Open Forum

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way? 

Thank you 

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Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
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We are reopening soon and have decided to keep a few of our hands-on items out for people to enjoy.  We have disinfecting wipes near those items for guests to use.  We also purchased COVID approved disinfectants to clean with.  We have more docents on duty and they have been trained specifically on our cleaning regimen.  We wish we could have left everything out, but it was simply too onerous.

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Dianna Anderson
Curator
Kern River Valley Historical Society Museum
Kernville, CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
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I should have been more specific as to items we've left out for our guests to use.  They are mostly things that are easily cleaned--our Jacob's ladder, apple peeler, butter churn, stamp mill model, etc.  They are all things that can be cleaned easily and frequently without damaging them.

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Dianna Anderson
Curator
Kern River Valley Historical Society Museum
Kernville CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2021 01:01 PM
From: Dianna Anderson
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

We are reopening soon and have decided to keep a few of our hands-on items out for people to enjoy.  We have disinfecting wipes near those items for guests to use.  We also purchased COVID approved disinfectants to clean with.  We have more docents on duty and they have been trained specifically on our cleaning regimen.  We wish we could have left everything out, but it was simply too onerous.

------------------------------
Dianna Anderson
Curator
Kern River Valley Historical Society Museum
Kernville, CA

Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 5/3/2021 1:02:00 PM
From: Dianna Anderson
Subject: RE: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

We are reopening soon and have decided to keep a few of our hands-on items out for people to enjoy.  We have disinfecting wipes near those items for guests to use.  We also purchased COVID approved disinfectants to clean with.  We have more docents on duty and they have been trained specifically on our cleaning regimen.  We wish we could have left everything out, but it was simply too onerous.

------------------------------
Dianna Anderson
Curator
Kern River Valley Historical Society Museum
Kernville, CA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
------------------------------

We're pretty much in alignment with Diane's reply. We have a lot of hands-on items in permanent exhibits as well as traveling exhibits. Staff cleans at open/close and 2-3 times during the day, depending on attendance levels. We have hand sanitizing stations throughout our spaces. We're also still enforcing masking in our buildings and without too much push-back even though our governor stopped his mandate and leaves up to the rest of us.



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Betty Brewer
President & CEO
Minnetrista
Muncie IN
bbrewer@minnetrista.net
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2021 02:07 PM
From: Diane Gutenkauf
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

All the CDC information points to Covid-19 transmission via aerosol rather than surface (fomite). Our last traveling exhibit had several hands on items and we added drawing materials. We added hand sanitizer stations and wiped down the hands on items at the end/beginning of each day. We also emphasized handwashing and required masks. Given the available information on transmission, I am not overly concerned about surface transmission of COVID and I think there are, more worrisome challenges-like encouraging everyone to get vaccinated and enforcing masks mandates.

 

Diane Gutenkauf
dgutenkauf@hotmail.com
Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

Original Message:
Sent: 5/3/2021 1:02:00 PM
From: Dianna Anderson
Subject: RE: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

We are reopening soon and have decided to keep a few of our hands-on items out for people to enjoy.  We have disinfecting wipes near those items for guests to use.  We also purchased COVID approved disinfectants to clean with.  We have more docents on duty and they have been trained specifically on our cleaning regimen.  We wish we could have left everything out, but it was simply too onerous.

------------------------------
Dianna Anderson
Curator
Kern River Valley Historical Society Museum
Kernville, CA

Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
------------------------------

There are also some touch free solutions like FreeStylus that enable sanitary interactions with shared technology surfaces like touchscreen exhibits that can be provided to museum visitors to make them feel more comfortable to and avoid using harsh disinfectants on your technology.

www.thefreestylus.com

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Scott Wasser
CEO
Green Lane PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
------------------------------

At the Wabash County Museum we have reintroduced *most* of our hands on exhibit components excepting those which are expected to come into contact with your face or head, like telephone handsets of different configurations, exhibits which encourage the user to look into a box at close proximity, etc. The rest are still wiped down at the end of each day and occasionally at other intervals if we've been especially busy and we were provided a chemical fogger that we use at the end of the day as well.

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TJ Honeycutt
Collections Manger
Wabash County Historical Museum
Wabash IN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
------------------------------

We have recently turned our touchscreen interactives back on and offer our guests a stylus free of charge when they purchase their admission to be able to operate the screens.  When guests leave the museum, we ask them to return their stylus and then we sanitize them.  Of course we know we won't get 100% of the styluses back, mostly just people forgetting to return them, but they are really low cost and we consider the expense part of doing business and being open to the public.

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Brandon Anderson
Executive Director & CEO
Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum
Auburn IN
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2021 10:53 AM
From: Kelly Chandrapal
Subject: Reintroducing hands-on materials during Covid-19

I am wondering how other museums are currently handling hands-on materials with Covid-19 protocols. We removed most of ours this past year such as drawing boards and pencils, magnifying glasses, and family kits, and would like to begin offering some again. If you currently provide hands-on materials, what types of materials do you offer and what is your method for sharing them in a safe and comfortable way?

Thank you

------------------------------
Kelly Chandrapal
Ackland Art Museum - University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC
------------------------------