Tips for Consciously Learning in Museums (without Killing the Fun)

by Saul Carliner

The summer travel season, when many of us explore new places and experience new things, is ripe with opportunities for true informal learning—that is, learning where you, as the learner, set the objectives and determine for yourself when you have achieved them. 

(This differs from informal learning for the workplace, which represents more of a partnership between employers and workers on the process, content, location, and purpose of learning, and—like other types of informal learning—can happen consciously or unconsciously. See Chapter 1 of Informal Learning Basics for more about these definitions.)

Some might learn a new sport. Some might try a new artistic activity, like journal writing or painting.  Some might try their hand at cooking a different type of cuisine.  Some might hike new paths. 

And some, like me, might explore new museums.  Museums captured my imagination at a young age, fostered my intellectual awakening, and provided many hours of wonder about—and engagement with—art, history, science, nature, and even music.  More immediate to the point, museums fostered my interest in informal learning, because that’s what they do.

So how can you get the most from your museum visit—without killing it?  Here are some tips.

Start with a flexible agenda.  From the get-go, give yourself permission to wander and explore whatever strikes your fancy. This museum visit isn’t a business meeting where you have specific tasks to accomplish; it’s supposed to be fun.  So don’t kill it by over-planning it.

Once inside, focus on what interests you.   See something that catches your attention?  Go to it.  Gaze at it. Read about it.  Linger all you want, or leave in an instant if it doesn’t seem to be what you thought it was.  You have free choice to explore; that’s why museums call the type of learning that goes on within their walls free-choice learning.

Follow the efforts to attract your attention.  Part of the fun of a museum is the unexpected discovery and exhibit designers go out of their way to provide you with opportunities to have one or two of those.  Enticing you to the museum to see a special exhibition, designers purposely place it in the back of the museum so that you’ll have to walk past the permanent exhibition—and perhaps, wander into it (much like grocery stores place the milk at the back to entice you to purchase something else along the way).

Within exhibits, designers try to beckon visitors to explore by effectively using sight lines and sizes of objects to catch your attention.  Or they might use sound or similar audiovisual devices to attract visitors to other parts of the exhibition or building. 

Get a general sense of what’s going on.  Unlike a casino, where they shut off access to daylight and remove all the clocks so you’ll keep gambling, museums are not trying to disorient you. 

On the contrary, museum design teams want you to know where you are and what you’re seeing.  That’s why most designers place orientation labels in each gallery so you’ll know the topic addressed in that gallery and why it’s significant. 

When something interests you a bit, go a bit deeper.  Some galleries strike a chord and motivate visitors to learn more about the topic.  That’s why most museum exhibition designers—especially in science, history, technology, cultural, and similar museums—provide a second set of labels, each of which explores a key theme within the broad topic of the gallery. 

These labels usually define the key theme and explain its relationship to the main topic of the gallery, and provide additional context.  In some exhibitions, thematic labels highlight some key or signature objects in the gallery. 

If something interests you a lot, go even deeper than that.  In some instances, either because you have an innate interest in the theme of the exhibition or because the exhibition designers inspired interest, you want to learn even more—about the broad themes and about individual objects. 

So many museums provide additional labels that go into further depth about the topic.  Section or case labels describe a sub-theme within a particular theme; object labels provide details on each object. 

When you’re not sure what to do, get “help.”  Most museums offer guided tours by trained guides, called docents. The tours are usually free, so if you’re not sure where to begin your visit or what to view while in the building, try this option.  Docents are trained to make sure you see key highlights of the collection on display, but most add a personal story or two and in the process of doing so, share their infectious enthusiasm for the museum.  So even though you might start a visit with little interest, the docent might inspire some. 

Docent tours also make sense when you face a language barrier .  Most museums display labels in a limited number of languages.  If yours isn’t one of them, you might miss out on the experience because you can’t get information about galleries and objects that interest you. Many museums offer tours in languages other than the ones on display. 

But some people still feel uncomfortable with docent tours.  Ask if the museum has a translation of the exhibition labels.  Some have special books that you can use within the museum; others have “apps” on the iPad or audioguides (that is, audio devices you can use while in the museum) that provide information in your language. 

And if nothing interests you, don’t read anything.  You can just look at the objects and appreciate them for what they are—something to look at.  Or just sit on a bench and observe the other visitors interacting with the exhibition. 

That’s the key characteristic of free-choice learning: you’re free to choose whether or not you feel like learning about something—or learn about anything at all.

And to be honest, most museums have so many exhibitions and so many labels that you couldn’t read everything on a single visit if you wanted to.  (That also gives you a reason to return.) 

Continue your learning.  Over the next several posts, I’ll share some thoughts about museums I’ve recently visited.  Maybe that will spark your interest in visiting one of the ones mentioned—or another one of your choice. 

