Getting it Written Down Right!

“Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that the jurors of the 2012 AAM Excellence in Exhibition Label Writing Competition recognized your label “Du Sable built his business at a watery crossroads” from The DuSable Museum Story Bus as excellent.”

                                                                                                               Email 3/2/12                                           

WOW! What a message to receive on a Friday afternoon—what a great way to end the work week! We’re proud, humbled and absolutely ‘jacked’ all at the same time. Winning any award that features competition from the very best museum professionals from across the US would be worthy of celebration, but winning an award of ‘Excellence’ for writing exhibit labels…well that really ranks! Writing is difficult (duh).  There are no clever interactives, bright lights or flashy graphics to hide behind—it’s all about the words! They gotta be just right.

The American Association of Museums Excellence in Exhibition Label Writing Competition is an annual event that showcases top work in labels representing almost every form of museum content, with the intention of inspiring writers and editors to create clear, concise and captivating labels. This year, the 2012 jurors included Jeanine Head Miller, representing the AAM Curators Committee; Cathleen Donnelly, representing the AAM Education Committee; Eugene Dillenburg, representing the National Association of Museum Exhibitors; and Toni Wynn, representing the recognized winners from the 2011 competition. After carefully reviewing the 83 entries submitted from across the US and Canada, the jurors selected 11 labels, including Museum Explorer’s work for the DuSable Museum of African American History Story Bus! The work will be showcased at AAM’s annual meeting April 30^th in Minneapolis.

At this point it probably makes sense to acknowledge the person who actually did the work on this prize-winning label. Susan Curran is an outstanding talent, with 30 years of experience in museum work (a true Museum Person!). Susan has been a part of Museum Explorer as a Senior Writer & Exhibit Developer for 6 years.  She is responsible for developing and articulating the museum voice for all exhibit label copy. Susan researched, wrote, rewrote, edited, and proofread all copy for all of the labels on the ‘Story Bus.’

For those of you who have not yet seen the DuSable Museum Story bus…it’s hard to miss!  As Susan says, “at 8 ft by 20 ft, with huge tires that carry it all over town, the Story Bus isn’t your typical museum exhibit.” The bus is very colorful in appearance, “wrapped in snazzy graphics,” and inside, it’s “fitted with displays that tell the tale of the museum’s namesake: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.” According to Susan, the goal for writing this project was “to create labels that tell a story” using “concrete, visual language”; to “include first- and second-person pronouns to draw visitors into that story”; and to “explain unfamiliar ideas by drawing parallels with everyday life.”  Fortunately, the labels on the Story Bus are successful on all counts! The way to measure success is by asking: "Do visitors read the labels to one another? Do they point from label copy to objects in the exhibit? Do the labels appear to encourage interaction between visitors, and between visitors and objects? Reports from the DuSable Museum Story Bus indicate ‘yes’ to all!”

In the prize-winning label, we learn that “in du Sable’s day...early Chicago sat at a crossroads of mighty rivers, rushing streams, and a great lake," and that people “often took to water” for transportation, “paddling canoes.”  You can check out the full label in the photo for more fun facts about early Chicago!  And if you are ever in the Chicago area these days, you can’t miss the DuSable Story Bus. Most any day of the week you can find it parked outside a school or near a community center hosting kids who we bet actually do read the labels, and learn from them! So if you spot the BUS, don’t forget to jump on and take a ride!

Young fans admire the new Black Rhino Display. Check it out for yourself at Lincoln Park Zoo!

Keepin' It Real for Rhinos

A while back, in our “Chillin’ with the Rhinos” post (see our archive to follow-up!), we told you about what it might be like to really get inside Lincoln Park Zoo…

In this particular entry, we explained that “unless you're a visiting scientist, or working on behalf of science, animal welfare or conservation, it's nearly impossible to get behind the scenes on a summer day at Lincoln Park Zoo. “

Well…in a way we were right, and in a way we were down right wrong. Since we posted “Chillin’ with the Rhinos” in 2010, we have continued to work with the rhinos at LPZ, and we have made many changes! While you still can’t get behind the scenes and actually meet the beasts, you can do the next best thing and get a closer look at the giant black rhinoceros now on exhibit at Lincoln Park Zoo.

Just this spring the interactive exhibit designed by Museum Explorer opened at the Zoo, providing visitors with a fantastic opportunity to learn all about what it takes to care for this nearly extinct wild animal.

