Begin Phase 2: Museum Pestering

Or: I ramble a lot and compare museum sizes to dinosaurs.

My mentor is in Greensboro today, which means I'm left to my own devices to come up with a daily activity that fits the weekly schedule I'm supposed to follow. I'm running out of books or lectures that seem remotely helpful, barring recommendations from aforementioned mentor, and my schedule reads that this week, I am supposed to

1. Identify appropriate museums/exhibit models to benchmark.
2. Begin the process of investigating select museums, which includes preparing a travel schedule, contacting appropriate people, and creating some kind of questionnaire to assist in some kind of in-person investigation. 

I can only assume that the first point refers to setting some kind of standard for "Exhibit Effectiveness".

The problem arises when one considers that PARI has no competitors in Space Science in North Carolina. There are other museums that have effective interactive exhibits--that's about all Charlotte's Discovery Place seems to have these days--and effective rock exhibits, such as in the Schiele Museum (heck, they have an annual rock and fossil festival). There are other science museums within a day's travel of PARI, such as the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge (three hour drive, annoying but totally doable). Heck, there's anything in Atlanta--comparable distance if you get there around 10 or so, which is when one would arrive if they left before 8am. I don't know what kind of a museum the Fernbank is, mostly fossils, but it might also be useful. Heck...the Atlanta aquarium might have somebody with useful advice, although the scale is something like comparing an anole to a spinosaurus.

If you haven't seen an anole for a while, they're about the same size and mass as an EXPO white board marker.

The US Space and Rocket Center is probably the closest museum that does space science, which is definitely going to be a mixed blessing, since it's around 6 hours from here. On the one hand, we have a monopoly for far northern GA, the NC mountain and piedmont regions, eastern TN and possible far western VA. If you want a museum that does space science, we are the only day-trippable option. 

Still. What science museums are within a 3-4 hour radius of PARI? (Aka: Who can I pester that might be relevant to Mission: Make Exhibits User Friendly?) 

• Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC. This one isn't even a question of "Should I?"--my mentor knows the people who work behind the scenes there, I've gone there for literally as long as I can remember, I should go. They're only tangentially connected to PARI, content wise, but they do a great job of interesting kids. I guess. I don't really care for it since the remodelling, but I'm that random who reads all the signs in a museum, something many normal people apparently don't do. 
• The Schiele Museum in Gastonia, NC. Some of their stuff is pretty hit-or-miss, but they regularly do focus on space stuff. They have their traveling planets exhibit there still, from what I can tell--it's a bit old at this point, but it's sponsored and takes up their traveling exhibit hall, and people seem to like it. So if they know who was responsible for the development on that, they would be great to talk with. Furthermore, when they do have interactive exhibits, they tend to do them in a somewhat old school way, which seems (to me) in line with some of PARI's charm. (See the 1970s era carpeting.) 
• The Science and Energy Museum in Oak Ridge, TN. Do we have connections there? Not really, at least not that I know of. But they do interactives decently well and are probably the closest museum within my radius to what PARI offers, the rocks in Gastonia notwithstanding. 
• The Colburn Earth Science Museum in Asheville, NC. They have rocks and they're nearby. It's on the list of "You're crazy if you don't go here." I don't know if we have connections with them, but if they aren't connected to PARI, they should be. Just for the proximity, and the fact that we offer some things they don't--our meteorite collection is one of the best (on display) that I've seen. 
• Hesitantly included because Atlanta is one of the lesser known circles of Hell: The Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, GA. They have rocks and fossils, and I do actually know a girl who at least used to work there. I say know: She gave me her number after I met her at the lunar eclipse last fall, and I haven't heard from her since. Their reviews say the museum itself is kind of dated, and they're mostly dinosaurs (from what I can tell). So I can't say if they'd be relevant or not. 

There are other museums; I'll ask my mentor, when he gets back from Greensboro, if he has any ideas. He probably does; there's a North Carolina association of museums, and I believe that all of the NC museums are members. He used to work with them, and wanted to send me to the children's museum he put together. (I would list it, but I don't know the name.) There are also museums outside of my radius, some more than others, that are worth at least listing. It's possible I might be able to weekend one or more of them, or a the very least, get in contact with relevant personnel and see if they have any general advice/suggestions. 

• The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. It's possible that I know this museum better than any other. I know how they went from "Space Junk in an engineer's attic" to "Engaging and well designed science center", and witnessed the transformation over a period of years. It's a 6 hour drive, so not as far as some, and certainly the closest thing we have to a regional competitor...although again, I refer to the earlier comparison of an anole and a spinosaurus. Well, maybe an anole and a (slightly smaller) Allosaurus. The USSRC lacks an aquarium capable of holding whale sharks, although it has a building capable of holding a Saturn V. The rocket park itself--where it keeps the rockets outside for people to walk around and see--isn't really that different, in terms of scale, from our 26m telescopes. 