Tip: For more information about the links between informal learning and museums, see the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Informal Learning Basics.   

Bilboa Is So Yesterday

Following the lead of Bilboa in transforming a European city considered to be a remote outpost of civilization, the New York Times recently showcased two other cities following the same formula.

The city of Santiago de Compostela in the northern Galicia region is home of a new City of Culture, which includes a library, archives, museum (which sounds like it is primarily going to exhibit temporary exhibitions), and performance spaces, in an uber-modern building located in a centuries-old historic district. Details at
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/travel/santiago-de-compostela-spain-aims-to-attract-new-cultural-pilgrims.html

Reporter Finn-Olaf Jones reports that the city of Perm, on the western edge of Siberia (and, apparently, considered the last stop in civilization as one enters Siberia on the TransSiberian Railway), is transforming itself from a closed city of the Soviet era into an avante-garde visual and performing arts centre, and is attracting notice worldwide. The city is doing this by dedicating some of its economic development resources for the arts. The transformation involves strengthening and expanding cultural institutions like remodeling the museums. But more importantly, the transformation involves developing and promoting local talent. In the process, Perm is also attracting emerging international talent to its burgeoning arts scene.

Check out the whole story—as well as travel suggestions—at
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/travel/perm-russias-emerging-cultural-hotspot.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all.

Wish Lists for My Home Towns—Museums for Montreal (Hometown 4)

Museums are integral to Montreal in a way that they’re not integral to most other cities.  OK—most cities have museums and the museums may be related to the culture of the city.  But going to these museums does not necessarily seem to be a part of the city culture, and that’s what’s different from Montreal.  Going to the museum is  a part of the local culture in Montreal, and that’s what makes it unique.

And Montreal makes its museums worth visiting.  On the whole, they tend to be smaller, more specialized, and more intimate—“boutique museums” as I heard one travel magazine describe them.  The smaller size makes visiting the museums and experiencing the exhibitions seem like a more realistic goal.  Even our major art museum, the Musee des Beaux Arts, feels smaller than counterparts in other cities, though its storied history and strong collection makes it no less significant.  In contrast, just the thought of visiting the Louvre inspires museum fatigue.

Similarly, Montreal’s museums act as a community.  They don’t just collaborate to offer a museum pass to see all of the museums.  They collaborate on events—events that no other city in the US or Canada offers (at least, to the best of my knowledge). One is Nuit Blanche, a Saturday night at the end of the winter High Lights Festival during which many of the museums in the city core are open all night long.  The other is a free day to visit museums, in observance of the International Committee on Museum’s Annual Museum Day.  Not only are all museums open, but most hold special events to attract visitors.  The city supports both events by offering free or expanded public transportation.

The boutique-ness of the museums, along with the spirit of the community, are unique among communities in North America.  Rather than trying to duplicate the mega- and over-architected museums of other communities, this one should strengthen its uniqueness by adding to the collection of boutique museums, enhancing the boutique character of existing museums, and providing some unity and structure to the entire collection.


Suggested enhancements include:

