Help Bring Museum 2.0 to AAM!: Looking for Cranks, Skeptics, and Leaders

Dear Museum 2.0ers,

I started writing individuals with whom I have prior relationships to put together panels for AAM 2008, and then realized that is SO pre-blog.

I'm looking for people who fit the following:

1. a crank or skeptic to help host a debate about the potential of Web 2.0 in museums
   
2. experience with projects that are "2.0 on the cheap"--with or without technology
3. creating nimble venues and projects within museum monoliths

Are you intelligible, intelligent, and potentially available to go to Denver next year? Please get in touch with me as soon as possible--I'm hoping to get SPC endorsement for some of these ideas, which requires a quick turnaround on the proposals.

Thanks!
ninaksimon (at) gmail (dot) com

Book Club Part 3b: Talking Institutional Change with Elaine Gurian

On Tuesday, I reviewed Elaine Gurian’s essay, Choosing Among the Options, on museum archetypes and self-definition. (Next Tuesday, we'll look at chapters 16 and 17, on the merits and limitations of the team approach to exhibition design.) Today, discussion with Elaine about ways museums choose their direction, how change is possible, and new museum types to be added to the list.

I came out of reading this essay with a lot of what ifs. What if you don’t want to be identified as one type of museum? What if that type is unpopular or unprofitable? How can you change or adopt aspects of other types without losing your focus or mission?

There is a museum that did that--the Strong Museum in Rochester NY. It did that more than once. They were a rich collection museum with some local history—they had many dolls, a famous toy collection. And then about 20 years ago, they became one of the first “study storage” institutions. Which means you figure out a way in which your whole collection and collection information is visible so it becomes an encyclopedic museum. Their storage became visible in glass. Now there are a lot of people very interested in it because it is the closest to a kind of google you can get without damaging the objects. That wasn’t necessarily the point at the time, but even the evolution and relation to Web 2.0 is very interesting.

So Strong did that a long time ago, and a lot of people went to experience the study storage, but still enough people didn’t come, so then they decided to become an interactive children’s museum. [Now, the Strong Museum is the second largest children’s museum in the U.S. There are press releases from their reopening last year here.]

So the point of my paper is about intentionality—it’s about who are you serving and where is your primary focus. And it really came because I tend to be pissed off and I was pissed off that people were talking about community and inclusion but there was no evidence in their structure for it. Everyone was talking about community. And at the same time there were all these community museums, whose intentions were different, that were financially failing. Those institutions, as I talked about in Choosing, were mostly self-directed by the groups who wanted them. When people who are non-museum goers politically talk about museums, they tend to be talking about object-centered museums. And they tend to be talking about preservation first, audience second, or now, equal roles. But now there are museums where people are the only thing that matters—and they don’t even want to be called museums. But then there are folks on the other side of the spectrum who want them to be called museums for legitimacy.

But the point is that there really are museums that take their missions very seriously. You can’t just talk about community or inclusion or anything and expect it.

What about the criticism that some museums have faced when they try to go to a more community- or people-oriented focus? I’m thinking of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which is trying to be a museum for people, but is also a national and collection-based place.

The question you have to ask is: who are the people who have issues with what they are doing? It’s people who are committed to collections and feel like that is threatened. In Puerto Rico and Chile, there are museums made out of posters so that kids in parks can come and visit real art—well, it’s not real art, but you’re getting access to Picasso for $5. Some art people would say it’s not a museum since it’s not real stuff. But I would argue that it’s a community museum and it’s doing really good service. There are contemporary art museums that come out of a political point of view. They are art museums but they’re not about collection.

In some ways, it seems like art and other object-centered museums have the most opportunity to diversify their modes of interpretation. So many science and children’s museums—client-centered places—feel the same.

The cookie-cutter phenomenon started in the 70s because people have seen Boston [Children’s Museum] and seen the Exploratorium and they want one in their neighborhood. But people who start new institutions with different intentions but with the same philosophy go somewhere very different. Outside the U.S. in particular science and children’s museums look completely different. In Ireland, a children’s museum dealt with what to do about colonialism in a multi-cultural place using a theater-based exhibit format. In Brussels, the children’s museum, which was found by a Boston person, now runs it as a psychological support system—they have one show every two years about things like failure or fear. So while there is the cookie-cutter, there are also chances for museums to take the basic idea and run somewhere else.

Let’s say there's someone—a reader of this blog—an educator or designer or director or whoever—who wants to and is ready to change their museum. Do you have to be a director to do it? How can institutional change happen?

It’s a very good question. It happens two ways—when the place is little enough and the stakes are low enough so the price invested can be done in paper and pencil and scotch tape. And the community and social expectation is low enough that no one will notice. And that what’s happened with the revolution at Boston—everyone else thought we were cute and inconsequential.

And the other way is when you have a director who has so much guts and can charm the pants off the trees and is willing to lose their job. There’s a guy who did this, Emlyn Koster, who is doing this with the Liberty Science Center. He’s invested in social service as an economic driver. He loves publicity. And he’s quite revolutionary—what he’s figured out is that charity from multi-nationals goes to social service more than anything. So if he’s serious about it, he can attract money. So he, for example, does live heart surgery that is broadcast to kids in his theater, and he has a reporter in the hospital broadcasting, and the kids sit in a theater and can ask questions of the reporter via two-way mic in this life-or-death situation.

