I am currently in Saigon, Vietnam, and visited the War Remnants Museum, a very powerful experience! As I am walking through the Museum I keep noticing small issues that are easily changed, but have a large impact on the visitor experience such as lighting, wayfinding and heights of graphic panels. Recently I have completed an exhibition audit for the Mobius Science Center preview facility.  The  Review included:

• Interviews with visitors
• Mapping of the visitor experience
• Review of exhibition lighting
• Suggestions for changes to visitor flow
• Review of graphics
• Review of wayfinding
• Review of audio visual systems
• Review of exhibition media
• Review of exhibit maintenance and repair program
• A review of the mix of types of exhibit, static, highly interactive, simple manipulatives
• A written report containing, recommendations for changes

If you are interested in a $1000 objective exhibition audit send me an email;

Mark’s Email

for a copy of a sample exhibition audit.

Washing Machine?  What does a washing machine have to do with with museum planning?

Most medium to large museums have a laundry facility, why?

• Washing of uniforms
• Washing of guest’s clothing
• Washing of rags

What does this have to do with museum planning?

• What is your policy on uniforms?  Can staff wear street clothes?  A museum apron? Museum Shirt?
• Who washes the uniform, the staff? The museum? A service?
• Where does the washing machine go?  Near a break room so the uniform can be left for washing? Near the loading dock so a service can easily pick up the uniforms?
• What happens if a young visitor has an accident and their clothes need to be washed?  Will the museum wash the clothes for them?
• Will your maintenance shop have staff to clean exhibits? or do you use a cleaning service? Who cleans the rags that clean the exhibits?

There are lots of questions with no right or wrong answers, but each answer,  the culture of your institution is formed.

Tutankhamun shabti, © SANDRO VANNINI

From: Nuvo,  “Indy’s Alternative Newspaper”

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Julianna Thibodeaux

Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, one of the most high-profile blockbusters the city has seen recently, has just opened in unlikely quarters: the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. This local institution, touted as the world’s largest children’s museum, is actually not such a leap: the behemoth building with its newly expanded Welcome Center — two additional dinosaur replicas penetrating the new stories-high wall of windows in a perpetual state of party crashing — has certainly expanded to fill its increasingly large paw prints … but in a measured and strategic way. It is in this sense that Tut is a surprise.

President and CEO Jeffrey Patchen, speaking to me in a telephone interview after I’d toured the exhibition with my three children — ages 14, 4 and 2 — admitted that, while such an awe-inspiring exhibition does fit in with the museum’s mission — “to create extraordinary learning experiences that have the power to transform the lives of children and families” — it is also a departure: At a member rate of $15 for adults and $8 for children (non-members pay $25 and $15, with some discounts available), with prices determined by exhibition organizers, the mere fact of a ticket price separate from regular museum admission is something the museum largely did away with years ago. But as Patchen pointed out, the museum would not have been able to pay the rental fee for such a blockbuster. And this one practically fell in its lap, like a dust shower inside an Egyptian tomb.

The story begins four years ago, when the museum, through the development of another exhibit, first allied itself with Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt — referred to by Patchen as the real Indiana Jones — who invited museum staff to consult with first lady Suzanne Mubarak on the development of a children’s museum in Cairo. Hawass told Patchen, “We’ll work out some sort of thank you that’s appropriate.” And so it was announced, roughly two years later, that this latest Tutankhamun blockbuster would make its second stop (after Atlanta) in Indianapolis.

In order to make the exhibition more accessible, a $2 million grant from the Lilly Endowment was secured to underwrite the cost of free admission for 98,000 Indiana school students. Patchen told me more than 60,000 of these have already been claimed — so teachers reading this should act quickly to reserve their tickets.

While Tut is wonderful for the 8-and-up set (and museum literature promotes it as such), it is best not wasted on the younger ones. Taking my kids through Tut was more of a treat for me (and my 14-year-old) than it was for my younger kids; the beautiful artifacts displayed in moodily-lit galleries, some of which are organized according to what was found in the rooms of Tutankhamun’s tomb, while stunning, were so much statuary to my youngest, who kept trying to clear the security ropes to scale the pharaohs and funerary urns.

Save their ticket prices for the gift shop. But first hurry them over to Take Me There: Egypt, which reaffirms the museum’s excellence in installation development: Children (and their parents) can enlighten themselves about language and communication, urban and rural living spaces, the marketplace, care of the environment, and visual and performing arts in the country of Egypt, which many will learn for the first time is in Africa. Such a cultural immersion should do much to alleviate prejudice against the predominantly Muslim country, which too many Americans associate with terrorism and the events of Sept. 11.