• The Montreal Story.  A rework and expansion of the Montreal History Centre, whose implicit purpose seems to be introducing the city of Montreal.  It also seems to implicitly link the stories of Pointe-a-Calliere (which, informally, seems to focus on francophone Montreal history and events until the mid-1800s) and the McCord Museum (which, informally, seems to focus on anglophone Montreal history and events from the 1800s through the 1900s).  A rework would make the implicit explicit.  The reworked Centre could have an audiovisual presentation that formally and emotionally introduces Montreal, a three-part permanent exhibit—one that introduces the neighborhoods of Montreal, one that introduces the history of Montreal, and a third that invites visitors to continue learning about Montreal at our other museums.  A temporary exhibition space could highlight the contributions of Montrealers and unique aspects of Montreal culture.   
• Museum of Montreal Cultures, which would provide a single home to showcase the different cultures that comprise the population of Montreal.  This would provide a new take on the traditional identity museum because, rather than one group telling its story, this single museum would tell the stories of several groups. In the process of doing so, it could explore not only what’s unique in each of these stories—but also the universality of those experiences.  The museum could have three groups of galleries.  One would be a series of several small galleries that would provide several groups with an opportunity to tell their stories, with permanent galleries provided to the two founding communities of this province—the First Peoples and the French-Canadians.  Two benefits of rotating the groups presented in that set of galleries: to generate recurring visits and to ensure the continued freshness of those galleries.  The next group of galleries would explore what’s common in all experiences: the common social, economic, political, and religious marginalization that drive people to seek new lives; the challenges of immigration and integrating into the community, contributing to the new community, and the challenge of retaining identity when surrounded by pressures to assimilate.  A third set of galleries would explore specific issues associated with cultures, from the controversial—like the challenge of peoples who are at war elsewhere in the world living in peace in this part of the world—to the safe—like expressions and customs from particular cultures that have been co-opted as “Montrealaise.”  
• Natural Science Collection, a complement to the Biodome, Jardin Botanique, Insectarium, and upcoming Planetarium in the Parc Maisonneuve area.  Already, this group of institutions is one of the most unique and complete natural science exhibitions in the world.  But the collection lacks is, a museum that not only explains the natural science underlying these living collections—but also the history of science underlying this.  As its title suggests, the Natural Science Collection would focus on those goals.  Telling this history through the objects of current and historical scientific instruments, gems, and preserved specimens already in the collections in this province, this museum would explain larger issues in biology, chemistry, and physics, such as the origins of life, the chemistry of life, and geological processes.  The collection would also focus on the “art” of science—both in terms of the artistic forms and images found in natural science, as well as the art in scientific instruments.  Last, this collection would serve as an introduction to the other museums in this group.   
• Montreal Science Centre.  With all of the life science institutions based in Parc Maisonneuve (or soon to be) this one looks increasingly isolated where it is.  Furthermore, with its emphasis on hands-on science exhibits—all of which are purchased off-the-rack—this institution, frankly, offers little unique to the cultural scene, but has an amazing location.  Furthermore, given Montreal’s excellent natural science museums, we don’t really need another one that tries to cover the same territory.  To make the museum more relevant, it should scrap the current abstract approach and rework itself with a more concrete one--as a museum that focuses on technology—especially technology that’s core to the Montreal experience.  In fact, like the museum I proposed for Atlanta, a re-worked mission for this one would be explaining the science underlying current and past industry in the city.  The Centre might even rename itself the Centre de Sciences et d’Industrie de Montreal.  It can use the technology as a springboard for explaining the underlying science.  Some key technologies that would be of high interest to visitors would be medical, gaming, maritime, and fashion technology.  The museum might also have an area for technologies that have come and gone, like printing technology and heavy manufacturing. The museum might also have an area for changing exhibits about the technology of everyday life—from the dinner table to the school.  
• Musee de Design du Quebec.  Building on the recent temporary exhibit at the Musee National des Beaux Arts in Quebec City, this museum would showcase Quebec design.  And it’s about time that Montreal had an institution that focuses on design other than architectural design (which is addressed by the Canadian Centre for Architecture). After all, the city has been declared a design city and has an annual design open house.  But we have nothing that preserves design artifacts, showcases it, and studies it.  The permanent exhibition could explore the major types of design: industrial, furniture, clothing, and even web and information design.  But the centerpiece of such a museum could be an exhibition on design thinking—the common thread that links the different types of design.  In addition, a few galleries would be set aside for changing exhibitions.
• Montreal Musee des Beaux Arts, which would be presented as a series of museums, rather than a single one. Although it’s admittedly easier to control through a single entryway, on a practical level, it’s not working.  Visitors will enter on one side of the Sherbrooke merely to cross under the street to get to the other side, which often has a separate exterior entrance anyway.  Rather than approach this museum as a single department store—like the Bay—why not approach it as a series of stores-within-a-store—like the more engaging Ogilvy? 
One collection that deserves to be highlighted, and given its own special “museum within a museum” (which is more than a gallery—but a series of galleries with a permanent  collection on display and changing exhibitions) is the decorative arts collection. At one time, this was a separate museum collection that was merged with the Musee des Beaux Arts. Another set of collections that deserves greater attention through a “museum within a museum” are the collections on Asian and pre-Columbian art, displayed with special exhibitions of African art (such as the series of Sacred Africa exhibitions the museum has shown in the past few years), which get buried in the corners of the museum.

Next on the wishlist: Enhancing the ambience of Montreal.

Wish Lists for My Home Towns—Museums for Atlanta (Hometown 3)

Although I literally moved there on two days notice in 1986 and did not intend to spend much time there, I developed a strong attachment to—and fondness for—it and spent ten years in the city, and followed the transformation of the city wrought by the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Part of that transformation was the development of nearly every major museum in the city. Except for its art museum (which opened in its Richard Meier-designed building a few years a few years before the city began campaigning for the Olympics), several major institutions opened between the time Atlanta won the right to host the Olympics and the start of the Olympics, including the Atlanta History Center (which had the land, but lacked an appropriate museum building), Fernbank Museum of Natural History (a school-based science center existed, but not a full museum), ZooAtlanta—a complete reworking of the local zoo, SciTrek, a science and technology museum (which has since closed), and the World of Coke (dedicated to the world famous cola, whose manufacturer has its world headquarters in Atlanta).

The growth has continued since, with the conversion of the former SciTrek space into an open exhibition space, the expansion of the High Museum, the renovation of APEX (African American Panoramic Experience), a new World of Coke, and the Georgia Aquarium.