Emlyn cowrote the Timeliness piece—the Liberty Science Center was one of the ones that reacted immediately to 9/11. It closed during 9/11, became a location for families dislocated in NJ—a third of those who died came from NJ—and what they did is all very straightforward. And then a corporation came forward and covered all the lost revenue.

You know, it works best if the two ways are both combined.

I know you have been thinking a lot about the Web, Web 2.0, and how they affect museums. Now, looking back at the essay, do you think there might be other museum types?

I do think there’s potentially another type, which is about individual quest. Which is really much closer to the library, which is why I know something about study storage, because individual quest is potentially there. I went to the library today and wanted to find pictures of houses to give me some ideas and I’m going to Paris so I wanted a book on that. What are the consequences of individual quest and the ability to google all the time? If you get diagnosed with cancer you’re going home to look it up. I picked a restaurant tonight by looking at reviews online. So museums have stuff, and I want to dip in and out like I do at the library. So how do you have access to a place, not as a visitor in which you are having time-dependent adventure—which is how most people use the museum—but in a way where you can get whatever you want?

The conversation on the blog about Free at Last touched on that. One person commented about how he loved growing up in DC as a teen and generally using the Smithsonian as a playground.

Sure—and he probably liked to go back to things he’d seen before because he knew they would be there and he could see them again. But take it one step further and what if he went to see that picture and he really wanted to know the answer to a question about the boats or the hats or the time period or whatever—there are now easy ways to do that. Put the internet inside the museum next to the picture and leave you alone. And not think that we need to control the content but also your attention. No one tells me what I’m supposed to learn at the library. It’s none of your business why I’m showing up.

So I think the facilitation of that makes for a new museum. Addressing this lack of answering of questions and allowing you to do what you want to do next—whatever it is—is the next museum.

Book Club Part 3: Museums Seeking Definition

This week, we look at Chapter 5 of Elaine Gurian's book Civilizing Museums, Choosing Among the Options: An opinion about museum definitions in two parts. (This post is a summary of the essay; on Thursday, an interview with Elaine expanding on some of these concepts.) First published in Curator magazine in 2002, this essay presents five different museum "types" and their distinct opportunities and challenges. Elaine believes that "know thyself" isn't just for self-help manuals--it's an adage museums need to remember as they move forward to make decisions intelligently. The "taxonomy of archetypes" both allows museums to be judged fairly and appropriately, and allows institutions to grow in their unique abilities, rather than by cobbling together a bit of this and a bit of that, becoming wayward and watered-down.

The five types Elaine defines are:

1. object-centered (focus on STUFF)
   
2. narrative (focus on STORY)
   
3. client-centered (focus on AUDIENCE, children's and science museums fall here)
   
4. community (focus on SELF-EXPRESSION, community and cultural centers fall here)
   
5. national (government-sponsored)
   

Each of these types has its strengths and challenges. Object-centered museums have fabulous artifacts but are thought of as stuffy and hard to access. Narrative museums are gripping and evocative but are criticized as subjective and overly dramatic. Client-centered museums offer a wide variety of active educational experiences but may be called out as "Disneyesque" playgrounds in boxes. Community museums develop strong programming and local relationships but may be cited as irrelevant to folks not in that community. National museums have huge reach and ability to represent and celebrate a nation but are decried as tightly-controlled beauracratic machines.

So how can museums confront their typological challenges? One obvious path is to look at the range of museums out there and try to pick and choose "the best" from each. But no one becomes best at one thing by messing with all things. When museums grow by adopting conventions presented by the others, they do so--somewhat--at the expense of a focused mission.

Elaine discusses, for example, the evolution of object-centered museums, the "treasure troves" to include more diverse interpretation and presentation styles to promote contextual, multi-sensory understanding of the artifacts. But by repackaging object-centered museums for appreciation by non-experts, they may lose the essential spooky wonder that made the objects so captivating to the original audience. An over-emphasis on interpretation can distort the power of contemplative exploration of objects; instead of offering a distinct experience from other kinds of museums, the new interpretative museum just offers the same packaging of distinct stuff.

Elaine suggests that we celebrate the distinctions and evaluate museums based on the limitations of their type. She compares different kinds of museums to different universities; no one expects my engineering school to have the same characteristics and clientele as your liberal arts school. Elaine makes the example of five different art museums (the Met, the Picasso Museum, Zoom, the art gallery in Soweto, and the National Gallery of Canada) as examples of the five types (object, narrative, client, community, national), and discusses the way that each of these has taken their own unique slant on sharing art with visitors.

