Open Forum

Hi there,

We are beginning to explore family and gallery guides at our museum and were wondering what the pros and cons of printing on regular weight paper and allowing families to take them out of the museum vs. other options?

Thanks.
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

Hi there,

We are beginning to explore family and gallery guides at our museum and were wondering what the pros and cons of printing on regular weight paper and allowing families to take them out of the museum vs. other options?

Thanks.
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

Hi there,

We are beginning to explore family and gallery guides at our museum and were wondering what the pros and cons of printing on regular weight paper and allowing families to take them out of the museum vs. other options?

Thanks.
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

Hello Elizabeth,

We have recently introduced kid-friendly activity guides at The Bascom art center. We use regular stock paper to print high resolution color and are receiving positive feedback. However, our priority is to use these guides to enrich the exhibition viewing experience and keep guests at our museum, rather than to give guests activities for home. Regardless of your intention to make on-site or at-home activities, I recommend acquiring guides from other museums. Hunter Museum and North Carolina Museum of Art have produced great guides that provide institutional history, exhibition-specific content, and general art appreciation exercises that can be used on any exhibition. Both museums put a lot of effort into their packaging - heavy stock, custom dimensions, embossing, stickers, and fancy binding. They look fantastic, but I am sure that there is a correlating expense. I, myself, am on a tight budget, so I have to consider cost-effective ways to engage our audience. Because of The Bascom's rustic brand, we had local woodworkers donate handcrafted wooden clipboards and wood-turned pens, which are mounted on a wooden frame near our front desk. So, guests have quality materials, but they return them for reuse. The regular paper stock has not received complaints thus far, but we are careful to make sure that the images and graphics that we print are crisp, high resolution.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Looking forward to other responses.

Will

------------------------------
William Barclift
Director of Education
The Bascom
Highlands NC
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-07-2015 10:39 AM
From: Elizabeth Miron
Subject: Museum Family/Gallery Guides

Hi there,

We are beginning to explore family and gallery guides at our museum and were wondering what the pros and cons of printing on regular weight paper and allowing families to take them out of the museum vs. other options?

Thanks.
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

In interviews with our families, we found that they prefer something on firm matte paper, as it lends itself to drawing on. Too nice and glossy and they felt like it was meant more as a souvenir and was too nice to give young children to write on.

For example, our families loved a guide that The Whitney Museum had created for their biennial that was in the form of a sketchbook with lots of blank space for drawing. A number of museums do something similar in using a sketchbook format. I love Will's idea of the handcrafted wooden clip boards to lend a special air to a simple drawing sheet.

We also found that while museum educators love to give questions and encourage inquiry, parents (especially novice museum-goers) are looking for facts and background stories--especially why a piece is significant or is in the museum, so that they can be knowledgeable within their family; A guide that balances the two is desirable.

Good luck!

Barbara

------------------------------
Barbara Palley
Director of Education
Cool Culture

Brooklyn NY

------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2015 09:31 AM
From: William Barclift
Subject: Museum Family/Gallery Guides

Hello Elizabeth,

We have recently introduced kid-friendly activity guides at The Bascom art center. We use regular stock paper to print high resolution color and are receiving positive feedback. However, our priority is to use these guides to enrich the exhibition viewing experience and keep guests at our museum, rather than to give guests activities for home. Regardless of your intention to make on-site or at-home activities, I recommend acquiring guides from other museums. Hunter Museum and North Carolina Museum of Art have produced great guides that provide institutional history, exhibition-specific content, and general art appreciation exercises that can be used on any exhibition. Both museums put a lot of effort into their packaging - heavy stock, custom dimensions, embossing, stickers, and fancy binding. They look fantastic, but I am sure that there is a correlating expense. I, myself, am on a tight budget, so I have to consider cost-effective ways to engage our audience. Because of The Bascom's rustic brand, we had local woodworkers donate handcrafted wooden clipboards and wood-turned pens, which are mounted on a wooden frame near our front desk. So, guests have quality materials, but they return them for reuse. The regular paper stock has not received complaints thus far, but we are careful to make sure that the images and graphics that we print are crisp, high resolution.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Looking forward to other responses.

Will

------------------------------
William Barclift
Director of Education
The Bascom
Highlands NC
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-07-2015 10:39 AM
From: Elizabeth Miron
Subject: Museum Family/Gallery Guides

Hi there,

We are beginning to explore family and gallery guides at our museum and were wondering what the pros and cons of printing on regular weight paper and allowing families to take them out of the museum vs. other options?

Thanks.
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

Good Morning All,

Thank you all for your responses.  This has been very helpful.  I am currently the Museum Division Director of the Florida Art Educators Association and I am due to write an article for their quarterly publication.  I would like the topic of the article to be about education gallery publications.  Would it be okay if I include some of your comments in my article?

Thanks,
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2015 10:24 AM
From: Barbara Palley
Subject: Museum Family/Gallery Guides

In interviews with our families, we found that they prefer something on firm matte paper, as it lends itself to drawing on. Too nice and glossy and they felt like it was meant more as a souvenir and was too nice to give young children to write on.

For example, our families loved a guide that The Whitney Museum had created for their biennial that was in the form of a sketchbook with lots of blank space for drawing. A number of museums do something similar in using a sketchbook format. I love Will's idea of the handcrafted wooden clip boards to lend a special air to a simple drawing sheet.

We also found that while museum educators love to give questions and encourage inquiry, parents (especially novice museum-goers) are looking for facts and background stories--especially why a piece is significant or is in the museum, so that they can be knowledgeable within their family; A guide that balances the two is desirable.

Good luck!

Barbara

------------------------------
Barbara Palley
Director of Education
Cool Culture

Brooklyn NY

------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-09-2015 09:31 AM
From: William Barclift
Subject: Museum Family/Gallery Guides

Hello Elizabeth,

We have recently introduced kid-friendly activity guides at The Bascom art center. We use regular stock paper to print high resolution color and are receiving positive feedback. However, our priority is to use these guides to enrich the exhibition viewing experience and keep guests at our museum, rather than to give guests activities for home. Regardless of your intention to make on-site or at-home activities, I recommend acquiring guides from other museums. Hunter Museum and North Carolina Museum of Art have produced great guides that provide institutional history, exhibition-specific content, and general art appreciation exercises that can be used on any exhibition. Both museums put a lot of effort into their packaging - heavy stock, custom dimensions, embossing, stickers, and fancy binding. They look fantastic, but I am sure that there is a correlating expense. I, myself, am on a tight budget, so I have to consider cost-effective ways to engage our audience. Because of The Bascom's rustic brand, we had local woodworkers donate handcrafted wooden clipboards and wood-turned pens, which are mounted on a wooden frame near our front desk. So, guests have quality materials, but they return them for reuse. The regular paper stock has not received complaints thus far, but we are careful to make sure that the images and graphics that we print are crisp, high resolution.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Looking forward to other responses.

Will

------------------------------
William Barclift
Director of Education
The Bascom
Highlands NC
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-07-2015 10:39 AM
From: Elizabeth Miron
Subject: Museum Family/Gallery Guides

Hi there,

We are beginning to explore family and gallery guides at our museum and were wondering what the pros and cons of printing on regular weight paper and allowing families to take them out of the museum vs. other options?

Thanks.
------------------------------
Elizabeth Miron
K-12 Curriculum Specialist
Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------