To further cement Atlanta’s place as the New York of the south, and a world-class destination, city leaders might consider the following:

• Fill the void left by SciTrek with another science museum. At its opening, SciTrek claimed to be one of the top 10 science centers in the US. But that’s only because SciTrek bought its exhibits from the other 9. Furthermore, when the museum was failing, it brought in another off-the-rack exhibit, Mathematica, a duplicate of the original in Massachusetts. What SciTrek lacked was original exhibits—and it’s that originality that makes a museum worth visiting.
To make such a museum both unique and relevant to the people of Atlanta and its environs, it would need to scrap the abstract, off-the-shelf approach of SciTrek and present, instead, exhibits focused on concrete and relevant topics, probably tied to local industry and everyday life. In fact, its mission should be explaining the science underlying current and past daily activity. It could then link the economic and daily activities to the underlying science. A prototype exists in the Hong Kong Seicne Museum. Some key technologies that would be of high interest to visitors and are relevant to the local economy, include transportation, finance, retailing, agriculture and food processing, and mass communication. The museum might also have an area for changing exhibits about the technology of everyday life—from the living room to the mall.
• A “terrarium.” On the one hand, I understand that, when someone gives $200 million for an aquarium, you build it. But why Atlanta would want an aquarium is beyond me. There’s a terrific one two hours away in Chattanooga, so there’s no immediate need. But more significantly, Atlanta’s defining characteristic is its land, not its water. (The Chattanooga isn’t even a major river in Atlanta.) So how is an aquarium representative of Atlanta.
  
  
  I always thought a terrarium—or an exhibition that’s based on showing indigenous land animals in replicas of their local habitats—would be more relevant to the Atlanta context. It would not need to compete with the Zoo, which focuses on exotic animals from other parts of the world, rather than local animals and plants. Models exist, including Wildlife World –a companion to Sydney, Australia’s aquarium, and Montreal’s Biodome.
  

Next hometown: Montreal, Quebec.

Wish Lists for My Home Towns—Museums for Rochester, Minnesota (Hometown 2)

 Rochester,  Minnesota is a small town located 40 miles (about 65 kilometers) west of the Mississippi River, and about 90 minutes south of the Twin Cities.

It’s also the place where I began my adult life.  I figured if Minnesota was good for the fictional Rhoda Morgenstern on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, it would be good for real me.  And it was.  As someone said, Rochester is a perfect place for a young adult who has no idea where they’re going in life.  It provides a space to figure it out.

During my time in Rochester, my primary cultural focus was local theater, which is surprisingly active.  The museum scene is a bit lighter; most people drive to Minneapolis and St. Paul to take advantage of their excellent museums.

But why?  People in southern Minnesota have a culture and heritage that’s worthy of collecting and studying.  So I propose two museums that could strengthen the cultural life in this small community.

• Museum of Wildlife Art.  Although the Rochester Art Center focuses on symbolic, modern art, a more typical indigenous form of art is the more representational wildlife art.  Indeed, many of the winners of Federal and state duck stamp print competitions—highly competitive annual events among the best artists in the discipline—come from the Southern Minnesota region of which   Rochester is the largest city.  Many galleries in the region specialize in wildlife art, and a museum that collects, studies, and provides education related to it would be representative of the local art.  One set of galleries could present winners of various wildlife stamp competitions, another could present original paintings, a third could present applied arts (furniture, jewelry, and related arts) inspired by wildlife arts, and a fourth gallery could present changing exhibits on special topics in wildlife art.  
• CMA—a museum of the regional economy in southern Minnesota. Although some might think it refers to the Country Music Association, it would really be a museum about the work of computers, medicine, and agriculture—three major industries of Southern Minnesota.  

A philosophy guiding this museum might be a systems approach—showing both systems at work in individual industries as well as how a core organization provides the basis for an economic “hub.”  

Consider the medical part of the museum, which could be boosted with contributions from the collection of the Mayo Museum (which tells the story of the work of the Mayo Clinic).  In this museum, the exhibition would explore (a) how the Mayo Clinic forms a hub of activity that contributes to health, and (b) the contributions of Southern Minnesotans to the human health.  

A second segment of the museum would focus on the hub of computer-related activity centered on IBM.  More than merely detailing the history of IBM in Rochester, such an exhibition might take a current computer and show how IBM and other companies in Southern Minnesota have contributed to technology that has become commonplace.  

A third segment of the museum would explore the agricultural industry in the region, perhaps starting with a dinner table and then showing how farmers and businesses in southern Minnesota contribute to the food that people eat. 

A fourth segment would feature changing exhibitions, exploring themes that cut across the different industries, such as the changing nature of work, the changing nature of worker expertise, the impact of global competition, and similar types of topics.

Next hometown:  Atlanta, Georgia.   

