Summer 2019 "Beach Books" for Museum/Exhibit/Design People

If you like to read on the beach (or like me, in a cozy air-conditioned house!) here are a few books that museum/exhibit/design folks can enjoy during the slower pace of summer.

The link on every book title leads to a previous ExhibiTricks post or interview (or in the case of "Mission Matters" and "Partnership Power" to awesome YouTube conversations with the authors!)

Happy Reading!

"Mission Matters: Relevance and Museums in the 21st Century" by Gail Anderson

In Gail Anderson's new book, twenty museum leaders each share their institution’s story of transformative change tied to reframing their mission. Anderson’s central tool for the book, the Mission Alignment Framework, helps reference the thinking about missions and the subsequent changes within museums as they redirect their work.

[Purchase the book here.]

"Partnership Power: Essential Museum Strategies for Today’s Networked World" by Marsha Semmel

In her highly-readable book, Marsha Semmel includes perspectives from a broad array of institutions, including libraries and other nonprofits; current museum case studies from a broad and diverse spectrum of museum types (history, children’s, art, science, and ethnic); and proven tools, tips, and resources.  Partnership Power: Essential Museum Strategies for Today’s Networked World serves as an invaluable primer for museums – and museum professionals -- wanting to create and sustain effective partnerships and collaborations.

[Purchase the book here.]

"Steal Like An Artist” by Austin Kleon 

Some books just leap out at you and make you read them. "Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon has been one of those kinds of books for me --- packed with ideas, quotes, and anecdotes that really resonate with me and my creative practice.

[Purchase the book here.]

"100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People” by Susan Weinschenk

Inside this pithy volume, Weinschenk gives 100 examples of the psychology of design and why some design choices work better than others.

Dividing her 100 examples into thematic sections such as "How People See" and "How People Remember" the author not only provides illustrated examples of design approaches but provides links to research, websites, and online talks that let you explore specific design topics in more depth.

[Purchase the book here.]  

"The Participatory Museum” and "The Art of Relevance" by Nina Simon 

"Of course, there's a more personal reason I started the Museum 2.0 blog. I'm a free choice learner. I didn't want to go to graduate school, but I did want to pursue my own education in museums and learn enough to have something to say to some of the really smart people I was meeting at conferences. The blog really started as a personal learning device. It continues to be that for me, but now there are more co-learners involved."

[Purchase the books here and here. You can also read the books online here and here.]

"Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections" by Margaret Kadoyama

In Margaret Kadoyama’s vision, cultural organizations are vital members of their communities and are actively involved in community revitalization.  Margaret works collaboratively with museums and cultural organizations to create strategic community involvement and audience development plans, assess programs, and plan for sustainability.

[Purchase the book here.]

"Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach” by Beverly Serrell

"The first edition of Exhibit Labels was a follow-up on my book published by the Association for State and Local History (AASLH) called “Making Exhibit Labels: A Step-by-Step Approach.” I wrote that in 1983 before I’d ever done much work on exhibition planning and design, although I had a background in museum education.

I had a master’s degree in science teaching in non-school settings, and I’d worked as the curator of education at the Shedd Aquarium for eight years. I was in charge of programs, not exhibits. I kept pushing for more interpretive stories in the labels of the Shedd’s galleries, but that wasn’t my job."

[Purchase the book here.]

"Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement: The Art of Creating APE Exhibits” by The Exploratorium

"Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement" is a book about an NSF-funded project at the Exploratorium that digs deeply into how exhibit components can foster "APE behavior." (APE is the acronym for Active Prolonged Engagement.)  Namely, how can exhibits be developed (or in many cases, re-designed) to allow visitors to take active roles in creating their own experiences in ways that compel them to spend longer periods of time at the exhibits?

[Purchase the book here.]

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"

Which Books Would You Recommend to An Emerging Museum Professional?

A colleague recently emailed me to ask about book suggestions for a newcomer to the museum field.

After I sent off the list, it occurred to me that not only did I find all of the books on the list excellent references, but that I had also written blog posts about each one!

So please find below a list of books that I would recommend to any museum professional (emerging or veteran!) If you click the title of the book, it will bring you to the related ExhibiTricks post or interview, and there is a link to purchase each book after the accompanying short descriptive blurb. 

Happy reading!

RECOMMENDED BOOKS FOR MUSEUM PROFESSIONALS

"Steal Like An Artist” by Austin Kleon 

Some books just leap out at you and make you read them. "Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon has been one of those kinds of books for me --- packed with ideas, quotes, and anecdotes that really resonate with me and my creative practice.

[Purchase the book here.]

"100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People” by Susan Weinschenk

Inside this pithy volume, Weinschenk gives 100 examples of the psychology of design and why some design choices work better than others.

Dividing her 100 examples into thematic sections such as "How People See" and "How People Remember" the author not only provides illustrated examples of design approaches but provides links to research, websites, and online talks that let you explore specific design topics in more depth.

[Purchase the book here.]  