Can a museum integrate elements from each of these? Absolutely; many of the largest museums combine local community programming with world-class collections with narrative galleries with hands-on centers. But this combination requires a multi-faceted, potentially schizophrenic focus, and may be confusing to some. I remember when I first went to work at a large museum. I was literally flabbergasted to learn that there was an "education department"--a whole class of individuals I never knew existed as a visitor! When I talk to museum-going friends about the range of museum programs and initiatives out there, invariably they are amazed to hear about the diversity. Some people think of museums as camp providers, others as exhibit displayers, others as storytellers. It's hard to imagine or understand services outside of the scope of your own experience as a visitor. It's one thing to change your mission statement; it's quite another to change "who you are" in the eyes of the public.

The key isn't schizophrenia: it's personal honesty. Elaine argues that when a museum is clear and serious about its mission, the direction staff will take--in writing labels, designing programs, managing marketing campaigns--will follow. Embodying a type is not an excuse to avoid growth; it's an opportunity to grow in special ways based on core competencies.

But it's not always that easy. There's enormous pressure on museums to pursue models that are economically and socially viable. The research on the use and value of collections, programming, and different forms of interpretation is constantly evolving. Add to these the constant pressures from a changing cultural landscape. The growth of the Web and Web 2.0 have forced other industries--news media, music and film production--to rethink the way they engage with customers. Generational reinvention isn't just an option; it's a survival mechanism. What happens when your "type" is not in fashion? How can museums grow without losing sight of core mission or focus? And if your museum truly wants to change course, how can that happen?

For answers to these and other tough questions, write a comment. And then tune in Thursday to hear Elaine's thoughts.

Do You Digg?

No, this is not a post on the misspelling of be-bop era slang words. It’s about “the people’s choice.”

Many museum people, when you suggest letting visitor rate content/exhibits/programs, bring up the “American Idol” argument. You can’t let people vote, they say, because it will push museum content to the lowest common denominator. Museums will become American Idol machines, putting out crap that panders to unthinking consumers.

This argument neglects the fact that American Idol is packaged and processed “for the masses,” not by them. It’s highly undemocratic; TV producers, not viewers, select and cultivate the material for consumption. And yes, it’s crap—because the base material provided is crap. But the base material museums provide is not crap (mostly). Is there a better model for the kind of voting and participating that could occur in museums, around a vast collection of content with varied interest and value to different users?

There sure is. Digg is a website that supports and cultivates “the people’s choice” from the ground up. It’s a continually evolving “next big thing” machine for the web. Here’s how it works:

1. Users (free to join) submit websites, blog posts, videos, etc. to Digg that they think are awesome.
2. Other users do the same, and or check out these new “diggs” on the site via connections they have to other members, interest areas, or general browsing.
3. Items that get lots of diggs within a period of time get posted to the Digg.com homepage, which millions of people look at daily.

You may have seen a symbol at the bottom of some news articles or blog posts on the web, enabling you to “digg this.” Digg is like del.icio.us, in that it provides a vehicle for you to save favorite places on the web and share them with others. Like on del.icio.us, you can browse the most popular user-generated tags for content of interest. The unique function Digg provides is the popularity contest. The main pages of Digg give the pulse of what people on the internet (especially the tech-savvy people who make up a significant portion of Digg users) are interested in—right now. For example, go to the World and Business tab. You will see articles linked from newspapers and blogs all over the country. Maybe today it’s George H. W. Bush’s strange outburst against atheists. Or the new FEMA report on Katrina. You aren’t seeing content aggregated by news source, region, or political bent. You’re seeing it aggregated by interest.

Which is part of what makes people love Digg—even if they rarely submit their own content. Digg is an attempt to harness the vast information on the web, and it’s a community effort. There’s more information on the web every day; how do you find new compelling content without going nuts? Digg doesn’t claim to offer the best content, but they do offer an extensive vetting process—the cumulative preferences of a wide swath of editors.

And it truly is democratic. Unlike YouTube, where it’s difficult to navigate beyond the videos that have thousands of votes, Digg makes new content easy to access. Their main page includes a tab, upcoming, which lists the most recently added diggs. These are all brand new to the Digg machine—they all have just one vote. If you find the most obscure, fabulous firework formula, or a recording of Edith Piaf singing backwards, you can submit it, and other users can access it instantly. Of course, the things that really catapult to Digg stardom tend to get there from other venues (i.e. lots of users digging the same item at the same time), but the path to glory is transparent and available to all.

And what does the result look like? Is Digg content more low-brow, more prurient than the web on the whole? Well… somewhat. It’s a near-impossible question to answer, considering the breadth of content on the web—and that’s part of the point. Sometimes you want a video of a bird flying into a tree. Sometimes you want a report on Israeli missile defense. Of course, part of the challenge is that Digg does not represent humanity—it represents a slice of people who know about it, use it, and have the time to hunt down new content on the web. In that way, it’s not unlike looking to your record-obsessed friend for suggestions for new music, or the library cave-dweller for book recommendations. These people are good at finding stuff on the web. But so are you—and the greater the range of people submitting to Digg, the greater its potential value to a diverse audience. (Remember Tim O’Reilly’s first rule of Web 2.0: it gets better the more people use it.)