While Tut is organized by National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions, the museum developed this new permanent but thematically-revolving installation Take Me There (replacing Passport to the World) to coincide with Tut. Take Me There: Egypt, open for the next two years, is free with regular museum admission; and as a companion to Tut, it does for children what Tut cannot: provide the kind of hands-on, interactive experience for which the museum is known.

Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs runs through October 2009. The museum is located at 3000 N. Meridian St. For tickets, visit www.childrensmuseum.org or www.kingtut.org.

From Wikipedia

Natural History Museum London, Photo by DAVID ILIFF

“A museum is a “permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment”, as defined by the International Council of Museums.[1] The UK Museums Association definition (adopted 1998)[2] is:

“Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artifacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society.”

Etymology

The English “museum” comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as “museums” (or, rarely, “musea”). It is originally from the Greek (Mouseion)[3], which denotes a place or temple dedicated to the Muses (the patron divinities in Greek mythology of the arts), and hence a building set apart for study and the arts,[4] especially the institute for philosophy and research at the Library established at Alexandria by Ptolemy I Soter c280 BCE.[5] The first museum/library considered to be the one of Plato in Athens[6]. However, Pausanias gives another place called “Museum”, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill and died there of old age and was subsequently buried there as well.[7]

Overview

Museums collect and care for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and make them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Many museums offer programs and activities for a range of audiences, including adults, children, and families, as well as those for more specific professions. Programs for the public may consist of lectures or tutorials by the museum faculty or field experts, films, musical or dance performances, and technology demonstrations. Many times, museums concentrate on the host region’s culture. Although most museums do not allow physical contact with the associated artifacts, there are some that are interactive and encourage a more hands-on approach. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of subject matter and introduced many interactive exhibits, which give the public the opportunity to make choices and engage in activities that may vary the experience from person to person. With the advent of the internet, there are growing numbers of virtual exhibits, i.e. web versions of exhibits showing images and playing recorded sound.

Museums are usually open to the general public, sometimes charging an admission fee. Some museums are publicly funded and have free entrance, either permanently or on special days, e.g. once per week or year.

Museums are usually not run for the purpose of making a profit, unlike private galleries which more often engage in the sale of objects. There are governmental museums, non-governmental or non-profit museums, and privately owned or family museums. Museums can be a reputable and generally trusted source of information about cultures and history.

1. ^ “ICOM Statutes”. INternational Council of Museums. http://icom.museum/statutes.html#2. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
2. ^ “Frequently asked questions”. Museums Association. http://www.museumsassociation.org/faq. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
3. ^ Mouseion, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
4. ^ Findlen, Paula (1989). “The Museum: its classical etymology and renaissance genealogy“. Journal of the History of Collections 1: 59–78. doi:10.1093/jhc/1.1.59 (inactive 2008-06-25). http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/59. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
5. ^ “Ptolemy I Soter, The First King of Ancient Egypt’s Ptolemaic Dynasty”. Tour Egypt. http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ptolemy1.htm. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
6. ^ Mouseion, def. 3, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
7. ^ Peter Levi, Pausanias Guide to Greece 1: Central Greece, p. 72-73 (Paus. 1.25.2)

By Ed Wyatt
Published April 29, 2009
New York Times

LOS ANGELES — The value of the J. Paul Getty Trust’s endowment has fallen so sharply and quickly — and its recovery is so uncertain — that the Getty has taken the unusual step of abandoning its traditional budgeting formula, adding to its layoffs and cutting back plans for museum programs and acquisIn a summary of the budget cuts that will affect all four of the Getty Trust’s divisions, most severely the J. Paul Getty Museum, trust officials said on Wednesday that the institution had suspended its usual practice of basing its annual budget on an average of the endowment’s value over the last 36 months. Instead, it will use the $4.2 billion current value of the endowment, which has declined by 27 percent since the end of the last fiscal yeaAs a result, the trust’s overall budget will decline by 24 percent, to $220 million, with 97 employees being laid off and another 108 budgeted positions eliminated. The cuts will fall most harshly on the Getty Museum, the largest component of the trust, which will lose 62 positions and 25 percent of its James N. Wood, the president and chief executive of the Getty Trust, said that while limiting layoffs was a priority, “we also felt strongly that it was essential to preserve free entrance and existing public hours for our visitors.”

