Firm Chosen to Plan New Design for Museum – The Daily Californian

After months of deliberation, New York-based firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro was named Wednesday to oversee the long-awaited design plan for the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in Downtown Berkeley.

Tough choices.   Maker Faire at $25 per day or AAM at $240 per day

Maker Faire 2008

American Association of Museums conference is May 23rd-26th in Los Angles, CA and the Maker Faire is May 22nd and 23rd in San Mateo, CA.  To be honest I have a lot more fun at the Maker Faire, there is a spirit of sharing and freedom missing from Museum conferences.  If ever there is a museum topic that needs to be addressed it is a sense of freedom and sharing.  I’m going to Maker Faire, then to Los Angles to meet with people at the conference .  As a group of professionals we need to rethink this, why don’t we give up overpriced cookies and coffee and standing around in ties and have some fun!

http://www.makerfaire.com/bayarea/2010/schedule/

As part of California Proposition 84, $93 Million Dollars in grant money is available to California public non-profit organizations that inspire and educate the public.

Grant Website:
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?Page_id=26026

Application PDF:
http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/1008/files/nef_application_guide_2010.pdf

Nature Education Facilities Program

NEF TIMELINE

Application Due Date 07/01/10

Eligible institutions include those that:
Combine the study of natural science with preservation, demonstration and education programs that serve diverse populations
Institutions that provide collections and programs related to the relationship of Native American cultures to the environment, and
Institutions for marine wildlife conservation research.

Eligible applicants:
Public institutions including cities, counties, districts (as defined), California State Agencies and Non-profit organizations qualified to do business in California, and qualified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Eligible projects:
Eligible projects include nature education facilities, buildings, structures and exhibit galleries that present collections to inspire and educate the public and marine wildlife conservation research equipment and facilities.

Program Lead:
Sandy Berry
Nature Education Facilities Program
Office of Grants and Local Services
(916) 651-7741
sberr@parks.ca.gov

http://www.imls.gov/about/21stCSkills.shtm

Institute of Museum and Library Services has published the  Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills report.

“The report outlines a vision for the role of libraries and museums in the national dialogue around learning and 21st century skills and includes case studies of innovative audience engagement and 21st century skills practices from across the country.”

Images: Daniele Mattioli

Amazing exhibition “Seed Cathedral” at Expo 2010 Shanghai China. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick.

http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

http://en.expo2010.cn/c/en_gj_tpl_71.htm

1. Science Centers – Most Innovative
2. Aquariums
3. Children’s Museums
4. Natural History Museums
5. Mobile museums
6. Military and war museums
7. Corporate museums
8. State history museums
9. Art Museums
10. Zoos
11. Local History Museums
12. Living History, Farm and Agriculture Museums
13. Historic houses – Least Innovative

At a museum conference session participants became defensive about adopting technology in museum galleries.  It got me thinking, “is there a “Spectrum of Innovation in Museums ?”".  “Are some types of museum more innovative than others?”

“Spectrum of Innovation in Museums” (for the purpose of the spectrum including Science Centers, Zoos, Living History and Aquariums). Such a spectrum is an insight into the culture of different institutions.

The question I asked myself, “how likely would the museum be to adopt a new technology? (not based on budget)”

Of course this is a generalization, would love to hear feedback.

- Mark

A friend sent the attached link amazing!  What if all transportation infrastructure was kinetic sculpture?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

Concept Video:

http://www.bennettmg.co.uk/video/falkirk_concept.htm

In Operation:

http://www.bennettmg.co.uk/video/falkirk.htm

Congratulations to the winners of the Museum and the Web 2010 best websites

Museums and the web link

Category	Institution, Site and URL
Education
	Museum of Modern Art Meet Me | The MoMA Alzheimer’s Project: Making Art Accessible to People with Dementia http://www.moma.org/meetme
Exhibition (Honourable Mention)
	The Historical Society of Pennsylvania PhilaPlace http://www.philaplace.org/
Exhibition
	Museum of Modern Art Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity 1919-1933 http://www.moma.org/bauhaus
Innovative
	Royal Observatory, Greenwich Solar Stormwatch http://solarstormwatch.com/
Long-lived
	Culture24 Culture24 http://www.culture24.org.uk/
Museum Professional
	Museum Marketing http://museummarketing.org/
Podcast
	National Museum of Australia National Museum of Australia’s Audio on demand program http://www.nma.gov.au/audio/
Research
	Victoria & Albert Museum V&A Search the Collections http://collections.vam.ac.uk/
Small
	Dulwich OnView Dulwich Picture Gallery http://www.dulwichonview.org.uk/
Social Media
	Picasso Museum Museu Picasso Online Community http://www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/get-involved/online-community.html
People’s Choice
	National 911 Memorial and Museum Make History http://911history.org/
Best Overall
	Indianapolis Museum of Art ArtBabble http://www.artbabble.org

The City Museum

This week I received an email from a start up museum with four questions:

What does it take to make a great museum?
What makes a museum popular?
Why are museums successful?
What are the best story lines?

At first I thought there is no way to answer such big questions.   Yet, I am reading Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond.  The question posed in the book is much bigger “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own”, an even bigger question than the museum posed to me.

My take:

What does it take to make a great museum?
My favorite museums are the the ones that are unique, offering something I can’t see or experience anyplace else.  Whether that is an amazing collection of Art, unusual museum architecture, or unique exhibits.

What makes a museum popular?
Being a destination, offering something that is of value that cannot be experienced elsewhere.

Why are museums successful?
Several surveys rank museums as the most trusted source of information, often being a valued source of content is the driving force in making the museum successful.

What are the best story lines?
Yours!  If you don’t have a good story to tell you shouldn’t build the museum.  All great museums have a great “elevator pitch”, if I asked you to describe the Exploratorium most people would say “A huge building with science exhibits built there in the workshop by artists”, the “elevator pitch” is accurate and is the message delivered.

Below is a list of the software I use. I use a MacBook Pro, travel often so like having the laptop.  In the studio have two Mac design workstations and an office computer.

Design:

Sketchup – Free, 3D drawing software

Tux Paint – Free, Great for doing a quick sketches

VectorWorks – Drafting

Photoshop – Image Editing

Illustrator – Drawing software

Project Management

Gantt Project – Free, Wonderful for creating quick schedules

Microsoft Project – Use to create more detailed schedules

Presentations

Open Office – Free and Open Source office suite, use when can’t open a document in Microsoft Word or Excel

Pages – Better for writing documents than Microsoft Word

Keynote – The best for making presentations

iMovie – Creating movies

Inspiration – Use to create bubble diagrams

Microsoft Office – Microsoft Word and Excel

iphoto – Organizing photos

Office

Firefox – Free, Web Browser

Daylite – Customer Relationship Management, I have tried others keep coming back

Palm Desktop – Free, Contact Database

itunes – Listening to music while I work

Skype – International calling and chat

XStreamRipper – Free, Use to record my favorite Internet radio programs

Apple Mail – Email

Quickbooks – Use for accounting

Parallels – Use so I can run Microsoft Project on a Mac

Plaxo – Free, Use to remember birthdays

Whatsize – Gives you an idea of how your hard drive is being used

Super Dupper! – Great program makes a copy of your hard drive as a back up

Backblaze – Online back up of all files

Disk Inventory – Free, A visual of your hard drive use