What do I need to know?/Guest Observations

Out of PARI's collection, there are two things I'm now fairly sure would be good exhibit fodder:

1. How do we talk to/in space? (Using Rosman's history as a tracking station and the three or four antennas that are part of the collection, as well as the communications satellite. I think that's what it is, anyways. It's a little hard to tell.) 
2. Apollo/Apollo Soyuz. The 45th anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz is next year, which means that it's feasible to focus on that anniversary and use it as something of a dry run for the Apollo 11 50th anniversary (or A-S 50th), which is a bit further down the line. It also has press potential, since we have physical evidence of Rosman's involvement with A-S. 

That being said, I can't learn everything about How To Museum from books. I mean, I maybe could, but there would be trial and error involved. Better to get as much knowledge as possible (from limited and often outdated book resources) and keep the error to a minimum. Furthermore, part of my work plan involves hunting down actual people with actual experience and sorting out how they museum. 

Such people rarely have planned lectures for roaming bands of slightly confused/intimidated interns tasked with turning a pretty blah museum into something interesting or at least educational. I need to come up with things to ask them about. This museum thing involves a lot of talking to people--interviewing visitors, interviewing exhibit designers!--which you could never tell by the way that the loudest thing in the intern pit (where I am now) is a tossup between the big telescope computers in the corner, a computer mouse, and my keyboard... possibly the 3D printers, depending on how close to them you are. 

SO. What do I need to know that I'm having trouble learning from books? What are some practical concerns or problems that could benefit from outside advice? How did other museums transform themselves into nicely put together educational institutions? What resources did they use that I could use? 

1. How did the institution decide what should and should not be part of its display collection? 
2. What interactive exhibit designs do visitors tend to favour?
3. What is the worst thing an exhibit designer/gallery organiser could do? 
4. How important is graphic design to a well-planned exhibit? 
5. What is the best way to link or combine two relatively unrelated areas of science (...geology and space history)? 
6. What makes an exhibit memorable, in the experience of the institution?
7. What are common setbacks/pitfalls in exhibit design?

There are probably other things I should ask, and other routes I should pursue, but that's somewhere to start. 

Something else I should discuss: you may have seen, a few times, when a museum has a sort of wall or white board at the end of the exhibit gallery with post-it notes. Such a white board may, in an exhibit about the butterfly effect for example, have a question at the top which reads, "What's a decision that you made which turned out to have unexpected consequences?" The post-its are then provided with golf pencils to allow visitors to leave feedback. 

Like this. (From google images.)

While a large-scale wall seems a little bit silly for a tiny little museum, a small feedback wall could be very useful when I try to figure out what would work well at PARI. I'm not always available when people tour the museum, or aware that they're even here. It might also be a little bit creepy if I follow them around taking notes while they try and eke something out of the current setup, or if I chase them down the road to interview them in detail. A feedback wall, left to its own devices somewhere prominent (ain't that the trick) could make things a little less weird.

The problem is, what to ask?

• Which part of PARI's gallery was the most interesting?

• What would you like to know more about?

• What did you gain from visiting our museum? 

• Further our progress! What more would you like to see? (Provide several options, maybe like a chart that visitors could leave the notes under?) 

Hmm.

Alternately, whenever guests come in that aren't part of a tour, it might not be a bad approach to just wander the gallery and let them know what I'm doing and that I might be able to answer any questions. I just attempted this and made the following observations:

• The computer labeled "Touch Screen to Begin Tour" is all well and good, and relatively user friendly--user friendly enough, anyways--but basically useless in its current location. Which is... nowhere near any door whatsoever. It might be nice to put this in the door to the exhibit gallery found in the multi media room, since it seems to present the same information given on an official tour without requiring the big 'ol computer or a volunteer to turn on said computer.

• Among the rocks, the "prettiest" specimens might be nice to keep on display. The herkimer diamond, the nicest quartzes, the nicest geodes, the fossils, the petrified logs, the nicest rubies and sapphires and emeralds and garnets and so on. Rocks that don't look like much but could be mildly scientifically interesting--the trinitite, the uranite, and so on--could use a placard or something to set them apart. This is where graphic design works wonders. 

• North Carolina rocks are a bit more interesting than non-North Carolina rocks. It might be worthwhile to focus on the diversity of the state. 

• Nothing should be placed where an adult, especially an adult who might have problems, should have to kneel to read it. Mostly because that's annoying, uncomfortable, and takes considerable focus away from otherwise potentially interesting specimens. The most colourful, scientifically interesting, relevant, or exciting rocks (to be determined precisely which those are!) should go at eye level or in one of the approximately chest level display cases. These latter ones would be better for children or people in wheelchairs. (How many of those do we get? IDK. But some might show up and it'd be nice for them to enjoy the experience.) 

• The museum communicates basically nothing about Rosman's history. The shuttle stuff is fun, however, and should stay prominent because everyone knows what a space shuttle is. The tire is probably safe enough to touch--possibly the wing section as well--which adds an element of interactivity, prompting a "Hey, come take a look at this thing!/Look at what I found!" (Which, by getting a visitor personally involved, is a Good Thing.)

• The wall-of-text style signs are basically ignored by more casual observers. An enthusiast will read them, and potentially recommend them to others, but that doesn't mean the others will take them up on that advice.

• Organization would be nice. Of any kind. 

• The stuff in APDA's alcove--where it talks about the glass plate archive, which is one of PARI's main contributions--gets ignored. The satellite partially blocks people from noticing it's there, I think.

• The television screens and videos are, in their current state, possibly more distracting and annoying than they are informative. It would be nice to integrate them into proper exhibits, but right now, they would be similarly useful if they just played cartoons or The Martian or were turned off altogether. There are NASA-produced videos and animations that could be integrated into the site.

• The window provides a great view of one of the 26M telescopes that is currently VASTLY under-utilized. 

  

  The view I'm talking about, in case anyone forgot.