Museum visitors are not going to be fully spared the pain of the Getty’s budget squeeze, however. Fees for parking at the Getty Museum and the Getty Villa will increase on July 1 to $15 from $10. For a hilltop museum with no public parking nearby and in a city with limited public transportation, the parking increase is practically the same as an admission fee.

To some degree the cuts can also be traced to the trust’s longstanding policy of relying on earnings from its endowment, rather than fund-raising, to pay for operations. In recent years the trust adopted an investment policy that like that of many foundations, emphasized investments in illiquid assets like real estate, private equity and hedge funds.

Last June 30, “alternative investments,” which also include things like venture capital and distressed debt, made up 62 percent of the Getty’s holdings, with stocks at 24 percent. A recent prospectus for a Getty bond offering noted that the trust’s investment policy called for about 48 percent of its portfolio to be allocated to alternative investments, raising the question of whether the trust had been pushing the boundaries of its rules.

In June 2007 the trust’s endowment totaled more than $6 billion.

James Williams, the chief investment officer at the Getty Trust, said in an interview that the recent declines in the endowment’s value were “basically in line with the performance of other endowments” at universities and other nonprofit institutions and that asset allocations were “within the approved range” of the trust’s investment policy. He declined to comment on the specific current allocations.

“We have more than ample liquidity,” Mr. Williams said. “I would strongly disagree with any suggestion that this is a riskier portfolio. It is consistent with the best institutional funds out there.”

Mr. Wood, the chief executive, said that the trust’s board had decided to abandon the three-year-average formula to set its budget because, while it would ease the pain of budget cuts this year, “it would be setting ourselves up for a very big drop down the road.”

When he was appointed the Getty’s chief executive in December 2006, the institution was embroiled in a different type of crisis. The previous president, Barry Munitz, was forced out amid criticism of his leadership and questions about his use of the trust’s money.

The California attorney general appointed an independent monitor to oversee reforms at the institution, which in addition to the museum includes a conservation institute, a grant-giving foundation and a research arm. The Getty Museum was also the subject of inquiries into whether it had purchased stolen antiquities; the museum has in recent years been making agreements to return some works to their native countries.

“The immediate issues that we addressed were governance issues,” Mr. Wood said on Wednesday, but shortly after he turned to a strategic study that led to some minor administrative restructurings last year.

The new budget cuts mean that the Getty Conservation Institute will close 16 current projects and eliminate public programming. The Getty Foundation will slow its grant making, cut internships and reduce its gift-matching program, and the Getty Research Institute will cut library hours and acquisitions and transfer some databases to other institutions.

The Getty Museum will also reduce the number and scope of its temporary exhibitions and collection rotations, although no major exhibitions that have already been publicized have been canceled.

Michael Brand, the museum director, said the museum would withdraw from some larger exhibitions that had not yet been publicized, but he declined to specify which shows.

Mr. Brand said the museum had also considered instituting an admission fee but had decided against it. “In an environment like this, one is obliged to look at all ideas. But we concluded that maintaining our free-admission policy is absolutely what we should be doing.”

And while the trust’s board raised the parking fee, Mr. Wood said, the museum hoped that the move would not discourage visitors. “We desperately need the income, but we had to look at what would help us the most without making ourselves uncompetitive with other entertainment and high-art venues.”

For $15, he noted, “you can put as many people in the car as you want.” In other words, unlike the drive-ins of another era, the Getty will not be checking the trunk for stowaways.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 5, 2009
An article on Thursday about budget cuts at the J. Paul Getty Trust misidentified the objects that the Getty Research Institute, one of the trust’s divisions, will be transferring to other institutions, in addition to cutting library hours and acquisitions. They are databases, not collections.

The Smithsonian Institution has an amazing archive of reports. One of the more interesting is typical exhibition costs. Click on the link below to download the report.

http://www.si.edu/opanda/Reports/EXCost.pdf

You can also check out the other reports at:

http://www.si.edu/opanda/current.html

Probably the number one question that I am asked.

“The quick answer is: the rule of thumb in the industry is $175-$450 per square foot”

Why such a wide range?

“An Art exhibit mostly flat Art work, little mount making or rigging can start at $175 per square foot including graphics. An interactive Science Center exhibition with a high density of interactive exhibits is upwards of $450 per square foot and beyond. When Disney does preliminary estimates of their attractions they budget $650 per sqaure foot.

For additional reading review the National Association of Museum Exhibitors (NAME) newsletter #