"Creating Exhibitions: Collaboration in the Planning, Development, and Design of Innovative Experiences" by Polly McKenna-Cress and Janet Kamien

The "Creating Exhibitions" book is a "must buy" for any museum professional involved in designing or developing exhibits.

[Purchase the book here.]

"The Participatory Museum” and "The Art of Relevance" by Nina Simon 

"Of course, there's a more personal reason I started the Museum 2.0 blog. I'm a free choice learner. I didn't want to go to graduate school, but I did want to pursue my own education in museums and learn enough to have something to say to some of the really smart people I was meeting at conferences. The blog really started as a personal learning device. It continues to be that for me, but now there are more co-learners involved."

[Purchase the books here and here. You can also read the books online here and here.]

"Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections" by Margaret Kadoyama

In Margaret Kadoyama’s vision, cultural organizations are vital members of their communities and are actively involved in community revitalization.  Margaret works collaboratively with museums and cultural organizations to create strategic community involvement and audience development plans, assess programs, and plan for sustainability.

[Purchase the book here.]

"Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach” by Beverly Serrell

"The first edition of Exhibit Labels was a follow-up on my book published by the Association for State and Local History (AASLH) called “Making Exhibit Labels: A Step-by-Step Approach.” I wrote that in 1983, before I’d ever done much work on exhibition planning and design, although I had a background in museum education.

I had a master’s degree in science teaching in non-school settings, and I’d worked as the curator of education at the Shedd Aquarium for eight years. I was in charge of programs, not exhibits. I kept pushing for more interpretive stories in the labels of the Shedd’s galleries, but that wasn’t my job."

[Purchase the book here.]

"Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement: The Art of Creating APE Exhibits” by The Exploratorium

"Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement" is a book about an NSF-funded project at the Exploratorium that digs deeply into how exhibit components can foster "APE behavior." (APE is the acronym for Active Prolonged Engagement.)  Namely, how can exhibits be developed (or in many cases, re-designed) to allow visitors to take active roles in creating their own experiences in ways that compel them to spend longer periods of time at the exhibits?

[Purchase the book here.]

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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Looking Back to Move Forward: Top 10 ExhibiTricks Posts from 2016.

The Sankofa image above, a stylized bird looking back over its shoulder, comes from Ghana and represents the need to reflect on the past to build a successful future.  In that spirit, and with 2017 upon us, I offer ten ExhibiTricks posts worth reflecting on as we start the new year:

A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics: An Interview with Sally Yerkovich  Ethics seems like an important topic to consider, in museums and broader society, so Sally's book and interview are both worth a read.

Humor Me A Moment: The Power Of Humor In Museums  On a completely different note, Cara Dodge shared her thoughts on humor in museums, based on her research.

What Do You Mean By "The World's Best Museum" ?  Did you ever wonder why some projects never seem to get off the ground? Read this post to find out about one common reason for lack of project traction.

Edifice Complex and Museums Another common cause of "projectus interruptus" is the dreaded "Edifice Complex."

These three related posts all cluster around notions of customer service and healthy, robust institutions:

Can Social Psychology Predict Successful Museum Project Teams?

Have you tried making your museum a more interesting place?

Customer Service 101 from the Disney Institute

Among the super smart people that were featured on ExhibiTricks in 2016, I especially liked these posts featuring Nina Simon and Margaret Middleton:

The Art of Relevance: An Interview with Nina Simon

Margaret Middleton on Family Inclusion in Museums

Last, but not least, I'd feel remiss if I didn't highlight this 2016 post about one of my favorite museum/exhibit/design tools:

Stick to it! A resource list of tapes for designers.

And with that, I'd like to wish every ExhibiTricks reader a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2017. 

Are there any articles or resources from 2016 that you've been reflecting back on?  Please share 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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

The 2016 ExhibiTricks Picks for Your Museum/Exhibit/Design Reading List

As 2016 draws to a close, I thought I'd offer a quick list of resources for your museum/exhibit/design reading (or holiday gift giving!) list.

Each were featured in posts on ExhibiTricks in 2016, so you can click the links in the list below for the full article and/or more information about downloading or purchasing the resources.

Happy Reading!


The 2016 ExhibiTricks Picks

1) Exhibition Journal  If you are not already a subscriber, you are missing out on the best museum-related journal in the business. Top-notch themes, stories, and design.

2) Sacred and Stolen  Gary Vikan's insider account of his time as Director of the Walters Art Museum.  His stories give a funny (and scary!) view of the Art Museum world.

3) The SketchUp D'oh Book  A great resource for anyone who uses (or wants to start using) SketchUp.

4) The Art of Relevance  The latest must-have resource for your professional reference shelf from the indefatigable Nina Simon.

5) Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach  The second edition of Beverly Serrell's industry-standard book on creating exhibit labels.

6) Interpretation: Making a Difference on Purpose  Author Sam Ham brings practical information to museum workers interested in interpretation, but he also shares what research tells us about how people process information.

7) A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics  As the director of the Institute of Museum Ethics at Seton Hall University, Sally Yerkovich brings her expertise to the fore in this interesting and useful book.