The zoo recently renovated the former Elephant Yard (the premier north exhibit yard) with an expansive Black Rhinoceros Exhibit and African landscape. This newly enhanced habitat is more than twice the size of the former rhinoceros exhibit, and provides enormous flexibility for breeding and housing a family group of this highly endangered species, while highlighting the zoo’s important mission to protect these animals in their native habitats. And in order to help enhance visitor understanding and in an effort to build a bridge between visitor and zoo-keeper, Museum Explorer worked with the Zoo’s education department to design an interactive component. Camera shaped spotting scopes allow visitors to watch and observe the rhinos closely, much like scientists in the field do. This feature also teaches visitors how programs at the zoo are designed, while learning how to preserve these great animals in the wild.

The exhibit features interesting tidbits about personalized Black Rhino care, including how to file its giant toe nails, that it takes a bucket of hand lotion a day to keep its skin in top flight condition and that vitamins are as much a part of its diet as they are ours.

The Black Rhino Display also features the not-so-elegant but absolutely essential part of zoo-keeping – CLEAN UP time. Did you know that the average full-grown male Black Rhino will deposit 80 to 100 pounds of dung a day? Five poops a day…that’s 20 pounds a crack--pun intended! Our new exhibit gives you a chance to see if you can measure up and muscle up to the task of being a Zookeeper. Just grab the handle of the shovel and you can put your shoulder against a 20 lb weight, equal to one trip to the Rhino Restroom….if you know what I mean!

While features such as these keep the exhibit fun and interactive, the message behind it all is communicating to the public what kind of work it takes to keep a rhino alive in the wild. Right here at Lincoln Park Zoo and at zoos everywhere, biologists, zoologists, even museum people are constantly working to ensure that animals like the Black Rhino will survive in nature due in part to efforts put forth by programs and researchers that work at places like LPZ.


Oh…ooops…and before we forget! Even though you still can’t reach out and touch the Rhinos directly, we have provided a full sized completely to scale realistic and touchable version of the Rhino for people to enjoy. Now you can get up close in personal with a Rhino from tip of the horn to end of its tail. See our pictures for a sneak peek!

Timelines

The museum business is a whacky racket, but it is a wonderful industry because ultimately we’re all contributing to something bigger than ourselves and our careers. Not least among us in this business are “Museum People,” who play an important role and make the day-to-day grind possible.

Everyone is aware of the typical “Museum Person” profile: that extroverted individual with a liberal fashion sense who possesses a flair for the poetic or dramatic moment during a meeting or at a conference--the stars of the museum business. This typecast typically includes curators, donors, art students, and so on--but there are so many other unsung “Museum People” …people that are so important and so dedicated but are not always recognizable as such. Sometimes they don’t even think of themselves as Museum people and might even reject the title! Regardless, people who do not come from these typical typecasts and backgrounds, who nevertheless dedicate their time and effort to bettering the museum world are truly Museum People. Even if through nontraditional means, if they give a lot of themselves to museums, they care and tangible rewards are not necessarily their motivation,they are invaluable Museum People.

Museum Explorer is losing a true “Museum Person.” Though regrettable, it is actually a happy occasion as one of our co-workers moves on to another job, back to work in the ‘Real World’ after a stint in the museum world for the past several years. Although her time in our business was short-lived, there isn’t a person out there who deserves the title of “Museum Person” more than Liz.

Like a lot of folks who move on or move back to the real-world after time served in the Museum World, it is not always easy to explain what goes on in our special not-for-profit realm. But having Liz on board for almost three years was worthwhile and a great benefit to our little troop of Museum-Lifers here at Museum Explorer. We learned a lot during our timeline together.

Liz served Museum Explorer a project estimator and budget manager. Prior to Liz’s arrival we managed our schedules and project budgets on our own, and we did fairly well--or at least so we thought. But when Liz arrived on the scene, taking a job with us after being bumped from the real-world during the economic crisis, we gained a real pro who took over and taught us many valuable lessons, things that are now in place and making us better at what we do every day.

Project Management is not just a skill, it’s an art form. Getting things lined up, laying out a timeline for the design team and for the clients, letting clients know what is what and when is when can make a project golden on both sides of the fence. The savvy client appreciates being skillfully directed and we, Museum X, we felt more comfortable and confident knowing a bit more about what was coming and when it was due.

Thanks Liz for teaching us how to stay on task and how to manage our process. Thanks Liz for getting on the phone and talking and sometimes taking on those tough clients. Thanks Liz for being a part of our timeline if for only a short time… and most of all Liz, thanks for being a ‘Museum Person.’