What would it look like if a museum took on a similar effort with museum content, allowing people to hit a button to “digg” an exhibit, label, artifact, or video in the galleries? The New York Times website does this with its “Most Emailed Articles This Week.” The newpaper, like the web or a museum, has tons of content to offer. These articles are all “New York Times quality;” they aren’t written for a different demographic than the rest of the paper. The “Most Emailed” list is just one of many forms of aggregation that NYT users can access when making decisions about what content to view.

It’s also a potentially useful (or dubious) evaluative instrument. Is the content of these lists used by the editors to make decisions about directions the paper should take? Would museums feel pressured to do the same? Again, the users who engage with the technology (in this case, emailing articles) may represent a small, distinct portion of the NYT readership, in which case the editors may choose to ignore their preferences and think of this as a user service, not an evaluative tool. Part of what makes you digg something or email something is the feeling that you have found a secret gem—a witty article, a wild video. I think implementing a similar service around a museum collection could lead to some experimentation in artifact placement, labeling, lighting, etc… or it could just motivate more people to visit a dusty corner where visitors rarely tread.

But this has value for visitors and museums beyond tracking. The NYT is offering a service that, like a popularity contest, encourages viral expansion of their product and their brand. What museum wouldn’t want those benefits? Digg and the NYT list make content seem personal and relevant—it’s being recommended to you by thousands of Uncle Joe, not some fancy-pants editor or curator. They makes the content seem hip, upcoming, new. They have the potential to turn something you see into something you dig. Dig?

Game Friday: Bigger is Better

What museum hasn't benefited from a giant blow-up dinosaur on its front lawn? Flying into San Jose yesterday, I laughed out loud when I looked out the window and saw Clifford the Big Red Dog below me, a cheerful addition to the skyline (thanks to the Children's Discovery Museum).

But there are gamers out there doing one better. If a giant blow-up thingy is good, how about a giant blow-up thingy you can interact with?

Enter area/code, an extremely cool NYC-based game company that produces Big Games. According to their manifesto,

Big Games are human-powered software for cities, life-size collaborative hallucinations, and serious fun.

And fun they are. Big Games are technology-rich (using mobile devices, cameras, GPS, etc.) and neighborhood-based. For example, the image above is from a game called BUG (Big Urban Game), developed with the University of Minnesota, in which three teams of players in St. Paul/Minneapolis called in or voted online to determine the movement of large game pieces (see above) each evening throughout the city. Each day, there were newspaper announcements of the pieces' whereabouts, and players could roll giant dice at the site of each piece, accumulating "points" that gave the pieces relative headstarts on each evening's journey. The game allowed for casual drop-in players of all types: on the internet, phone, local media, and on the streets. Like all Big Games, it was highly visual, and served as half-game, half-spectacle.

area/code is perhaps most famous for Pac Manhattan, in which players dress as Pac-Man and the evil Ghosts and run around the Washington Square area of Manhattan. Pac-Man tries to eat dots, and the Ghosts try to tag Pac-Man. All the players in the streets have virtual "control" partners who track their progress via a control panel (which looks much like the real Pac-Man game). The control panel is then broadcast on the internet for anyone not in Manhattan to follow the game.

I love these games because they use web and mobile technology as springboards to facilitate fun in the real world. These games aren't "simulated"--they are physical, visual, of, by, and in the community. By embedding the technology instead of showcasing it, area/code powers unusual in-person experiences. area/code understands that these technologies don't have to exist in opposition to "real world" experiences; they can be used to enhance and expand them.

And thank you Mike Ellis for inspiring this post with a hilarious and highly relevant video of Japanese game show contestants trying (and mostly failing) to play Human Tetris.

PSA: Is Your Small Museum Doing Something With Web 2.0?

Because AAM wants to know about it. The program chair of the Small Museum Administrators Committee, Tracy Sullivan, is seeking examples of small museums (operating budget under $350,000/year) using Web 2.0. Are you podcasting? Blogging? Maintaining a massive social network? Drop a comment here about it (so we can all bask in wonder) and send a note to Tracy Sullivan at TSullivan (at) entnet (dot) org

On this note, Museum 2.0 will soon be rolling out a separate non-blog section that will list and compile a lot of the content covered here, including museum projects in 2.0, explanations of Web 2.0 applications, reviews of exhibits, etc. There will be (simple) ways to contribute your own projects, challenges, and ideas. If there are specific things/topics you'd like to see in this library of content, please leave a comment here or get in touch with me.

Book Club Part 2: Timeliness

Quick. A local fire has devastated 200 local homes. A Russian spy has been poisoned in London. Tuberculosis is traveling business class. Pluto just got demoted. What does your museum have to say about it?

What do visitors expect of museums, and what do museums expect of themselves, when it comes to timeliness? What's more important, timelessness or timeliness? In chapter 6 of Civilizing the Museum, Elaine Gurian, Joy Davis, and Emlyn Koster share the process and conclusions of a three day conversation about timeliness in museums held at the University of Victoria in 2003.