Wish List for Hometown 1: Baltimore

Wish List of Resources for My Home Towns—Museums 

Visiting museums in so many different places and seeing how they preserve and strengthen the local cultures and enhance the spirits of their communities has encouraged me to think about museums that could be established in my various home towns—and that could preserve and strengthen their cultures, and enhance the spirits of these communities.

And yes, I use home towns in the plural.  For those of you who know anything about my life story, you know that I’ve moved around a bit.  The home towns I’ll address here include:

• Baltimore, Maryland
• Rochester, Minnesota
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Montreal, Quebec

(Although I’ve also lived in Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Hong Kong, I don’t have suggestions for them.)

Hometown 1: Baltimore
Although less than an hour from the US capital, Washington, DC, Baltimore—the town where I was born and raised—is not only a physically separate city, it’s culturally separate, too.  Where Washington has primarily served as a government town and now has industry (nearly all service and defense-related) that emerges from government, Baltimore was a port town with heavy industry, though both have diminished in importance in recent decades and, as the civil service outgrows Washington, has attracted some agencies, such as Social Security.

That industrial wealth initially funded Baltimore’s cultural institutions, which include two world-class art museums, a public library system, and a history museum, as well as the more recent  National Aquarium, Museum of Science, Museum of Visionary Art, and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History.

Baltimore also has had a series of smaller museums that preserve pieces of Baltimore’s working class and everyday heritage, including its Museum of Industry, and closed City Life Museums and Museum of Public Works (closed in the past year due to a city budget crisis).

What’s special about these museums is that, although they’re world class, they emerge from the community that hosts them.  For example, Baltimore has a large African American population, so a museum of African American history is organic to the community.  Baltimore has a working class history, and a museum of industry honors that history.  And Baltimore is not just a port town; the harbor, river, and the Chesapeake Bay into which it flows are all integral parts of the area. The Aquarium honors the role of the maritime in the life of the region.

For Baltimore, the ideal is bringing the museums lost to bankruptcy and budget cuts back to life, while remaining true to their spirit and the stories they tried to tell.  In addition, such a museum must be located in a place where it is likely to attract many visitors—and contributors.

That museum might be a Museum of the Baltimore Spirit, which—like its name suggests—celebrate the spirit of the city.  Taking a lead from the approach taken by the Minnesota Historical Society, but focusing on a city rather than a state—this museum would have two permanent exhibits.  And as the Minnesota Historical Society has two permanent exhibits, so would this museum.  One would introduce local culture, but rather than taking the A to Z approach that the Minnesota center takes, this one might take a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach and, in the process, celebrate the histories of the many ethnic groups that comprise the local culture.  The second permanent exhibition would present a chronological history of the city.  But rather than a large board of dates and events, perhaps this one would provide a walk through the history of the city.  A third gallery would present temporary exhibitions that would explore themes in the life of the city.  Some could be upbeat, such as the role of sports teams in civic pride. Some would be critical, exploring social changes and their effect on the landscape of the city.

Location would be an essential part of this story.  One possibility is housing this museum in the Inner harbor, which hosts many of the other museums and attractions in the citywould take a chronological approach.  Indeed, it could be used to revive the sagging Gallery and Harborplace malls.

But another possibility is to locate this elsewhere, near another cultural institution like the Museum of Art or the Baltimore Zoo, to create a new cultural hub and bring visitors and the related economic impact to other parts of town.  Should such an approach be taken, quick access to the city’s Metro system would be essential to the success of the institution.

Next hometown:  Rochester, Minnesota.   

Reflections on Museums 5: Telling the Stories of Troubled Pasts

While looking through the tourist tchatchkas in Madrid, my partner saw something he wanted to bring home:  a Spanish plate with a Star of David.  He thought it a perfect souvenir, something from both of our heritages.

I replied that, although I appreciated the thought, my people were kicked out of Spain, and rather ceremoniously at that.  I’m not sure I would be comfortable with a memento of that.

He wondered, then, about the ancient synagogues are still there and can be visited.  Museums, I responded (and later verified).  They were not working synagogues.  Small Jewish communities have returned to Madrid and Barcelona, but only recently.    

In other words, some healing needs to go on.

As I reflected further on the situation, I realized that many of the Spanish museums acknowledge this part of the past, though not to the degree that Germany museums explore what happened in World War II.

That, in turn, caused me to reflect on—well how do museums handle difficult subjects, like World War II, the Inquisition, and colonialism.   The more I thought about it, the more the response seemed like, an onion.  Different museums peel back different numbers of layers.

Some ignore the onion completely, and completely ignore difficult subjects.  The Musee de Quai Branley is an example of this, almost ignoring French colonialism and how that likely drove interest in the cultures explored by the museum.  In general, it seemed that most French museums ignored other than the most cursory facts of history, even if they might have had an influence on the object.  For example, the various art museums we visited in Paris make little or no mention of the French political situation at the time and its possible impact on the type of artwork that inspired.  In contrast, el Museo de Traje in Madrid explored the influence of the political and social climate on clothing design.

