Explore Some Small-Town Museums with TinCan

I am continuing to keep the blogging light to work on some pressing projects. Here is something neat that I discovered the other day Tin Can's Youtube channel, which includes a series of short video visits to small-town museums in our region.

Every small-town in eastern Washington seems to have a history museum, but they are hard to visit. Most are staffed by volunteers, open only a few hours a month, and have little or no web presences. So these videos are a real service. They were produced as a part of the grant-funded Inland Northwest Memories Project. 

These videos are good but by no means exhaustive--there are dozens of additional small-town museums within an hour of Spokane. It would be nice to see someone pick up this project, perhaps as a part of a film course at a local university.

Tacky Events at Public History Sites?

Here is a slick little video from the Public History program at Temple University about Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary and the annual haunted prison event there:



Eastern State Penitentiary is the most important prison museum in the United States, respected for its programs and the quality of its interpretation as well as the historic significance of the building. It is also home to the annual Terror Behind the Walls event where this nationally-significant historic site is turned into a fun house entertainment.

This Philadelphia Weekly article goes deeper into the controversy over the exhibit, which even Program Director XX admits "compromises the mission" of the museum. According to the article the event used to be much worse than it is now:

In the mid-’90s, “Terror”—which brought in new consultants to conceptualize the haunt—started transforming from the creepy candlelight tours of the first few years to something far more outrageous and sensationalized, with its actors recreating scenes specific to the prison’s history: Women crying because they’d been raped. Prisoners going crazy and climbing the walls due to the unyielding solitary confinement that the prison’s Quaker founders believed would cause inmates to reflect and repent their misdeeds. And a man standing on the roof stabbing himself, fake blood spurting all over the place.

The article also notes that Terror Behind the Walls is "a crucial cash cow" that "generated 65 percent" of the museums $4 million budget last year. I am shocked that a haunted house event could produce that much revenue--good for them!

I am interested in similar events--are there other historic sites that make compromises to host popular events in return for revenue and public support?

Black Interpreters at Colonial Williamsburg

From Black Public Media, a fascinating short documentary about black interpreters at Colonial Williamsburg:

Conserving Jefferson's Bible

There is a nice post over at the Smithsonian Museum blog Oh Say Can You See?: A peek inside the conservation of the Jefferson Bible.

A national treasure, the Bible recently received microscopic-level examination by a team of conservators trained in both book and paper conservation and by conservation scientists who specialize in materials analysis. A University of Hawaii intern created a purpose-built database to capture all the data observed. How much data? The Jefferson Bible conservation survey database holds over 200 points of observation for each page, and over 20,000 for the entire book.

For those arriving late to the game, the "Jefferson Bible" was a project of Jefferson's to edit the Gospels to his taste. He took a sharp knife and cut up the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into the individual verses. He discarded the verses with which he disagreed and then reassembled what was left in chronological order to create a single narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus. Jefferson was guided by his (more or less) deist principles and left out most of the miracles. There are no references to divine birth or resurrection. Jefferson considered the Apostles "unlettered and ignorant men" and sought to free the historical Jesus from what he considered their superstitions and falsehoods. Jefferson once described his own beliefs in a letter to Benjamin Rush: "To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other."

I really like the way the Smithsonian is blogging the conservation of the book. Jefferson, a fanatic letter-writer and a lover of technology, would surely approve. The museum has even made a video of the process. The video is silent (I think there is supposed to be sound and they screwed up) but gives us a wonderful look at the book:

Have you contacted your legislators about the MAC?

If you visit this blog you know that Washington governor Christine Gregoire has proposed closing the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture to help close the budget deficit. And you have seen the list of legislators and their contact information. Have you contacted your representatives and asked them to save the MAC?

Sculpture on the MAC grounds.

A few emails could really make the difference here. I wrote to everyone on the list and about half responded--and not with some mass email but with personalized responses. And most were positive, promising to fight for the MAC. Democracy works, if you make the effort.

Some c'mon, be a keyboard warrior for history and culture. Don't worry about crafting the perfect letter, just send something. This is a time where volume is more important than quantity. A few sentences are fine. Some points you could make:

• The MAC has already laid off 40% of its staff, it has done its part.
• The MAC attracts over 100,000 visitors annually including nearly 4,000 K‐12 students.
• The MAC is an important contributor to the region’s economy.
• The MAC is the only independent state agency east of the Cascades and eastern Washington's premiere cultural institution.