The basic conclusion of the conversation is that timeliness in museums is "societally useful," especially in an era when museums are shifting away from being "refuge[s] of authority and stability" to "resource[s] for the public good." This is partially driven by museums, which want to be seen as "forums" for discourse, but also by the expectations of a media-saturated public. One of the things that most confounds non-museum folks about museums is the glacial pace of exhibit and program development; I've heard many friends (and some museum execs from other fields) ask why we aren't showing something immediately after a news event related to museum content occurs. In a world where everything is available up to the minute, museums' resistance to involvement doesn't communicate thoughtfulness or solidity--it communicates out of dateness. In the public eye, museums aren't compared to timeless entities like the ocean. They're called dinosaurs instead.

Of course, there's a basic tension for museums that feel both "the obligation to be reflective and considerate, and the seeming imperative to react to emergent issues." The good news about timeliness is that when it comes to news, the public doesn't expect fancy exhibitry; they expect recognition, exposition, and flexible interpretation. I'm always amazed to see visitors pouring over "SCIENCE IN THE NEWS" and similar clipping bulletin boards in museums. The authors share several examples of museums responding to current events, such as the National Air and Space Museum, which responded to the 2003 Columbia Shuttle explosion "by bringing a television set on the floor and stationing an expert to interpret the information for the public in real time." There are also other museums, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Holocaust Museum discussed yesterday, that incorporate ongoing advocacy for content-related issues (conservation and genocide prevention, respectively) into their exhibits and programs, connecting the timeless to the right now. In the Aquarium example, staff found that giving visitors an opportunity for advocacy with a specific (and well-displayed) deadline encouraged greater participation than non-time specific advocacy; the chance for visitors to affect something "right now" is appealing.

More interestingly, the authors higlighted several museums that have attempted to work timeliness into their mission and ongoing operations. The Royal British Columbia Museum launched a (now defunct) Quick Response Team (QRT) initiative in which team members created exhibits and programs with the goal of being public-ready within one month of an event of concern. The Boston Museum of Science includes the Current Science and Technology center (CS&T), which puts up modular exhibits and revolving programs on contemporary science issues. As the authors comment,

Perhaps the most significant dilemma that confronts museums seeking to be timely is the capacity and willingness of staff to sustain such a commitment. While many staff embrace the notion that museums must be relevant, and therefore timely, their professional education and training, skill sets, disciplinary specialization, commitment to thorough, well-researched exhibitions and programs, and lengthy work processes all mitigate against rapid responses to emergent concerns.

To be timely, the authors argue, requires an institutional mindset that supports fast decision-making, engagement with controversial issues, exposition of works in progress, and time and training for rapid gathering and dissemination of content. The authors also suggest that maintaining strong relationships with external organizations and community groups as collaborators promotes both the development and successful deployment of such programming.

Perhaps most of all, to respond to contemprary events, museum staff need to be light on their feet, to have interest and ability to work flexibly and quickly. In the Royal British Columbia Museum's case, the QRT program was canceled "due to lack of curatorial resources and issue-related expertise." Many museum blogs have disappeared for the same reason; museum staff were unwilling or unable to create and manage content on an ongoing basis. It doesn't matter how much visitors love it if it's too hard for an institution to sustain based on fundamental priorities and abilities.

There's also a branding issue here. I was a visitor and employee of the Boston Museum of Science for several years without "getting" that CS&T was doing something fundamentally different and more timely than what was going on in the rest of the museum. To me as a visitor, it appeared to be just another area where I could interact with content and programs about science. I didn't differentiate that this was "the place" for fast-breaking news, and sometimes I was confused that the exhibits didn't seem as "developed" as those in other areas. Now that I know more about CS&T and some of the very cool forums and programs they produce, I understand that there's a fundamental difference. But as a visitor, how do you make the connection that your museum is now offering something more timely?

To some extent, timeliness is in the eye of the beholder. As the authors put it,

museum staff who are interested in the choice of relevant and timely topics need to ask: 'Relevant to whom?' For some participants, this very question of timeliness and relevance had to do with shared authority among partners, creating a standing relationship with members of the community, and breaking the traditional relationship between staff as authority and visitors as recipients.

Sound familiar? Ultimately, from the visitor perspective, timeliness and personal relevance may be intrinsically linked. Perhaps the best way to create an experience that visitors perceive as timely is to ask them for their ideas. Global warming is nothing new, but it's hot right now--so people perceive related exhibits and programs as timely. Similarly, content that expresses contemporary visitors' perspectives and reactions can breathe "now" into "then."

One of the striking things about Web 2.0 is the way that the connections feel immediate, evolving, and energized--even when the content is the same recycled junk about relationships or politics. In many cases, it's not the content but the attitudes with which content is presented that marks whether you are riding the crest of a new wave or adding to the fossil record. What do you think of as "now" experiences? Where's the "now" in your museum? Where do you want to see it, and where doesn't it belong?

Next week, Chapter 5, Choosing Among the Options: an opinion about museum definitions. Hopefully a timely choice considering the recent discussion on the ASTC listserv about the differences (semantic? real?) between science museums and science centers.

The Move On Model: Inciting Visitor Social Action

I spent Saturday in beautiful Monterey, ocean pounding outside the window of a conference room, where about 40 museum folks were pondering a question more elusive than the origin of the waves: can museums change the world?

