Thesis Thoughts...

It appears to be universally agreed upon, at least amongst the people that I have discussed my thesis ideas with, that the history exhibits at the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC) are very out of place.  My personal impression upon my first visit there was that, despite the history exhibits (and I am primarily referring here to the Native Peoples of the Americas and At the Western Door exhibits) being interesting, they didn’t seem to fit very well with the rest of the museum, which had a far more interactive, scientific focus.  And upon reviewing the museum’s website (which expressly refers to the RMSC as a “science museum”) and mission statement (to “[stimulate] broad community interest and understanding of science and technology, and their impact — past, present, and future — on our lives”), these exhibits appear to mesh even less with the others at the museum.  There are a number of reasons why these history exhibits exist in their current form at the museum, and this disconnect between these history exhibits and the rest of the museum is not so much a true failure on the museum’s part as simply a failure to evaluate and evolve these exhibits as the mission and themes of the museum changed.  This begs the question, can these exhibits be altered in such a way as to make them more relevant to the RMSC’s mission?  Or, even more fundamentally, do they belong in the RMSC at all?

In order to attempt to answer those questions, I have devised a three-part research methodology.  The first will be to conduct traditional, document-based research on the history and evolution of both the RMSC’s mission and its historical exhibits, how mission shift and change affects collections and exhibits (through the lens of another local institution, the Strong Museum of Play), and examples of popular history exhibits at successful science museums/centers (if such a thing truly exists).  The next phase involves interviewing key staff members of the RMSC, to gain insight into what they themselves view the mission of the RMSC to be, how the history exhibits currently fit (or don't) into it, and how they might envision them best being redone.  The third and, most likely, final stage of research will be to study and survey visitors to the RMSC’s history exhibits to gain the visitor’s perspective on how the exhibits fit (or don’t) with the rest of the RMSC, as well as how they might be updated and improved for a more cohesive visitor experience throughout the museum.  

The end result of this research would be a set of recommendations for ways the RMSC’s history exhibits could be updated or altered to better fit not only the museum’s current mission, but the museum’s vision of its future.