Here is the contact information for member of the Washington State Legislature. Click on an email address and send something off:

Lisa Brown, Ph.D.
3rd District Senator (D)
360-786-7604/509-456-2760
brown.lisa@leg.wa.gov

Kevin Parker
6th District Representative (R)
360-786-7922
parker.kevin@leg.wa.gov
      
Timm Ormsby
3rd District Representative (D)
360-786-7946/509-458-2122
ormsby.timm@leg.wa.gov

Bob Morton
7th District Senator (R)
360-786-7612/509-684-5132
morton.bob@leg.wa.gov
      
Andy Billig
3rd District Representative (D)
billig.andy@leg.wa.gov

Joel Kretz
7th District Representative (R)
360-786-7988/509-826-7203
kretz.joel@leg.wa.gov
      
Bob McCaslin
4th District Senator (R)
360-786-7606
mccaslin.bob@leg.wa.gov

Shelly Short
7th District Representative (R)
360-786-7908
short.shelly@leg.wa.gov
      
Larry Crouse
4th District Representative (R)
360-786-7820
crouse.larry@leg.wa.gov

Mark Schoesler
9th District Senator (R)
360-786-7620/509-659-1774
schoesler.mark@leg.wa.gov
      
Matt Shea
4th District Representative (R)
360-786-7984
shea.matt@leg.wa.gov

Susan Fagan
9th District Representative (R)
360) 786-7942
fagan.susan@leg.wa.gov
      
Michael Baumgartner
6th District Senator (R)
baumgartner.michael@leg.wa.gov

Joe Schmick
9th District Representative (R)
360-786-7844
schmick.joe@leg.wa.gov
      
John Ahern
6th District Representative (R)
ahern.john@leg.wa.gov

Christine Gregoire
Washington State Governor
PO Box 40002
Olympia, WA  98504-0002
360-902-4111/509-329-2882

Save the MAC!

Those of you in Spokane may already know that in her proposed 2011-2013 budget Governor Gregoire has proposed closing the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture. The doors would be closed and the staff would be reduced from 34.8 to 2.8 full-time equivalents--basically someone to mow the lawn. The museum exhibits and the Campbell House would close, the cultural events would end, and the public would lose access to the historic records and collections that the museum holds. The Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma is to get the same treatment. For the historical community in Washington State this is an unprecedented disaster in the making.

State Budget vs. the MAC

The attached statement and supporting documents from the MAC Museum board president relate to the Governor’s budget made public today. Her budget has plans to close the Museum to the public.
How can you help?

     1. Contact your elected officials and tell them how important the MAC is to you and this community.

     2. Contact five of your friends and ask them to do the same.

     3. Become a member of the MAC!  

Let your representatives know how important the MAC is to our region and, for the preservation of historical and cultural treasures that can be found nowhere else.

This is just the first step in the budget process. Our legislative delegation has been extremely supportive, and we are working closely with them.  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call.

We are moving full-steam ahead in anticipation of da Vinci exhibit opening on June 3, 2011.  Best wishes for a happy holiday season.

Chris Schnug, Museum Board President

509-363-5336

• Statement from the Board
• Elected Official Information
• MAC Facts

Cell Phone Tours

Get your phone out to follow along with this post.

I was at the Seattle Art Museum a few months ago and was impressed by the cell phone interpretation they have running through the museum. In an age when museums are going through expensive contortions trying to use technology to improve visitor experiences, I found the cell phone tour a simple and elegant a solution.

The pictures below show a few examples, and the phone numbers are still active. Go ahead and call them as you look at the images. (I was going to download the audio and link it here--but you people need to meet me halfway here!)

This carved argylite box is accompanied by an interview with a modern Indian carver. Call 206-866-3222 ext. 123 to listen.

This 1850 ceremonial headdress of the Tlingit people is enhanced by the creation myth it portrays. Call 206-866-3222 ext. 124.

One more example is this modern glass interpretation of a Killer Whale. Call 206-866-3222 ext. 122.

You can see all of my photos from the SAM here. The museum also put all of the audio up online for free download. I downloaded a bunch of them before I came to the museum, but once I was there i found it far easier to dial the numbers in front of me than to fiddle with iTunes on my phone. A museum friend told me that these phone tours get used even after the exhhibit comes down, apparently from people who are looking at their vacation pictures and dialing the numbers.