Despite visits to 8 museums in Paris, one of the few that really illuminated the existence of the five republics an explanatory sign in the Republique station of the Metro.  That signage was an example of the second level of addressing difficult subjects:  going just beyond the surface layer of the onion to acknowledge the existence of the issue but never really exploring it.

Versailles, too, seemed to explore the more volatile parts of French history at that same level.  It acknowledges changes in government and the extent to which  the leaders of the republics mentioned in the exhibition succeeded.  But it never really goes much deeper, like exploring the social and political situations that precipitated the various changes in government.

The third level of addressing difficult subjects in museums  involves moving beyond the surface layer to acknowledge the existence of the issue and explore one of the perspectives on it.  The history museums in Spain approached the Inquisition at that level.  These museums mentioned the positive contributions of the Moors and the Jews, the fact of their expulsions, and the cost that Spain paid for the expulsions.  But those events are solely explored from the perspective of the majority culture in Spain today; they don’t explore the impact of the Inquisition and expulsions on the Moors and the Jews.

The Inquisition Museum in Lima explores the Inquisition from the victim’s viewpoint, but only that viewpoint and the victims in South America, not that of other victims of the Inquisition. A complete exploration is probably beyond the scope of that museum, but a link from the South American experience to the broader one would widen the perspective of not only the exhibition but, more fundamentally, that of the visitors.

In contrast, the German museums explore in great depth the impact of World War II.  Their response seems to be the most complete, going to the center of the onion to acknowledge both the existence of the issue and several perspectives on the underlying history.   For example, the Deutsches Historiches Museum devotes nearly a quarter of its permanent exhibition of 2000 years of history to an exploration of just 27 years of the run-up to, and experience of, World War II.   A friend who lives in Germany shone some light on the situation;  I understand that the Germans have had lengthy discussions on how to address the past.   The downside is that, because so many perspectives and so much detail is presented, the narrative is a bit difficult to follow.  But perhaps that replicates reality.

The Civil War exhibition in the Atlanta History Center  takes a similarly in-depth look at a challenging war.  Although housed in the deep South of the US and in a city that, at some times, still feels like it’s healing from the Union burning of it in 1864, this exhibition presents sympathetic views of both the Union and the Confederacy.  Like the World War II segments in the Deutsches Historiches Museum, the exhibition on the Civil War is an extensively narrated one.

This Atlanta exhibition is unique among those mentioned here, because all of the other museums mentioned here are public ones.  So their presentations of history (or lack thereof) represent official versions of the past.  Given that museums in a given country tend to all present stories at the same level, I hypothesize that different countries have ultimately come to differing levels of reconciliation with the less pleasant parts of their past.

As an academic, this recognition makes me wonder at which level I present the subjects I teach.  Because I teach courses that, for my students, are primarily introductory, I admit that I probably present material at the second or third levels.  I’d like to think I do that because it simplifies the presentation for the student, so that they can understand the subject best. It keeps with Carroll’s principles of minimalism.  But in the process, am I also glossing over some important “histories?”   Even if I am, are students ready to hear them, or would that just confuse them further?

But what do these levels of presenting difficult subjects have to do with information architecture and design?  For the most part, we work as hired hands, and report a point of view, either explicitly or implicitly.  As I find when I’m teaching, when merely instructing people about how to do something, that simplification is probably helpful.  It’s called minimalism and people learn to perform new skills best if they’re not unnecessarily confused and presented with levels of complexity that, at first, can be avoided. But I find that, both in communication and instruction, we tend to leave the information at that basic level.    We assume people want to get right to work and we avoid the complexity.   Educators tout—and evidence supports—the use of simulations to present learners with complexity and providing them with an opportunity to figure out how to deal with it.  But it’s one thing to merely encounter the complexity; users need to explore it—not just from their own perspectives but those of others.  Although simulations   might provide such opportunities, they’re rarely taken.   Only with human facilitation are students likely to explore these other perspectives.

More fundamentally, many professional communicators are responsible for communicating an organization’s point of view about a complex subject. The resulting presentations are admittedly focused on a single viewpoint (I probably should say biased but am reluctant to).  But in focusing on one view—we often ignore the other view.  That actually does little to benefit the viewpoint for which we are advocating.  Leaving something out is usually purposeful, but it often appears like a glaring oversight to the audience and that, in turn challenges the credibility of the argument.

In some instances, we purposely leave out material, hoping people will never find out the truth.  The recent incident with the Shirley Sherrod tape—edited to appear as if she were saying the opposite of what she actually said—and BP’s editing of photos to suggest that the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico was less extensive than it was—the problem often comes back to haunt us.  In the latter case, it only cemented a bad image of BP.  In the former case, most of the damage was done to once credible politicians and news organizations, which jumped on the story rather than investigating, as they should.