  

  Human v. Allosaurus

• The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Half our collection is on loan, or on permanent loan, from these guys. They're also close to Goddard, which given that Goddard is the reason for PARI's existence, it's probably something of a parental gesture on their part to make sure that PARI has something to put on display apart from random stuff on loan or donated by private philatelists. (The stamp boxes are still on my desk, by the way.) They're 8 hours away, so I would really prefer not to deal with this...9 if I drive to Raleigh and take the train up. I would prefer basically anywhere closer first. It could be useful; I've actually already made use of several Smithsonian museology resources, and they're the best in the country. The Natural History Museum, given its focus on rocks and so on, also falls into this slot, if you will. 
• Kennedy Space Science Center near Orlando, FL. Again: See "anywhere closer first". Would I like to visit someday? Oh yeah. Would I like to drive there from PARI and then drive back two days later? Oh no. It's 9 hours. Pending traffic. No. No. No. Would I learn something? Probably. Do I want to? No. Is it a good idea? Nooooo. Could I potentially get in contact with somebody there and interrogate them after or during my other investigations? ...Maybe. 

There is also, I learned in the process of looking up museums a Coca-Cola Space Science Center near the GA-AL border if you really want to go to Auburn, AL (for whatever reason). Why is this a thing? They're trying to get a 1/4 scale space shuttle and are probably the USSRC's greatest space science competitor...for people in Atlanta. I mean, it's a smaller museum, more on the scale of Dakotaraptor in my extended Dinosaur-museum-size-ranking. Presumably it is rather less feathery. 

Human with Hat v. Dakotaraptor

Also, I've re-thought where PARI stands, as far as amount-of-stuff-interesting-to-visitors in terms of the dinosaur-ranking system. We might be rather more like Deinonychus, made famous (I guess) from Jurassic Park. (They weren't Jurassic, they had feathers, and Jurassic Park likely overestimated their intelligence and called them velociraptors but you get the idea.)

PARI is Deinonychus

All of this brings me back to last week: What do I need to know from these museums?

1. How do you choose what audiences to cater to, and how do you opt to cater specifically to those audiences--or different audiences within the same exhibit?
2. What principles of design are important when creating an effective exhibit? 
3. How do you choose to arrange your museum and have you noticed if that has had any effect on visitor experiences? (From my research, this aside is directed at those of you who suggested putting a definite "path" for visitors in: That would be an awesome idea...except, I don't know how effective it could be when you have literally two rooms. Two fairly large rooms, yes, but two rooms. Or, more accurately, I don't see how it would be any more effective than not putting in a definite path and just letting visitors circle the room. You got me?)
4. Are there any to-be-avoided-at-all-costs pitfalls that this museum encountered when creating, installing, and maintaining its exhibits? What has this museum done to avoid those pitfalls since? 
5. How has this museum taken steps to increase community involvement? Has this had a notable impact in terms of visitors, funding, etc?
6. (After touring, or if I'm familiar with the museum) What process went in to designing [some especially memorable exhibit/hall/display]? Do guests seem to favour this exhibit as much as I do? What exhibits are more/the most popular? (if I turn out to be an outlier.) 

All of these address the four things I concluded are important in the Museum Visitor Experience: 

How well a museum can match their reasons for going, how easy it is to learn from and interact with the material, how lost you can get exploring, and how well a museum can stand up to repeat visits. In a nutshell from the visitor's perspective, Motivation, Accessibility, Clarity, and Repeat Novelty. 

Furthermore, how can I convince actual museum people to talk to me, an intern from a tiny little museum in an old Goddard Data Acquisition Facility? 

Dear Sir/Ma'am,

I'm writing to you as part of the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute's on-site museum. As you may or may not be aware, we are currently in the process of attempting to update our exhibit galleries and, as an intern with very little in the way of a museology background, I have been set the task of gathering as much information to help with our renovation as possible. I would like to visit your institution to learn what I can from your example, and was curious if I could get in contact with anyone responsible for any of your exhibit design? Failing that, is there anyone I can contact who regularly works with museum guests and is aware of their preferences? Our current setup is not the most visitor-friendly and I would like to learn what could be done to improve that. I would like to visit your institution between June 19 and July 1 and would appreciate it very much if I could speak with somebody during my visit.  Sincerely... 

Well, you get the idea; this is just me thinking out loud, since I can't do much today without meeting with the guy officially in charge of my specific internship. Well, not out loud: the loudest thing in here is still the 3D printer, which might be on the fritz. But forcing my thoughts into a recorded, linear manner that can be read and hopefully somewhat understood by future-me or anybody else who chooses to read them.

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with the rest of the day, actually, since I've only managed to eat up a few hours figuring out all the science centers in the SE I could feasibly day trip (or weekend).

hmmmm....

Oh: Phase 2: Museum Pestering is what comes before Phase 3: Actual Design Work. Just FYI.