So in conclusion--cell tours, yay! Of course museums can make mobile technology far more involved and complicated if they like. This NY Times article surveys some of the mobile apps for iPhones and Androids that museums are beginning to use. What jumps out at me from the article is that none of the apps seem to be very good! And how many of your visitors are carrying smart phones, and will have downloaded your app in advance of their visit? I think around 20% of Americans carry smart phones. And of course there are all kinds of interactive kiosks and other intensive technologies out there, all of which seem expensive, prone to breaking, and quickly outdated. By comparison a cell tour is dirt cheap to produce, leverages a piece of technology that nearly visitor already has, and has a potential reach beyond the museum walls.

"You as a Professor should stop bringing into the 21st century all this negativism"

What is the responsibility of a historian when visiting historic sites? Particularly if the historic interpretation at the site is found wanting?

Back in June I toured a historic house museum in the south. The interpretation there was so problematic that I wrote a letter to the director. I posted a modified version of it here, in which I removed any identifying information so as not embarrass the volunteers: Open Letter to the Curators of the Baron Von Munchausen Historic Home. You should read that post if you have not already before you proceed.

Last month I received a reply--pretty blistering in parts, but with a lot of value in the way it illustrates the world view of at least some of the people who run historic sites, and the difficulty of getting them to improve the interpretation. I have removed specific references to the home and city, otherwise the letter is exactly as it was received.

Dear Mr. Cebula:
First of all, thank you for your historical
critic regarding the tour of the Munchausen
House...As you probably have learned that
many times history is abused and many times
told by so-called experts that reveal their
interpretations of what really took place 200 plus
years ago...It reminds me of the game many
years ago taught to me in the name of "gossip"..
By the time 10 people received a message told
to the first person, it changed and was
altered quite a bit by the time it hit the last 10th person...
Only the first person knows the truth.

The Declaration of Independence was written by
men of great strength and jeopardizing their
own families to sign was a signal of the type of
men that existed "then"....Can you deny that the
King would not have wanted to stop this document
if he could? The Crown for many centuries has
been guilty of intimidation, warnings and many
times murders that are masked as accidents..
If Benjamin Franklin said himself "'We must all
hang together, gentlemen, or else we shall most
assuredly hang separately." do these words sound
like a man who is not afraid of the consequences
in signing that beautiful document?  How can you say some of the signers
didn't suffer! We have a wonderful book in the
office "Signing Their Lives Away" put out by
Quirk books that would answer all your questions
in regards to their lives after signing...

The question about women being engaged and married at an early age is true in the South...
Because of a short life-span back then, it would
certainly have sped up the marriage process...
Both the wives of Baron Munchausen died in their
twenties..one with tuberculosis and the other during child birth....Of course not everyone died or
married young but the times were possibly more harsh on women than men and because
Ignorance and information
not given to that century made them more
vulnerable to fevers, infections and unsanitary
conditions for child bearing....

Yes, Baron Munchausen had slaves to manage his
2,500 acres in nearby town...
That, unfortunately was the law of the land with
Southerners and Northerners taking advantage...
Grant and Lee both had slaves.....
The House you visited had cooks and maids and a
carriage driver that were slaves to maintain the
property...If you go back to Africa and realize
that the black slaves that were rounded up , were rounded up by
their own kind...so blame should be shared by
everyone involved....my background is Greek and
I am proud that Greeks never allowed Greeks to
be given as slaves by their own....Now, I'm getting off the
subject at hand....The visitors that come to this
House want to be entertained by "sayings" from
the 18th century or "ghost stories"...You have to
understand the younger visitors know very little
about the Revolutionary War period, due to the
fact that the schools have gone downhill and do
not give this generation a good education ..The
younger students can barely start a sentence
without the word "like, like" and continue to
ramble with the worst English imaginable..

..We have a little difference of opinion in
regards to "Education" in the 1700s...We are
referring to our area, where it was
much more difficult to become educated as
apposed to a child in New England, where they
of course were established much earlier....Munchausen's
daughter "Princess Peach"
was sent to England boarding schools and came
back to our town where she decided in
to open a School for Girls in the
late 1780s... Her husband was stationed there
as a Doctor....