The session, presented by Cultural Connections, focused on museums, exhibits, and programs specifically developed to inspire visitors to take action in their own lives to create social change. Sometimes, the desired visitor actions were hazy, represented by a general principle like “diversity;” other times, the actions were specific extensions of advocacy or policy espoused by the institution. Let’s start with some examples (many of which were also presented at AAM):

• The Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains an Ocean Action group that visitors can join to get involved in advocacy for marine life and conservation. In 2006, the Aquarium sponsored a letter-writing campaign in the museum, giving visitors an opportunity to send postcards to the governor expressing support for the establishment of marine protected areas on California's central coast. In two months, 10,000 visitors sent postcards (and fortuitiously, the government acted in favor of protection). The museum display included information about the issue, a countdown clock to the government's decision, and a running tally of postcards submitted to date.
• The Congo Gorilla Forest, is a special exhibition produced by the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. The exhibition is a fairly standard zoo introduction to the Congo, its inhabitants, and conservation efforst, with a twist: at the end of the Congo experience, in the Conservation Choices area, visitors are able to select, via a touchscreen, which animals/areas/projects they want their $3 entry fee to fund.
• The US Holocaust Memorial Museum includes a Committee on Conscience, which advocates and educates about acts of genocide around the world. Their website includes a clear, concise "What Can I Do?" section about the genocide in Darfur, which includes information about direct action, as well as connection to a variety of social networks, blogs, and content about the situation.
  
• The Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC, has presented a series of exhibitions, beginning with COURAGE, that marry provocative historical and cultural content with programmatic opportunities for community development. The museum presented tour/programs for corporate and community groups around race (Courage), gender (Purses, Platforms, and Power), and religion (Families of Abraham), enlisting professional facilitators to lead discussions around the issues raised in the exhibitions. In the example of Courage, funding was provided for 50 corporate groups, but over 100 groups participated, and response was overwhelmingly positive.
  

There's a huge range of projects designed to encourage visitors to "jump in," "stand up," "take action," and other declarative verbs. But I'm highly suspicious of most of these. Because museums are often afraid, unwilling, or unable to take clear positions on issues, they settle for empowering visitors to "get involved." This amounts to messageless activism, which doesn't help anyone. It's ironic that we think both too little of our visitors--that they are unable to take action without our encouragement--and too much--that they will be able to translate inspirational museum exhibits into personal action.

People don't need empowerment to make a difference; they need vehicles for action. This is what has made MoveOn so successful, and a powerful model for museum exhibit/program designers who want to inspire action. Every email I get from MoveOn has the same basic format:

1. Provocative presentation of a breaking news item or political opportunity.
2. Clear way for me to quickly affect the situation (sign petition, give money, host an event, volunteer at a phone bank) right now.
3. More factual information about the situation.
4. Another opportunity for me to take action.
5. Information/news sources for this content.

MoveOn makes no bones about their political position on the topics they discuss, but more importantly than that, they give me a clear, simple, immediate way to affect the situation. They don't give me a bunch of options or other organizations to investigate. They balance the rhetoric with the opportunity.

Of course, MoveOn is a PAC, not a museum. But there are lots of PACs that have not enjoyed the same success as MoveOn. One of the participants on Saturday commented, "the crux of this is that we want to create exhibits that make visitors believe that one person--one visitor--can make a difference." MoveOn has done that for political action, giving people who care but are overwhelmed by the issues simple, individual ways to make a difference, one signature or dollar at a time.

The projects highlighted above strike me as particularly successful (and, luckily, simple) because they follow this model. In the Aquarium, Holocaust Museum, and Bronx Zoo examples, people have a clear vehicle to take action. The zoo/aquarium exhibits make people care about conservation, and then present a way to act on that (possibly newfound) interest. The Bronx Zoo model strikes me as particularly brilliant; a fee that you thought you were paying for an attraction transforms into an opportunity for you to take action. Perhaps this reenvisioning of the charity donation will also affect the way some people perceive museum admission and what it supports.

The Levine Museum model comes closer to the more nebulous "get engaged" empowerment goal of some museums, but does so by providing a practical tool for engagement. Rather than simply hoping the exhibits will motivate deep discussion about cultural issues, the museum provided both a venue and a facilitator for that discussion. They literally "forced the conversation," giving both reluctant and enthusiastic visitors a way to move beyond the exhibition. Similarly, by providing a range of online forums for engagement, the Holocaust Museum seeds conversation about genocide within visitors' own social networks and environments.

But for what actions can museums advocate? One of the questions that came up at the session was about safety--which issues and positions are safe for the museum to explore and or hold. Zoos and aquariums are in a special position; many rebranded themselves as champions of conservation and animal protection in reaction to their own issue--being accused of animal cruelty. Being at the center of an issue forced these institutions to take a stand in a way most museums have not. It isn't about the "safety" of the issue; it's about the survival of the institution.

Do museums present clear messages that can be translated into action? It depends. The message to visitors at lots of museums is: "here's a lot of stuff to see and interact with." When that stuff is inspiring, challenging, and educational, the message may change to "here's some stuff that may give you new ideas about how the world works." And if/when those intended new ideas are distinct and overt, there are probably actions to go along.