8) House of Lost Worlds  Richard Conniff puts together an enjoyable history of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. From its unlikely founding 150 years ago, the story is filled with both colorful characters and great moments in science centered around the amazing New Haven institution.



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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

The Art of Relevance: An Interview with Nina Simon

I recently read Nina Simon's new book, The Art of Relevance.  I found it an enjoyable (and actionable!) set of ideas on the intersection of museums, relevance, and communities.  So I was delighted that Nina was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks readers about The Art of Relevance, and the experiences that brought it to fruition:

How did you originally get interested in writing your book about relevance?

In the summer of 2015, we hosted two exhibitions at the MAH (my museum) at the same time: one about the birth of surfing, one about the Grateful Dead. On the surface, both projects were highly relevant to our local community in Santa Cruz, but the surf exhibition blew the Grateful Dead exhibition away. They both had high attendance, but the emotional resonance and community impact was very different. I could see the difference in locals’ response, but I didn’t have a way to clearly measure, explain, or diagnose what was happening. I wanted to learn more about what was going on from experts and other practitioners around the world.

And while these exhibitions were catalytic in getting the project started, in truth, I’ve been on a quest relevance for years. Five years ago, I started working at the MAH at a time of radical transformation. We turned around the institution, greatly expanded and diversified our audience, increased community connections… and disappointed some longtime participants along the way. Five years into this work, I wanted to dive in and really understand why we did this, why it matters, and why it frustrates some people.

   

What’s one of your favorite examples of relevance from the book?

I was genuinely surprised and provoked by Odyssey Works, a theater company that creates immersive experiences for an audience of one. It sounds so impractical and ridiculous. But fundamentally, making work relevant is about really understanding the people you seek to engage—what they are open to, where they want to go—and then unlocking doors to deeper meaning and new surprises on that path. It’s easy to get hung up thinking about the complexities of being relevant to multi-faceted communities of hundreds or thousands of people. By focusing on an audience of one, Odyssey Works provides an extreme example of what it means to focus on the humans in communities rather than groups as abstractions.

How has being the Director of MAH changed your views of relevance?

One of the big things I learned from this book project is compassion for insiders. I’ve led the MAH as a champion for inclusion of people who have historically been outsiders to museum experiences—people who don’t know that a museum might be relevant to their lives. I always thought, naively, that inclusion is for everyone. I thought that people who were against inclusive practices were elitist, classist, or ungenerous.

But that’s not the full story. If you are an insider to a place or an experience, and then someone comes in and changes that experience to let in a whole bunch of new people with different expectations, that is threatening. It’s dislocating. The change can be a real loss for insiders. It doesn’t mean insiders are elitist if they don’t like the changes.

I spent my first few years as the director of MAH trying to win over insiders and writing off the ones who rejected our new ways of engaging new people with art and history. I didn’t spend enough time being compassionate to insiders’ feelings of disruption and loss. I still stand by the work we did and continue to do to make the MAH a place that matters more to diverse people in our community. But I now better understand the tradeoffs and tensions involved when navigating relevance to insiders and outsiders.

Similar question --- how has becoming a parent changed your views of relevance?

Becoming a parent made me freshly aware of how situational relevance is. The activities that are relevant to me now are different than those that were relevant three years ago. I don’t think I’ve fundamentally changed, but my priorities, needs, and constraints have changed. And that changes the choices—especially recreational choices—I make.

Sometimes, nonprofit workers get so organizationally focused that we forget that people decide what’s relevant to them in their context, not ours. Becoming a parent reminded me of the extent to which externalities (like kids) dictate what we deem relevant to us.

Why do you think it is so difficult for many museums and cultural institutions to be relevant in their communities?

I think many people who work in cultural organizations are focused internally. We spend our days working with our colleagues, in our offices, in our walls. We spend our nights out in the community—and we consider that time to be off the clock. We need to flip this mentality to be more relevant. Not necessarily spending all our work time out of the office (though it helps), but spending as much work time as possible talking to and collaborating with and learning about the interests and values of our diverse communities.

You bring up the idea of “insiders” and “outsiders” in your book.  How do you think about finding balance between those (often) competing constituencies?

I think it depends on the institution. A young institution needs to cultivate insiders. You need to build a cohort of supporters and participants to whom you are relevant.

An institution that is thriving with insiders can do so for as long as they like—maybe forever. But if the institution is not thriving—if insiders are opting out or moving away or are not the desired insiders—you need to cultivate outsiders. You need to invite them in.

These constituencies are fluid. Every insider was once an outsider. There are insiders of every age, gender, sexual orientation, class, race, and religion. The primary difference is that insiders are in the know and outsiders are not. Sometimes, ignoring outsiders is a good thing. It encourages focus. It helps create a unique institutional personality. It can be ok.

The thing that is not ok in my book is pretending to invite in outsiders while reassuring insiders that nothing will change. Maybe nothing will change—to the frustration of outsiders and their allies. Or maybe things are changing—to the confusion of insiders. I think we have to be honest and courageous when we make decisions about who to cultivate and why.