The Museum has for over 20 years given school
tours to 4th graders, gratis....Many times we
started telling the children about the slaves that
cooked and planted...The public schools that we
would give the history tour had a large percentage
of Black students, they seemed embarrassed to hear
that their forefathers were the slaves....many times
we would hear other students tease them about
being a slave...It was very disturbing to us that these children would feel less of a person if we
continued to banter about slavery....our "Mission
Statement" for this house is to preserve our
history, patriotic service and educational projects...Not to bring into the mix about a most
heinous practice that existed over two centuries ago...I feel that bringing up a hateful subject would
be cruel to the student, who would start hating
the messenger ..details of cruelty is a subject
most people with sensitivity do not want to hear about....So there you have it.
...
You as a Professor should stop bringing into the
21st century all this negativism...instead bring
the students out of the "Hate" mode so they
can live their lives with a more positive attitude...
and teach them about good things that people
do...the outreach of people that are in peril reach
out to America...not Russia or Greece or any
other country...make them proud that this
young land has given you and me a chance to
live a good life...that's all...Sorry for the delay in writing
back, but I was on vacation...

Sincerely,
Patricia Pangloss
Manager-BVM Museum

"When the World Came to Campus"--AYP Exhibit Online

Last summer I had the opportunity to see and excellent exhibit at the fabulous Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington. "When the World Came to Campus" exhibited objects from the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, a World's Fair that helped put Seattle on the map in many ways. So I am happy to see that the library has put the exhibit online.

In fact the online exhibit is far more rich than the physical one, in terms of the number of objects available. Exhibit topics range from Conception and Planning to Igorrotes and Eskimos at the fair. You can also watch a cute little movie about the fair.

Oddly, there is no interpretive section on American Indians at the fair, despite the prevalence of coastal native imagery at the event and the presence of many American Indians. Fortunately the entire image database is online and you can search for the Indians yourself. (Pictured here: Nez Perce family in camp, Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, Seattle, 1909.)

I wish that more exhibits would make the move to the web as the objects are disassembled and returned to storage. A good museum exhibit is a huge professional endeavor, comparable to writing a book or article. Yet most leave no trace after they are gone.

Anyone Using Open Source Collections Management Software?

I recently tweeted the question "What free/open source solutions exist for small museums looking to to create collections inventories?" In my role coordinating the Public History program at Eastern Washington University I often work with very small rural museums and heritage groups. These organizations are run by volunteers (often elderly volunteers at that) have budgets that are more often in the hundreds of dollars a year than the thousands, and have no one in the organization with any museum, historical, or technology training. However they are passionate about their local history, and often have unique and substantial holdings of records, photographs, and objects. How can they organize their collections? The software has to be free and extremely easy to use. It should also have web capabilities and use universal standards so data could be exported to another software package in the future.

Some twitter friend suggestions and a bit of gooling revealed at least four choices. But I don't have time to test them all and can't find a good compare-and-contrast article. If anyone has experience with any of these systems, please let us know what you think:

• Museolog "is a software system, developed by EUROCLID within UNESCO HeritageNet project, and localised by NGO Open Systems where initial functions of input and editing of museum catalogues are provided by a modern intuitive graphical interface using forms and menu." Wikipedia page here.
• "CollectiveAccess (formerly known as OpenCollection) is a full-featured collections management and online access application for museums, archives and digital collections. It is designed to handle large, heterogeneous collections that have complex cataloguing requirements and require support for a variety of metadata standards and media formats." Also web based. Here is a Slideshare presentation about the software.
• CollectionSpace "is focused on developing solutions for museums and related heritage organizations that want to address this information gap and re-define the ways in which collections information is collected, managed, preserved, leveraged, and published. CollectionSpace partners will develop software with an open and extensible architecture, that is community-based and technologically robust." It appears to be in the early stages of development.
• Omeka (of course): "Create complex narratives and share rich collections adhering to Dublin core standards with Omeka, designed for scholars, museums, libraries, archives, and enthusiasts." My only hesitation with Omeka is that lead developer Dave Lester has described it (at THATCamp PNW) as more of a web publishing platform than a collections management tool.
  
•  Open Office version of Access (or Access itself if they already have it?) 

If you have experience with any of these systems, or suggestions for other ways to get this done, please weigh in!

[Image from Flickr user Brunngrrl and used via a Creative Commons license.]