

All of this has me thinking about the tools we use, or don't use (or don't even know that exist!) when we are doing our work in museums.  Could there be some "index cards" out there that could be helping you do your own creative work in new and different ways?  Feel free to share your own favorite creative/creation tools in the "Comments Section" below.

P.S. In the spirit of international cooperation, I left my entire supply of index cards with my friends at Muzeiko.  I can't wait to see what new ideas they come up with by using them!



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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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Leave No Holes!

It's interesting to me how often in museums I visit  (especially places with lots of hand-on exhibits) that there are "holes" in their exhibits or exhibit galleries.

By this, I mean that some part of an exhibit (or an entire exhibit piece) was sufficiently annoying, or problematic to keep repairing, and so was simply removed -- without providing any sort of replacement activity or substitute exhibit component.

This often leads to extremely confused visitors looking for tools or parts of an activity referred to in an exhibit label that are no longer physically there.

Believe me, I know from hard-won experience how difficult it can be to maintain a large set of interactive exhibits, but for the sake of your visitors please LEAVE NO HOLES!



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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!

If you enjoy the blog, please help support ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Don't Be An RFP Weasel

An emerging museum recently asked me to review an RFP document they were preparing. 

Unfortunately, a part of their boilerplate text outlined a number of tasks (basically "free work" like sketches, complete interactive exhibit descriptions, etc.)  that they expected RFP respondents to complete as part of their submission.

I immediately informed the museum's staff that not only was speculative work (especially included as a requirement for an RFP) inappropriate, but it was unethical.

Initially, the museum's response was defensive --  "we are just using verbiage that we copied from other RFPs."  My rejoinder was that making a copy of something that was bad to begin with, doesn't make the new document better!

Fortunately, the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) (one of the Professional Networks of the American Alliance of Museums)  has posted an Ethics Statement on their website that clearly addresses this issue. Item #4 of the Ethics statement states:

No member shall solicit free or speculative designs or plans from independent designers or exhibit fabricators. Members should discourage the submission of speculative designs from these outside sources.

In this case, once the folks at the emerging museum read the "official" ethics document from NAME they did the right thing and completely removed the offending language from their RFP.

Unfortunately, requests for "spec work" still regularly show up in RFPs -- either by accident or design.  Sometimes respondents don't feel comfortable confronting (or ignoring) such RFP requirements/requests, but unless we help the folks issuing RFPs understand that speculative work is inappropriate (and also whenever possible calling out such RFPs) this practice will not change.

Maybe once we eliminate spec work requests from RFPs we can also get museums to drop the stupidly archaic (and decidedly non-environmentally friendly) requirement for multiple paper copies of RFP submissions in addition to digital documents. How about if you want paper copies, you just print a few copies of them out at your museum to share with staff? (And do you really need paper copies?)


While we're on the subject of RFPs, I'd be remiss not to point another great FREE resource (also courtesy of NAME) which is an entire online issue of articles (and "dos and don'ts") about RFPs including bonus downloadable documents related to the RFP process. Click on over to the NAME website to find the RFP Issue there.



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, please help support ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"