What are some additional books or online resources about relevance that influenced your thinking while writing your book?

So many.

Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber’s paper Relevance Theory was essential as a research grounding for the book.

Michelle Hensley wrote a beautiful book about Ten Thousand Things theater, All the Lights On, which is a fabulous resource about their innovative process for making theater for nontraditional audiences.

Relatedly, Cornerstone Theater has an excellent guide to their process of co-creating theater with nontraditional audiences. These two theaters are both amazing for very different reasons.

The story of the Glenbow Museum and the Blackfoot people came to me from Bob Janes, who shared Gerry Conaty’s wonderful book on the topic, We are Coming Home. The book is available for free online. It is a riveting story of repatriation and intercultural dialogue.

Lynn Pasquarella’s essay “The Ketchup’s in the Bag and the Check is in the Mail: The Humanities and Social Justice” awakened me to the specific challenges that academics in the humanities are grappling with in the age of STEM and STEAM. I ultimately decided not to include academic examples in the book because the relevance of the education system is a book in itself, but I found it very interesting.

Online, the Visitors of Color blog, Betty Reid Soskind’s blog, and several religious blogs were helpful to me. I became completely fascinated with the intersection between religious institutions and cultural organizations when writing this book, and I treasured every blog post I read about pastors and rabbis working to establish relevance in their communities.

Also, I’ll note that I did more extensive fact-checking on this book than I did on The Participatory Museum. I had incredible, intense conversations with almost everyone in the book about their experiences and how they interpret the meaning of their work.

What do you hope people get from reading (and acting on!) the ideas in your book?

Most of all, I hope people enjoy reading the book. I freely admit that this book is less of a “mission” book for me than The Participatory Museum. It felt more like an exploration than a thesis, and that allowed me to focus on making the writing as clear and appealing as possible. People often say The Participatory Museum is “readable.” I hope and think that The Art of Relevance is a lot more so.

For that reason, I hope people share the book with friends and family beyond their professional worlds. I believe that the quest for relevance is as useful personally as it is professionally. I would love to have conversations with readers about how you see these ideas applying to your community beyond your institution.

Finally, I hope that readers will use this book as an opportunity for dialogue and action on how and why our work can be meaningful, delightful, and powerful for our diverse communities. I believe there are a million ways to make our work more relevant to more people. It is our challenge—and our glorious opportunity—to do so.

Thanks again to Nina for sharing her thoughts here on the ExhibiTricks blog.  To find out more about The Art of Relevance, or to purchase a copy, click on over to The Art of Relevance website.

AND if you'd like a chance to win a FREE copy of Nina's new book, The Art of Relevance, all you have to do is post a comment about how you are working at your institution or organization to be relevant. Post your thoughts in the Comments Section at the ExhibiTricks blog site.  We will randomly choose one of the commenters on July 30th and mail them their book. Good luck!

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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Your 2016 Summer Museum/Exhibit/Design Beach Reads

Taking some books to the beach this summer?  Why not pack a few museum-related reads into your suitcase?

Here are some books I've read recently and/or featured here on the ExhibiTricks blog that I would happily recommend:

The Art of Relevance by Nina Simon.  Nina Simon's new book explores how mission-driven organizations can matter more to more people. It is an enjoyable read filled with great examples and a wonderful central analogy that got me thinking more about what "relevance" means for my own professional practice.  Jeanne Vergeront has written a thoughtful review and consideration of the book on her Museum Notes blog.


Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by Beverly Serrell. Beverly follows up her essential first edition on the entire process of creating exhibit labels with an even better second edition! Here's an ExhibiTricks interview that I did with Beverly when her book first came out.


Interpretation. Making a Difference on Purpose by Sam H. Ham.  I wish I had this book when I started my first museum job as a living history interpreter!  Human-to-human interaction and interpretation inside a cultural space can provide some of the most powerful (or horrible!) experiences for museum visitors. Author Ham brings practical information to museum workers interested in interpretation, but he also shares what research tells us about how people process information.


A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics by Sally Yerkovich.  Many museum workers (and boards!) might like to gloss over the need for more critical thinking about museum ethics.  However, thinking about how to avoid potential ethical issues before they happen seems like a much better approach than trying to sort things out in the midst of an institutional crisis.  Sally shares her information through a series of case studies and offers approaches to resolving (and hopefully avoiding) such issues.  Sally also shared information about her work at the Institute of Museum Ethics and her impetus for writing a guide to museum ethics in this recent ExhibiTricks interview.


House of Lost Worlds by Richard Conniff.  Author Conniff puts together an enjoyable history of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.  From its unlikely founding 150 years ago, the story is filled with both colorful characters and great moments in science centered around the amazing New Haven institution.


When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.  Ok, it's not a museum book!  But this powerful memoir allows us to draw important lessons about life from Dr. Kalanithi's tragic death. Highly recommended.


Read any good books lately?  Share your suggestions 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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Favorite ExhibiTricks Posts: People, Tools, and Inspiration (Summer 2015 Edition)

I've been doing the ExhibiTricks blog for over eight(!) years now, and in that time I've built up quite a "back catalog" of articles and resources.