Interestingly, the most overt messaging I've seen in museums has been about institutional practice with regard to energy use. I've been in many museums with informational labels about the ways they are conserving water, electricity, building sustainably, etc. Why not add another sentence to those labels with a tip for visitors--on how to add a brick to your toilet, where to buy CFLs, etc.? The changes I have made in my life with regard to energy consumption have not been based on their value; they've been based on their availability and ease of implementation. Museums can lead by example, but more will happen when you lead with direct information about how to achieve these examples.

But conserving energy use is a relatively safe position, and one most museums are happy to be overt about. The problem arises when the position is covert, when museum designers and educators have a secret set of "new ideas" they want visitors to attain, but are unwilling or unable to present the actions that accompany those ideas. Frequently, motivational exhibits feature profiles of great leaders, often with a concluding provocation for the visitor to "follow their example." How? If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is profiled as a hero, is it reasonable to provide visitors ways to follow his example by protesting war and multi-national corporations? Or by pursuing religious education? Perhaps it's more appropriate to stick to the educational, allow people their own opinions, and skip the motivational sauce. Do a reality check: how often do your "What can I do?" labels feature clear, specific actions? How often are they rhetorical?

Like a lot of people, I want to see museums encouraging visitors to take social action, but I want to see it happen because museums are doing it too. We shouldn't expect visitors to take actions the museum is not ready to take. I think museums should pick specific issues or positions they feel comfortable with and be leaders, not encouragers, of action. What, if any, positions does your museum support as an institution? What actions does/could your institution take based on those positions? How can visitors get involved?

Game Friday: Where are the Museum Jams?

Last month, the second annual TOJam (Toronto Indie Game Development Jam) was held. Over three days, 60 programmers/artists/composers/pranksters worked all hours to create finished computer-based games from scratch. The results range from funny to surprising to genuinely bizarre (Space Goat?). The organizers explain their event as follows:

It's NOT a competition, or a conference, or a learning seminar. It's about taking what you already know, combining it with your keen focus and ability to program for HOURS, and ending up with a finished project. No more half-architected, partially-coded snippets of games that you've rewritten 4 times. This is the real deal, people... bring it all to the table, and walk away with something done!

There's a healthy community of gamers, courses, and events focused specifically on this concept: to put out a finished game in a very limited amount of time. These people realize that sometimes putting creativity on a rapid cycle means you don't have time to get stale, don't have time to get bogged down in what ifs, don't even have time for your wild and wonderful idea to get filtered into something dull and "sellable."

Maybe it has something to do with a propensity to pull all-nighters. Maybe it belies a paucity of family commitments. Or maybe it's just because game developers actually think of their work as fun. Whatever it is, museum program and exhibit designers, take note: I want a museum jam.

There are some museums doing projects like this; Ontario Science Centre's RIG (rapid idea generation) sessions, in which they develop and put on the floor exhibits/programs in about 4 hours, are a great example. But no matter how many times your supervisor says, "No idea is a dumb idea," there are some people for whom your own institution may not be the safest--or most appropriate--place for the biggest gorillas in your imagination. Plus, many museums are not set up resource-wise for this kind of invention; Ontario Science Centre has the luxury of some space and a large exhibits shop to support their innovation operations.

So why not hold a Jam, get a bunch of people from different institutions together, create some wild exhibits and programs, and then make the finished product available to small museums and centers that are often looking for small, cheap, flexible offerings? Or find a space to hold a public show of the products, a sort of museum carnival? It could happen as precursor to a conference, or locally, as in the Toronto model, to bring together creatives and promote innovation at area museums. There are so many of us who spend years to put out a finished product--why not spend a week on a different cycle?

Maybe I'm too excited about this. Please, give me some good reasons I shouldn't start looking for sponsors...

Book Club Part 1: Free at Last

Welcome to the first installment of the Museum 2.0 virtual book club. While every post at Museum 2.0 solicits (directly or indirectly) your comments and response, this one is special. I hope these book club posts can serve as invitations for lively discussion in the comment section. I’m going to try to write less and spend more of my energy reading and reacting to your thoughts. Elaine Gurian, author of this summer’s book, Civilizing the Museum, will also be popping into the conversation as her time and interest permits. And if you're planning ahead, next week we'll look at chapter 6, Timeliness: A discussion for museums.


Today we’re looking at Free at Last, chapter 13 of Elaine’s book, an essay originally published in 2005 in AAM’s Museum News (issue 84). Elaine doesn’t waste time mincing words about free admission. The essay starts as follows:

I have reluctantly, but unequivocally, come to the conclusion that general admission charges are the single greatest impediment to making our museums fully accessible.

And ends:

The major and undeniable problem with charging is that it is a means test. In the current situation only those who can afford the cost, and think the experience is valuable enough to pay for, can have access to the patrimony that belongs to us all. We cannot continue to discuss inclusion if we continue to charge for general admission.

Most arguments for free admission center around the idea that the cultural artifacts collected by museums should be available for free use by all. (See, for example, this timely article about museum admission in the UK.) Elaine starts there, arguing that “[museums] cannot argue that they are a resource for those impelled to learn something if the learner must first determine if they can afford to learn.” But she acknowledges that removing admissions fees doesn’t mean instant inclusion; transitioning to free admission has been shown to result in higher attendance, but most of the new visitors fit the traditional museum-going profile.