More than missing the facts, these situations quickly degenerated into fact-checking and credibility exercises, instead of a more fundamental discussion of meaningful issues.  If we ever want to move beyond the past, then, we really need to make sure we have our facts straight and understand all of the different perspectives on it.

This brings me to a related issue underlying the exploration of difficult pasts—and, for that matter, any difficult subjects:  the impact on research in these fields.  Often, researchers have perspectives on issues that derive from their own pasts.  Unless they’re aware of them, these issues can lead issues to overlook issues that are clearly evident in the data.  For example, I was reading one manuscript in which the author was, on the one hand, impressed and awed by the people participating in the study.  On the other hand, the data suggested that some aspects of their work under study was handled in a cursory fashion—and it was a pattern that existed among all of the participants in the study.  Researchers are supposed to follow the data; but that’s hard to do if the data raises issues the researcher is not ready to confront.

Next post: Media abroad.

Reflections on Museums 4: Lessons for Information Architecture from Museum Building Layouts

After visiting about the tenth museum in as many days, I realized a couple of things:  some museums really frustrated either my partner or me because we couldn’t easily move from one place to the next.  That’s because we could do so easily in other museums.

That frustration inspired me, in turn, to reflect on the floor plans of different museums.  Some were designed for true free choice learning—easily letting visitors go in and out of exhibits.  Others were surprisingly directive, providing visitors with limited flexibility in choosing which exhibits to see or how to go through the exhibitions.  And others provided varying degrees of flexibility between these two extremes.

Then I started to think about why some museums afforded more flexibility than others.  In some instances, it may have been the controlling tendencies of the museum designers.  In many instances, the museum building either promoted or hindered flexibility.  The level of flexibility did not seem to solely result from whether the museum was housed in a purpose-built building (that is, a building specifically designed to be a museum or in a building that was originally designed for another purpose, but ended up as a museum).

The flexibility also seemed to result from the vision of the museum designers. Some knew how to keep visitors always moving; some led visitors to dead ends and had no idea of how to lead visitors out of those dead ends.

And that, in turn, caused me to reflect not only on recurring themes in the layout of museums, but because the layout of a museum is, in many ways, a parallel issue to the structure of websites and e-learning programs, I also wondered what lessons could be transferred from museum layout to the architecture of websites and e-learning programs.

Here’s the recurring patterns I observed and what they mean to information and learning architects.

At one extreme is the total free-choice structure, in which visitors enter a central gallery and have easy access to all of the permanent exhibitions from the entry way.  Although visitors might be able to move directly from one exhibition to the next, the exhibition layout usually directs visitors back to the center hallway so the visitor can choose any exhibition to visit next, rather than the one next door.

This is the pattern used in the Musee de la Civilization in Quebec City, the Musee Nationale des Beaux Arts du Quebec, Royal Ontario Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, Hagia Sofia, Musee d’Orsay, Pera Museum, Musical Instrument Museum in Berlin, Museu d’Historia de Catalunya, Museo de Historia de Valencia, Poble Espanyol, and the Canadian Museum of Nature (not yet reviewed).

In terms of general websites, this is the pattern followed by most company brochureware and the standard-issue short tutorial of a few hours or less. Both types of online materials greet visitors from a home page or main menu, from which visitors can choose a limited number of options.  When they finish with their choice, they usually return to the home page or menu, and proceed to the next choice.  Sequence numbers can imply an order, but do not require it.

At the other extreme is the required linear model, which requires that visitors go through an exhibition in a prescribed order—and only in that prescribed order.  This was the structure followed by the Museum of the Inquisition in Lima (in fact, the tour guide was upset when I tried to go back and re-read things afterwards) and the main Palace of Versailles.  In some instances, the decision to force visitors to follow the designated path results from a desire to control the flow of information, as in the case of the Museum of the Inquisition.  Visitors might only choose to see the gruesome torture chamber, but designers needed for visitors to understand the context that drove officials to conduct the torture.  Other museums choosing a linear pattern for similar reasons included Story of Berlin, Choco-Story and el Museo de Traje.

In some instances, the only logical traffic pattern is linear, as in la Catedral de La Familia Sagrada and La Pedrera.  In other instances, the requirement that visitors follow a prescribed structure addresses other practical issues.  For example, in the heavily trafficked Chateau de Versailles, moving crowds in a particular path could help control crowds.

In terms of designing websites and e-learning programs, the required linear model makes sense when visitors or learners need prerequisite information before they can perform some other task.  As a result, visitors might not have access to the subsequent task unless they have learned about (websites)—or demonstrated competence with (learning programs) the prerequisite content.  Such structures are often followed by blended learning programs, which often require learners to study the basic terminology and processes of a topic before they can use equipment or participate in role plays later.  This ensures that they have basic knowledge.