Since it's summer (in North America) and that is often a time for slowing down and catching up on reading and ideas, I thought I'd put together a list of some of my favorite posts in three recurring ExhibiTricks categories: People, Tools, and Inspiration.  Obviously the Venn Diagram often overlaps between those three topics, but I hope you have fun reading these curated posts nevertheless.  Enjoy!


PEOPLE

User-Centered Design: An Interview with Margaret Middleton

Moving Minds and Bodies: An Interview with Christina Ferwerda

Collecting Authentic Experiences: An Interview with Carolynne Harris

Exploring The World: An Interview With Dan Spock

An Architecture Of Participation: An interview With Nina Simon

TOOLS

Tape!

Spoonflower

Stop-Motion Animation Tools

PAINT!

The Public Domain Project

INSPIRATION

One Day Poem Pavilion

The Cake Boss is a Great Prototyper!

Olafur Eliasson

Circuit Scribe and Autodesk 123D 

Camera On A Car Wheel

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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

A Dinner Party Of Ideas

One of my favorite things about museum people is their genuine capacity for sharing --- be it time, information, or expertise. 

One of my favorite things about this blog is the opportunity to give a forum to colleagues through the ongoing interview feature on ExhibiTricks.

After hundreds of entries since I started blogging back in 2007(!) I've built up quite a "back catalog" of posts, including interviews with some of the most talented and thoughtful folks in the museum biz.

You can find their interviews by using the "Search Box" on the right hand side of this page (and searching for the word "interviews" natch!) but I thought I'd highlight a few you may have missed if you're a newer ExhibiTricks reader, or some that are just worth another careful read.

Think of it as a "Dinner Party of Ideas" with some of the coolest museum people in attendance.  Click on one of the dozen names below (in alphabetical order!) to start the flow of ideas and inspiration.

Enjoy!


Sean Duran

Christina Joy Ferwerda

Rachel Hellenga 

Erika Kiessner

Brad Larson

Kathy McLean

Dana Schloss

Nina Simon

Dan Spock

Jason Jay Stevens

Harry White

Lyn Wood


Do you know someone you'd like to see interviewed for the ExhibiTricks blog?  Send me an email with your suggestion(s)!


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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Letter from Museum Camp

Dear Folks,

I just got back from Museum Camp in Santa Cruz, and I wanted to tell you about it, and show you some pictures I took there.

First off, the "official" title of Museum Camp was "You Can't Do That in Museums Camp" or the somewhat edgier alternate title of "Hack the Museum Camp."  Anyway, whatever you call it, the Camp was launched by Nina Simon (a museum rock star, if there ever was one) at the museum where she is the director, the MAH (aka The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, pictured below.)

Nina invited me to come to Museum Camp and be a "counselor."  (More on that later ...) Just like summer camp there were campers and counselors --- some of the campers even slept on the floor of the museum in sleeping bags, but I got to share a house with some of the other counselors --- museum "rock stars" in their own right.

Just getting to be part of the same event with fellow counselors like Maria Mortati, Eric Siegel, Julie Bowen, Jason Jay Stevens, Dan Spock, Kathy McLean, Darcie Fohrman, Kevin von Appen, and Merilee Mostov was big fun.  (Also the Camp counselors brought a lot of professional horsepower to the enterprise.)

So the big idea of Museum Camp was this: bring together about 75 people (Campers and Counselors) for two-and-a-half days, break them up into 15 counselor+camper teams, let them choose from 20 or so museum collection objects, and then have an entire exhibition ready for the public opening party!   So check-in on Wednesday and check-out Friday night after the exhibition party.

Woohoo!  The perfect high-stakes, high-pressure antidote to the usual museum whining ("we don't have enough time, we don't have enough money!" ) And honestly, miraculously, it all came together --- there were 15 exhibits lined up with bright, shining faces to form an entire exhibition.  A wild, eclectic exhibition, but everyone delivered the goods!

So how did this all shake down schedule-wise?  Everyone checked in starting Wednesday morning (since I was a counselor, I got a whistle!) and we had a series of workshops throughout the afternoon related to exhibit development topics like prototyping, writing prompts, emotionally-engaging exhibitions, etc.  (I got to do a workshop on becoming an "Office Supply Ninja" prototyper!)

After a scheduled "siesta" (really --- it is Santa Cruz after all!) we played a game to choose the artifact (or artifacts) that each team would use as the basis of their exhibit.  After that was sorted out and after a delicious group dinner (with carefully delineated vegan and gluten-free options --- still Santa Cruz, right?) we used the time between 8pm and midnight on Wednesday to lock down the initial "Big Idea" and crank up the concept and development phase of our project.  Knowing that everything had to be ready to go before the Exhibition Opening Party at 5pm on Friday didn't leave much time for monkeying around (which was good!)