Good Luck!

Spreading the word about carts

On March 3, 2011, Rich Faron of Museum Explorer teamed up with Heidi Moisan of Chicago History Museum to lead a roundtable discussion at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Smithsonian educators gathered to hear Rich and Heidi's presentation "Wheeling Visitors In: Customizing Carts to Connect with Audiences."

One of the roundtable attendees channeled her enthusiasm into a lovely blog entry, which we share with you here. Thanks to Jennifer Brundage, National Outreach Manager for Smithsonian Affiliations, for her kind observations!

How to Connect with Audiences in Real-Time Situations? Use CARTS!

Public programmers in museums today face huge challenges. With reduced staff and shrinking budgets, they must nevertheless manage a public trust and an institutional commitment to provide visitors with content, relevance and inspiration. For any given exhibit or event, they're expected to creatively:

• Invite exploration and inquiry

• Target audience interests

• Appeal to awareness

• Inspire personal connections

• Engage visitor curiosity

• Encourage interactive learning

• Facilitate discovery and sharing

• Drive attendance

• Develop repeat visitors

• Enhance the bottom line

For museums, zoos and aquariums, the stakes are high. We all understand the real mission: create new market segments and donor interest through aggressive advertising and outreach so we can capture the imaginations of a discriminating public that has ever-increasing options for how to spend leisure hours and dwindling dollars.

To meet these challenges head-on, museum exhibition and education departments have run a nonstop race for the past 25 years or so, looking for new ways to educate--but also to entertain and retain--the people who visit museums. And there's no end in sight. Because museums need a steady stream of visitors and the revenue they generate, we're pretty sure that exhibitions and the related educational programming will serve as the primary public attraction well into the 21st century.

In order to keep exhibits and programs feeling up-to-date, educators, exhibitors and programmers have had to identify new tools and innovative ways of presenting refreshing, open-ended experiences day in and day out. Lots of them are experimenting with flexible program delivery methods like activity carts.

Carts answer the question of how to provide more activities for visitors while addressing that long bulleted list of expectations. Beyond relating museum mission messages to local school curricula, carts are family-focused, visitor-friendly and interactive. They can move from place to place. They're simple. They're affordable. They're fun.

Maybe the best thing about carts is that they're based on one of the oldest and most reliable forms of audience engagement: direct, one-on-one human contact. A museum visitor meets a museum staff person face-to-face--on the floor, close to the habitat, in front of the painting, next to the tank.

Great exhibits and their related programs inspire audiences to forge personal links with what they see and experience, inviting them to connect with new ideas in memorable ways. Carts help this happen. They bring staff and objects to the museum floor, providing self-contained platforms for open-ended, immediate exchange with audiences. By putting staff, objects and new ideas into direct proximity with visitors, carts become platforms for meaningful conversation.

Museum Explorer has developed a host of program carts for museums and zoos alike. Visitors and museum professionals couldn't be more pleased with the results. In addition, we were invited to present our work with carts at a Smithsonian Institution roundtable this spring. Watch for more details to come!

Speak Up For Museums!

If you've read the latest issue of Museum magazine, what you're about to read here will be old news. If you don't get Museum or haven't gotten around to reading it yet, here's a quick project for you.

The American Association of Museums is holding its third annual Museums Advocacy Day on February 28 and March 1. On February 28, a lot of people who care about museums will gather in Washington, DC, to learn effective ways to make the case for museums with members of Congress. On March 1, these "citizen-advocates" will actually meet with members of Congress to let them know how their legislative decisions will affect the museum community.

We can't all travel to Washington to participate in Museums Advocacy Day. But anyone who loves a museum of any size or shape can speak up for museums. Let your voice be heard! Here's how:

1. Go to speakupformuseums.org.

2. Enter your ZIP code in the "Contact Congress" box at the upper right side of the home page.

3. You may need to enter your street address and city on the next page.

4. When you arrive at the Advocacy page, you will see links to your elected officials. You will also see a link on that page for "Issues." Click here for a list of letters on a variety of topics important to museums today. (Our favorites: Why I Love Museums and Museums are Critical Partners in Education.)

5. When you click on the letter of your choice, you will be asked to enter your contact information. When you click the button to "Review Your Message(s)," the text of the letter will appear.

6. Personalize the letter as you wish. Hit the send button, and your letter will land in the inbox of a legislator whose decisions will affect the future of our museums and our communities.

Speak up, and speak often. Let your senators and representatives know how important museums are to you--and why.