Open Forum

I work in a historic corporate museum/heritage center. In historic museums, what is customary (if anything) regarding changing or updating your exhibits? We are brand new, having opened in April 2015. We have already added two exhibits since opening. We have ushered all of the company employees through on Employee Tours (2700 of them!), so nearly everyone has seen it at least once. We did a survey with the employees as they came through, and the main "complaint" (if you can call it that) was that they wanted to be able to spend more time looking than the guided tours allowed them. We are now open with weekly employee hours, which will allow them to come back and do a self-guided tour and take as much time as they like. We designed the exhibits to include videos and digital tablets that they can scroll through for much more content than would fit on walls and in vitrines, so there is much to look at right from the start. I'm wondering how long I should wait to change exhibits and add content to the digital displays.

What would your institution do?

Thanks!

Joe

I work in a historic corporate museum/heritage center. In historic museums, what is customary (if anything) regarding changing or updating your exhibits? We are brand new, having opened in April 2015. We have already added two exhibits since opening. We have ushered all of the company employees through on Employee Tours (2700 of them!), so nearly everyone has seen it at least once. We did a survey with the employees as they came through, and the main "complaint" (if you can call it that) was that they wanted to be able to spend more time looking than the guided tours allowed them. We are now open with weekly employee hours, which will allow them to come back and do a self-guided tour and take as much time as they like. We designed the exhibits to include videos and digital tablets that they can scroll through for much more content than would fit on walls and in vitrines, so there is much to look at right from the start. I'm wondering how long I should wait to change exhibits and add content to the digital displays.

What would your institution do?

Thanks!

Joe

I work in a historic corporate museum/heritage center. In historic museums, what is customary (if anything) regarding changing or updating your exhibits? We are brand new, having opened in April 2015. We have already added two exhibits since opening. We have ushered all of the company employees through on Employee Tours (2700 of them!), so nearly everyone has seen it at least once. We did a survey with the employees as they came through, and the main "complaint" (if you can call it that) was that they wanted to be able to spend more time looking than the guided tours allowed them. We are now open with weekly employee hours, which will allow them to come back and do a self-guided tour and take as much time as they like. We designed the exhibits to include videos and digital tablets that they can scroll through for much more content than would fit on walls and in vitrines, so there is much to look at right from the start. I'm wondering how long I should wait to change exhibits and add content to the digital displays.

What would your institution do?

Thanks!

Joe

We are a small museum with a 59 year history.  It has only been in the past two years that we began a regular program of temporary exhibits.  They have been a huge success, especially with our local community that had little reason to frequent the museum otherwise.  We changed the exhibit three times per year.  With a staff of 2.5 employees, that schedule did become overwhelming.  We are in the process of building a new museum right now, and are including a temporary gallery.  However, we are working with our designer to construct a space with semi-flexible exhibit infrastructure in place.  This way, when rotating exhibits, we can switch out content without having to re-imagine and reconstruct the entire space each time.  The new approach should decrease the impact of producing temporary exhibits on staff while also decreasing the amount of time that we have to close the temporary gallery for the change to occur.  We are opening the new museum with a two temporary exhibits per year schedule.   

I work in a historic corporate museum/heritage center. In historic museums, what is customary (if anything) regarding changing or updating your exhibits? We are brand new, having opened in April 2015. We have already added two exhibits since opening. We have ushered all of the company employees through on Employee Tours (2700 of them!), so nearly everyone has seen it at least once. We did a survey with the employees as they came through, and the main "complaint" (if you can call it that) was that they wanted to be able to spend more time looking than the guided tours allowed them. We are now open with weekly employee hours, which will allow them to come back and do a self-guided tour and take as much time as they like. We designed the exhibits to include videos and digital tablets that they can scroll through for much more content than would fit on walls and in vitrines, so there is much to look at right from the start. I'm wondering how long I should wait to change exhibits and add content to the digital displays.

What would your institution do?

Thanks!

Joe

Hi Joe,

Most of our clients change their exhibit space about every ten years. For instance we helped on Geoffrey's project in ND. It was a big undertaking. Changing permanent exhibits varies client by client and is usually fundraising or capital dependent. However, many clients ask for the ability to change content on that permanent exhibit. This can be done by adding exhibits that allow the staff to add content, digital media or the changing exhibit gallery.

We have mostly done work for museums, nature centers or universities. Yet, we have had a few clients that tell their corporate history. We would love to help more companies tell their stories. Could you share how you went about looking for an exhibit design or fabrication partner? What were you looking for? Where did you look?

Thanks,

I work in a historic corporate museum/heritage center. In historic museums, what is customary (if anything) regarding changing or updating your exhibits? We are brand new, having opened in April 2015. We have already added two exhibits since opening. We have ushered all of the company employees through on Employee Tours (2700 of them!), so nearly everyone has seen it at least once. We did a survey with the employees as they came through, and the main "complaint" (if you can call it that) was that they wanted to be able to spend more time looking than the guided tours allowed them. We are now open with weekly employee hours, which will allow them to come back and do a self-guided tour and take as much time as they like. We designed the exhibits to include videos and digital tablets that they can scroll through for much more content than would fit on walls and in vitrines, so there is much to look at right from the start. I'm wondering how long I should wait to change exhibits and add content to the digital displays.

What would your institution do?

Thanks!

Joe