So let me tell you about our team, Team #10 (aka "Perfect Ten.")  My three team members were super!  Diana Kapsner is a staff member at MAH --- it was great to have a "local" on our team when we looking for materials and resources!  Emily Black Fry works at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City --- she had tons of great ideas and enthusiasm.  And last, but not least, Karli Kendall from the Red Deer Museum, in Alberta Canada --- Karli was definitely our "organizer" but in a good way!

The "Perfect 10" team chose a large (7 feet wide by 6 feet tall) painting by Joseph De Giorgio, entitled Oceanside No. 8. (Pictured below, but it looks better in real life.)   I'm no art historian, but I liked it, and it used a sort of pointillist approach which led directly to our team's "Big Idea" namely, "One Painting, Many Points of View."

So my way of describing the idea(s) behind our team's exhibit would be that we wanted to reward visitors for being careful observers of Oceanside No. 8, and that we also wanted to give visitors many multi-sensory ways to look at the painting more than once, and to experience the painting in different ways.  We set out to do this by creating a physical "beach scene" tableau complete with beach chairs, cooler, table, etc. set up in front of the painting.  Objects you might expect to find at the beach would all be used to allow visitors to experience this one painting from many different points of view.

Then it was just hard work! Pulling materials together and editing down our ideas, our team pretty much worked from Thursday morning up until midnight.  It was a loooong day!  I think it helped that our team conversations were honest, but respectful, even if we pushed back on each others' ideas now and then.  I think my role was less counselor as "exhibit Yoda" but more as an equal team member (albeit with a bit more museum exhibit development experience!)  I think we all left with a clear sense of what we needed to accomplish in the few hours remaining on Friday and how we could work together to do it.

I don't think any of our team felt stressed at all when we gathered together Friday morning.  We articulated the things we "had" to finish, as opposed to the things we'd "like" to finish so we had a clear sense of our priorities.

I'm really proud and happy with where we ended up with our team's exhibit. I feel that the Big Idea is a strong one, and that we gave visitors many ways (sights, sounds, smells) and reasons to engage with De Giorgio's painting.

Would I have done anything differently with Museum Camp?  Not much actually.   I might have added one more day to the process,  and also added an optional mid-day activity to break up the intensity of the long day(s) of work.

Also we spent a lot of time talking about "taking risks" and making "risky experiences."  I'm still not sure what that means exactly.  In the end, I think notions of "risk" became a bit of a distraction to the exhibit development process at Museum Camp.

So would I participate in Museum Camp again?  In a heartbeat!  It definitely reinforced some of my ideas about "quick and dirty" prototyping, but also stretched me professionally in thinking about new and different ways to twist the "traditional gallery experience" in more visitor and community-centric ways.  (Also, I'm sold on the idea of installing more beach chairs inside Art Museum galleries!)

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The Participatory Museum: An "Encore" Interview with Nina Simon

Since Nina Simon recently released her book, "The Participatory Museum" I thought I'd do an "encore" posting of the interview I did with her a while back.  Enjoy!

Nina Simon, the creator of the Museum 2.0 blog, is a one-woman idea factory and independent museum professional based in California. I was able to pull her away from her bucolic workspace (see photo above) to answer a few questions about her work and herself:


What’s your educational background?

I went to WPI, a small engineering college in Worcester, MA with a focus on hands-on learning. I learned to weld and build explosive electronic stuff. I left with a degree in electrical engineering and a minor in math, confident I would never again pick up the phone to hear a friend say, "Nina, come over here with as much metal as you can. I'm discharging a giant capacitor and I just vaporized a fork."

What got you interested in Museums?

I've always been interested in free choice learning. In high school, I got my hands on Grace Llewellyn's book, The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education and only my obsessive geekiness and the potential of my mom having a heart attack kept me from quitting to pursue my own education. But I did go on to read every book by John Holt and Paulo Friere and spend time on a free school farm in Minnesota.

In college, I taught differential equations and was shocked at how many of my fellow students hated and feared math. I also learned pretty quickly that engineering wasn't a great fit for the creative performer in me. I started searching for a place where I could share my love of math and science without handing out grades, and started working at science museums (the Boston Museum of Science and the Acton Discovery Museums) immediately after graduating.


What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?

I love the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a place I visited frequently as a teenager (and continue to visit whenever I'm back in LA). It's one of the few museums that has a mysterious aura to it--it feels like slipping into an attic or a book you read whenever it rains. I feel changed by each visit and that energizes me.

I loved the James Turrell exhibit at the Mattress Factory (2003) for the same reason--mysterious, dark corridors opening into astounding light, like secrets opened just for you.

I love the Exploratorium, a place that also feels like home for me. Each time I go in I feel ready to talk to strangers and interact with lovely, satisfying phemonena. It brings out friendliness and hope. The City Museum does the same. I don't think the City Museum is successful because of the "danger." I think it's successful because, like the Exploratorium, it assumes that its visitors are people worthy of awesome, unusual experiences.

I was really impressed by the Experience Music Project. I learned a ton. The museum uses technology and media intelligently, tells strong stories, and the interactives are killer. While there are definite negatives to the "single player" music booths, I think Quatrefoil did an amazing job creating experiences where you really feel like you could be a musician. I'm the daughter of a musician and I never felt as comfortable messing around with instruments as I did at EMP.



