We are Back!!

The break was relaxing and most needed, I feel much better about everything!

Still working away at the visitors' surveys, and the first 8 pages are due on Thursday (currently have 5 done). It feels nice to have started the writing process, now the end doesn't seem so far away. I keep re-writing the first page and have never eaten so much junk food in my life... is this a bad sign? 

Observations on... Visitor Observations

In my previous post, I identified a few goals I had for moving forwards with my thesis project.
One of these goals was to complete one last round of visitor observations, preferably by
visiting the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC) on a weekend, as I had yet
to do so and I was curious as to whether the museum would attract more/different visitors
on the weekend than during the rest of the week.  I am pleased to report that not only was
I able to visit the RMSC on a Sunday, but there were indeed more visitors than on my 
previous two visits (the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2017 and a Friday morning
in mid-January 2018), which gave me the opportunity to make a number of important
observations about how people interact with the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit and its content, as well as to better understand observations
I’d made on my previous visits.

My observations across all three visits led me to a few interesting and valuable conclusions
that I’d like to share here.

• The exhibit appears to attract 3 main visitor groups - parents (aged approximately 25-35)
  with young children (typically between the ages of 3 and 9), young people (late teens
  through early 20s) visiting in pairs or small groups, and older visitors (mid 40s
  through mid 60s) wandering around individually.  Visitors in the first two groups
  tend to vocally and obviously (i.e., point, gesture, or otherwise specifically indicate
  a piece of exhibit content) interact with the exhibit content, while older, individual
  visitors don’t.  However, none of the groups linger (and my site survey completed
  on my first visit clues me in to why).  This diversity in visitor groups and potential
  experiences highlights the importance of the exhibit space being adaptable and
  inclusive for all visitors, so everyone is comfortable and has an equal opportunity
  to explore and learn.  For example, visitors using mobility devices like wheelchairs
  and walkers can have difficulty viewing the dioramas, ironically, because of the
  steps in front of them that are necessary for younger visitors to better view the
  dioramas (this is a design element I have highlighted to be changed in the future).
• The gaps in visitor knowledge and in the information the exhibit provides
  overlap in places.  Parents with young children tend to have to field a lot of
  questions if their child is actively engaging with the exhibit content.  However,
  they are occasionally asked questions which they are unable to answer themselves,
  and when they turn to the (limited) text in some portions of the exhibit, they cannot
  find an answer.  This leads to one of three responses (“I don’t know,” a made-up answer,
  or pointing out another item or idea which they do know something about).
  While the exhibit text cannot possibly account for every question a curious three-year-old
  could ask, there needs to be more text that could potentially do so, or point the
  parents (or any visitor) in a direction for further research, and needs to be written
  in such a way that a parent could use it as a jumping off point to answer their child’s
  inquiry, or an older child could answer their question for themselves.
• And, perhaps most importantly for this project, people largely seem to refer
  to the peoples and cultures they are seeing in the exhibit in the past tense.
  While there is no clear indication from observing visitors as to whether or not
  this is due to the belief that these peoples/cultures no longer exist, or an a
  cknowledgement that they do not necessarily follow any traditional practices anymore.
  Regardless of the cause of this prevalent use of passive voice by the visitors,
  it underlines, at least in my mind, the importance to providing modern contextualization
  for the exhibit content, especially the dioramas, which are some of the only
  representations of actual people (in the sense that they depict persons, rather than
  just an object) in the exhibit, yet are also some of the most static.

These were just a few of the takeaways from the visitor observation portion of my project,
and I will consider all of these and more as I move closer to writing my recommendations
for the redesign of the exhibit.

Native Peoples of the Americas, Redux: The Plan

Every thesis, or any research project, for that matter, begins with a working research question.  Now, this question may change and develop as research progresses and new information is brought to light or new ideas form, however, it helps to begin with a fairly concrete idea.  In the case of my thesis, this idea was that the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) history exhibits seem out of place, both within the museum’s mission and their physical space.  To narrow this down further, the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit appears especially outdated (both in terms of theme and method of display) and incongruous when compared to other parts of the museum, even its fellow history exhibits.  This leads me to ask the following question.  In what ways can Native Peoples of the Americas be altered or redesigned to better fit with the RMSC’s mission, both present and future, and visitors’ expectations for the museum and their experience within it?

In order to answer this question, I will need to conduct research in three different areas. To begin, I will review the existing body of literature on the history of display and representation of Native Americans in science museums in order to better understand the history of this practice, as well as how other museums are adapting/changing their Native American exhibits to bring them in line with both their current missions and modern understandings of native culture.  I will then interview key members of museum staff to gain insight into what they view the future direction of the RMSC as a whole to be, and what changes they might envision for the exhibit moving forward.  Next, I will survey visitors to this exhibit about their visit experience within the exhibit, how they feel this experience fits into their overall experience at the RMSC, and what changes could occur to the exhibit to improve their experience.

The end result of this research will be a set of recommendations for the exhibitions and curatorial staff of the RMSC, synthesized from all three sources of research, regarding how best to alter and/or redesign Native Peoples of the Americas, if and when it becomes a priority to do so in the near future.

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.