Instead, Elaine goes to a more interesting place, arguing that charging admission fundamentally affects the nature of the museum experience. She argues that charging admission promotes treatment of the museum visit as an occasional, special event rather than “an easily repeatable one.” The cost of the experience means people want to “urgently cover as much ground as possible” instead of dropping in, doing a bit, and coming back again (as they do in libraries). This special event requires visit planning (How much does it cost? When can my family get a reduced entrance? Where are there passes available? How long will I be there? Do I need to bring food?).

Even if a person does approach a museum on a whim, he or she cannot browse through the museum before making an assessment as to its value. As Elaine puts it, “One cannot enter a museum unobtrusively.” Locating the admission desk “at the door” forces visitors to make an immediate decision about whether the experience they are about to receive—and cannot sample—is worth the asking price. Given peoples’ (including museum professionals!) hazy ideas about “value” of a museum visit, this entry experience can be bewildering and off-putting. Not convinced? I remember visiting the excellent Muhammed Ali Center last year in Louisville during the ASTC conference. As a huge Ali fan, there was no question that I would pay whatever they asked to enter. But I saw other museum people who heard the price ($9), scanned the lobby, and walked out. Even for these professionals, who believe in the value of museums and had taken the time to walk over to the place, the value assessment at entry was not convincing enough to overcome the admission barrier. Perhaps if they had, as Elaine considers, moved the admissions desk later in the experience, they might have hooked more paying guests.

But Elaine’s interest goes beyond more guests, beyond making museum resources available to all potential users. She is promoting fundamentally different patterns of museum use, ones that more closely mirror the ways other civic spaces, like libraries, malls, and parks, are used. As long as admission is in place, she contends, museums cannot be treated as amenities to be used for different purposes at different times by different people. They will be treated as attractions with specific purposes, and “will never become the forum, the meeting ground, the crossroads, the town square that we are all fond of talking about.”

***

From my perspective, there are two basic arguments concerning museum admission:

1. Museums should be free. Museums provide access to content and experiences that should be available to all regardless of ability to pay.
2. Museums should charge admission. Museums provide leisure activities and experiences and should be valued/priced commensurate with the “experience” market. When museums are free, visitors are encouraged to undervalue the experience offered. When museums are priced “at market rate,” people judge the experience relative to others and make their decisions accordingly.

There are many museum people who believe in the principles of both #1 and #2, who cheered when MOMA went to $20 but still want to sneak over to the Smithsonian for a free moment. The problem often lies in the question of what to do about visitors who can pay but prefer not to. Do they grumble about admission fees because they undervalue the museum experience? Or because they want to treat museums as a free resource but are being forced to change their patterns of use to adapt to the new system? I doubt there are many people who would consciously consider the latter. And yet, people who value museum experiences enough to buy memberships are opting to buy a new pattern of use—one that makes them a more comfortable part of the museum.

Elaine’s argument shifts this debate by adding a third option to this list:
Museums (should) provide services that are broad and applicable to everyday life, whose value is variable, and to which entrance (though not necessarily all services) should be free.

Note the should. Current museum structure and design rarely supports the kinds of museum experience for which Elaine advocates. Blockbuster exhibitions, omnipresent audio and light effects, and many of the other recent museum innovations that have created more compelling alternatives in the attraction market also make museums less open to flexible, self-directed, browserly visits. As Elaine puts it, “Museums, if they remain oriented toward their paying customers, will not, I contend, organize themselves as the more general resource they can become.”

Consider this: I’m writing this post from a public library right now. Next to me, there’s a guy painting with watercolors. There’s a woman reading a magazine. There are other people using the internet. There are people sleeping. How many of these functions could be served at the average museum? I remember visiting the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, where I was delighted to discover both a museum and a library. But how strange it must be for some kids to realize they can go into the library whenever they want and play around, but they need to have money or a membership card to enter the museum.

So, what’s a museum to do? A lot of this has to do with mission. When I was at the Spy Museum, a for-profit institution, there was no hair-pulling over this. SPY is a museum that operates like an attraction. It charges what the market will bear. The marketing (both formal and word-of-mouth) supports the price value and keeps people coming in the door. Some people are turned off by the high price and choose not to come, but that is considered a marketing problem, not an inclusion problem.

So that’s one option: to embrace and organize as a full member of the attraction market. But that supports the “special occasion” view of the museum, and it won’t get us any closer to creating spaces for discourse and variable use. If you buy into Elaine’s vision of museums as places for all kinds of interactions, what should happen to admission fees? Should we reorganize our institutions to offer both free, flexible spaces and market rate attractions (IMAX, blockbusters, simulators)? Do we need to change the kinds of exhibitions and programs offered to create a more sustainable model? Is it reasonable to think of museums as providing flexible civic services, or do those services belong in other institutions—like libraries—that already support variable patterns of use?

I’ve written far too much. Please, overtake me and discuss.