What prompted your interest in 2.0 technologies/communities and starting Museum 2.0?

My husband runs a software company called The Electric Sheep Company that deals with new technologies and a lot of his employees are hyper-connected, creative people. From them, I started learning about the world of Web 2.0, seeing how it was changing the business and social landscape of the internet. A huge revolution happened--and is continuing to happen--very quickly on the Web. It's the most accelerated media change in history. And I started drawing analogues to museums, getting excited about how we might similarly change our media (spaces, exhibits, programs) to engage visitors in new ways as participants and co-creators. I don't think that museums can or should undergo as dramatic and chaotic change as the Web supports. I think we should watch carefully from the sidelines and reach out and snag the good stuff whenever and wherever we find it. And that requires being engaged as a learner in that world.

Of course, there's a more personal reason I started the Museum 2.0 blog. I'm a free choice learner. I didn't want to go to graduate school, but I did want to pursue my own education in museums and learn enough to have something to say to some of the really smart people I was meeting at conferences. The blog really started as a personal learning device. It continues to be that for me, but now there are more co-learners involved.



Tell us a little bit about The Tech’s exhibit development experiments using Second Life and your role in that?

The Tech is experimenting with a new exhibition department model that combines content experts with community managers. The content experts drive exhibitions conceptually, and the community managers translate those concepts into opportunities for creative folks around the world to design interactive elements and exhibit pieces to address those concepts.

There are two over-arching strategic goals with the project--to tap the brilliance and expertise of the whole world for exhibit content, and to develop exhibits on a very short timeline by working in parallel with many virtual exhibit development teams. I led the initial pilot of this model, developing an online community space in Second Life where creative amateurs could work together to design virtual prototypes for exhibits on the theme of technology in art, film, and music.

In three months, over 250 people submitted about 50 exhibit concepts on that theme. I then led the translation of the best of those virtual exhibits into a real exhibition of interactive analogs. The whole process, from the opening of the virtual workshop to the opening of the real exhibition, took 6 months.

I've written a lot about this project and its challenges and successes on the Museum 2.0 blog under the keyword "Tech Virtual," which you can find on the right sidebar under "Past Posts by Topics".



What are some of your best/favorite examples of both Web 2.0 and Museum 2.0?

There are several different kinds of Web 2.0 and Museum 2.0 projects. The best of these share a few commonalities: easy and rewarding entry point, clear benefits of the networked effects of more and more people participating, high quality experience for the lurking non-content provider (most Web 2.0 users are lurkers, not creators).

My current favorite Web 2.0 services are Flickr, the photo-sharing site, Twitter, the short-form communication platform, and Pandora, the personalized internet radio station. I love Flickr because it gives me access to a huge range of images I could never find through other search engines. I love Pandora because it exposes me to new music in an intelligent way. I love Twitter because unlike blogs, which are soap boxes (and I love my soapbox!), Twitter is a level playing field way to share information with others.

There are also some Web 2.0 services, like del.icio.us and LibraryThing, which I use, but rarely for the social functions. They keep my stuff (websites, books) in order.

On the museum side, I love every example of art museums letting visitors write labels (San Jose Museum of Art in the past, Tacoma Art Museum currently). I thought the Art Gallery of Ontario's In Your Face portrait exhibit was fabulous. I liked how the London Science Museum invited visitors to contribute their own toys to a larger curated exhibition on play. I'm interested in a range of visitor co-created exhibits, including Brooklyn Museum of Art's Click! and the Minnesota Historical Society's MN150.



Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

I'm working with a few museums to strategize about how participatory design will be worked into their plans, whether for individual exhibitions or programs or for large-scale institutional planning. Some of these have to do with visitor co-creation of exhibits, as at the Chabot Space Science Center, where I'm helping plan a three-week institute in which teens will design exhibits as part of a larger exhibition on black holes. Others have to do with pushing the boundaries of how visitors are engaged in exhibits, as at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I'm helping conceive an exhibit component that encourages visitors to take a social/political action related to global warming.

I'll be teaching a museum grad course in the spring at the University of Washington (Seattle) on social technologies, and I look forward to working with those students on designing exhibits and experiences that intentionally support visitors (strangers) talking to and interacting with each other.

I'm also starting up a personal project with my dad, a podcast show called Museum Hater. He's a musician with a lot of free time, an artsy boomer who never goes to museums. We're going to visit museums and talk about why he (and lots of people) never go to museums. It will be funny, but we're also trying to dig into that essential question: who doesn't come and what keeps them from doing so? We usually approach that question with regard to underrepresented ethnic groups. But there are lots of people of all kinds who don't visit museums, and I think we need confront that and find out why.


How do you think museums will be different 10 years from now?

Not different enough. I think museums will keep dragging their feet on visitor participation, citing technological complexity when the real obstacle is the lack of willingness to give up authority. I hope that collections-based museums will move towards designing exhibits that set up the artifacts as opportunities for discussions. I hope that science and history museums will move away from big attraction-style setups to more open-ended and experimental attempts. I hope that programs and exhibits will fuse into a more holistic form of content sharing in the museum. I hope we can let people sit on couches and eat in the museum. But I expect there to be a gap between these hopes and reality.


What 2.0 technologies/techniques do you think are underutilized currently in museums?

There are two related techniques I think we are most lacking. First is profile power--the ability for a visitor to be recognized and responded to as a unique individual. On Web 2.0 sites, everything revolves around you. Your Facebook page shows you what your friends are up to. Your Netflix account shows you what you rented, what you enjoyed, and what you might enjoy. Even at the library, your card relates you to certain books and fines. But at most museums, even members are faceless. We have so little data about what people like, what brings them in, what brings them back. And that makes for poor audience development both in terms of providing a sticky experience (by making them feel personally valued) and cultivating potential donors.

The second thing is the right to a personalized visit. There's this weird bias in museums, especially collections-based ones, against confronting the reality that visitors like some exhibits and artifacts more than others. We don't make it easy for people to express their preferences and receive custom content (i.e. other exhibits you might like) based on that. Again, Netflix isn't offended if you rate a movie poorly--in fact, that information HELPS them serve you better. We need to turn our heads around to a model where we understand that we can provide overall better museum experiences if we respond to visitors' likes and dislikes.


If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

Hm. Two dreams. First, I'd like to build a place that operates as a bar but also provides social interactives--objects and experiences that encourage people to interact with each other. But since this is a dream I'm hoping to realize in the next five years, let me tell you about another one.

I'd like to work with a collection-based museum to create an entirely networked visitor experience. By this I mean that the museum tracks data about the visitor in every way--which artifacts they visit, how long they stand in front of each piece--and responds to the visitor constantly to provide new content and opportunities of interest. Conceptually, this means treating every visitor as a unique individual, offering the exhibits, the programs, and the other visitors that might interest that person as they move through the space. This is as much related to gaming as it is to social media. Games (and Web 2.0 sites) store what you've already done. They give you new challenges and rewards based on your previous actions.



How do you decide on topics for your Museum 2.0 blog?

I keep a running list of things I "should" write about--projects that come up, interesting articles people send me. I am vigilant about posting 2-3 times a week, never less than 2, even if I'm working overtime on other things. I focus on four main areas of interest: relevant projects (social media, games, art) happening outside museums, experiments happening inside museums, theoretical arguments about the future of museums, and explanations/demystifications of technologies. I try to balance these within a given week so that I don't post twice in a row about Web 2.0 tools or any other specific element.

I spend about equal amounts of time weekly learning about new things (reading, interviewing people, visiting exhibits) as I do writing about them. It really is an educational experience for me.



Are museums good forums for 2.0 interactions and communities?

YES! This is why I'm so excited about the whole idea. Web 2.0 doesn't mean that the real world is obsolete. In fact, most active users of Web 2.0 sites are frequently scheduling meetups in-person to connect live. And there is no ideal place for those meetings--no real world analog to the community spaces popping up on the Web. I think museums have a huge opportunity to become those analogs, to become physical places that experiment with ways in which regular people can create and share content with each other. We already have congregant spaces. We're trusted places about content. We have stuff. Now all we need is the desire and the trust to make it happen.


2.0 and Green Design are two of the hottest topics right now in the museum biz. Do you see any connections between the two?

Both get more lip service than action. Both sound expensive. I'm glad to see that much of the green design discussion is moving to include our practices (cradle to cradle exhibit production, for example) and not just "ideas we share with visitors." The same thing has to happen with 2.0--it can't just be a talkback wall. It has to be part of how we do business to be legitimate.

I think it's interesting that both 2.0 and green design are in large part reactions to visitor pressure. Kids are the greatest champions of recycling in America. They expect it from their families, their schools, and hopefully from their museums. Likewise the ability to judge, comment on, and remix content.

This is a good thing. The more we feel the need to respond to visitor cultural expectations, the more relevant we will be to their lives.



What’s it like to live “off the grid” in the shadow of Silicon Valley?

Awesome! As an engineer at heart, I love living with systems that are easy to master and fix without a specialist. It's elegant in a scrappy, rustic way. We compost our human waste for fruit trees. We get our power from the sun. We don't have fancy Dwell magazine-style green systems--it's more like summer camp in the country. It was interesting to move here and realize which things we didn't need (like flush toilets) and which were necessary (hence a major winter project to move from dial-up to high-speed internet). And we've met several other hippie/techies living similarly in this area.

My partner's work involves much more computer time than mine, and when we lived in the city, he was always working. Here, things are different. I love living in a place where it is so easy and compelling (and on cloudy days, necessary) to unplug. We spend our free time building tree houses and wandering in the woods. It keeps my life balance healthy.

Thanks again to Nina for taking the time for our interview. Check out Nina's interesting and enthusiastic musings at the Museum 2.0 blog.

Know another "big thinker" inside or outside the museum biz that you'd like us to interview? Drop you suggestions into an email or the Comments Section below.


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