In other instances, designers might choose a required linear model because they are concerned that too many visitors might overload a website and cause it to crash (although this is a rare concern).

Between the extremes of free-choice and linear layouts, exists various middle approaches, providing visitors with some flexibility in how they choose exhibitions. In some instances, the designers want to provide visitors with extensive flexibility, but the design of the museum building places limits on that goal.  In the case of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, visitors are directed to a three-story atrium, which—from the visitor’s perspective—is the entryway to all exhibitions. In reality, a central hallway on the lower two levels separates exhibitions and actually provides far more flexibility for choosing, but is hidden from the view of most visitors.

In contrast, although all exhibitions in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul are accessed through a central hallway, which opens onto a central courtyard, traffic patterns require that visitors enter the central hallway at one side, thus giving preference to a particular order of visiting exhibitions, rather than providing as much free choice as the core layout might provide.  Similarly, the Deutsches Historiches Museum has a central courtyard and could easily provide access to any point in the exhibition, but chooses to close off some of the free choice through the placement of walls, and close off the rest of the choice by having guards direct visitors to a pre-selected starting point.  In contrast, the Musee de Quai Branly uses signage and traffic design to force visitors in a particular path, though it actually has a central atrium of sorts through which visitors could choose any of the four permanent exhibitions to visit.

Some museums are designed within the spirit of free choice, but the limitations of their structures also limit their abilities to provide actual choice to their visitors.  For example, because of expansions over the years, el Prado cannot provide access to all of its exhibitions off of a central hallway because expansions to the facility prevented that, adding space wherever it was physically available.  (Even the new addition only addresses some of the problem..)   The museum staff tries to make the most of this limitation by purposely placing  some of the more popular exhibitions at the ends of the museum—like the Goya galleries—to give visitors a chance to experience the work of artists who might not be as well known to them (much like grocery stores place milk at the back of the store so shoppers have to walk through all of the other products that might not place so highly on their shopping lists).  The tiny Textile Museum of Canada faces similar challenges in space as the Prado; they do not afford perfect access to exhibitions though the staff tries to provide visitors as much choice as space provides.

The situation is a bit more awkward at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs.  Although the bulk of the collection follows a free choice model, the galleries housing the twentieth century decorative arts collections are on the upper floors at the far end of one wing of the building.  Access is only available through a separate set of elevators at the edge of one exhibition on the fifth floor of the exhibition. The exhibition space is amazing, but its nearly invisible entry point creates challenges.  Designers successfully use signage to mitigate some of the problem.

The situation is more acute at the Musee des Arts et Metiers, because the nature of the exhibitions easily lend themselves to a free choice model, but the design of the historic building in which the collections are housed—a former priory—demands a linear design.

In some cases, the layout was merely confusing, as was the case with MUVIM and the Applied Arts Museum in Berlin.  In the case of MUVIM, exhibitions did not even to be physically accessible to one another and, in the case of the one we visited, the main lobby itself.  IN the case of the Applied Arts Museum in Berlin, the atrium provides the illusion of free choice but provides no guidance into the extent of the collection on display in any of the levels.

Some museums provide free choice access to exhibitions, but once inside the exhibition, traffic patterns were decidedly linear.  This was the case in the Topkapi Palace as well as the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme and the Museo Nacional in Lima.  

The realities that drive the floor plans also drive the structures of websites.  Most books advising  information architects, information designers, and instructional designers suggest a preference for the free-choice pattern while acknowledging the occasional utility of the linear pattern.

What most ignore, however, are the middle approaches taken by information architects, information designers, and instructional designers.  In most instances, the similar reasons driving museum designers to take middle approaches drive information architects, information designers, and instructional designers.  In some cases, they want to provide free choice access to all parts of a website or course, but because of a required splash page or similar opening sequence, cannot. In some instances, these required opening sequences are part of the requirements of the project; in other instances, they’re the brain children of the designers. Many real estate sites follow this structure, as do tutorials that require learners to take a “how to take this tutorial” sequence before presenting the main menu.

In some cases, especially websites and tutorials that are revisions to existing materials, new material is merely an extension of the existing material.  Sometimes cost, sometimes schedule, and sometimes attachment to the existing structure prevent information architects, information designers, and instructional designers from doing anything more than tacking the new material onto the end of the old.  In some cases, designers can follow the lead of the Prado—and use the lure of the new material to maintain interest as visitors go through the old material.

In other instances, information architects, information designers, and instructional designers can only tack the material onto the end of an existing page, and hope that other pointers and signs and links on the website help visitors find that new material.  This usually happens when new policies and procedures are added but not accessible from a home page or similar starting point.  This also happens when online lessons are updated with new units.  It’s also a problem with some museum websites, where visitor information is not easily accessible from the home page—and none of the options  available suggest where visitors might even find it.  In many instances, the extent of visitor information provided grew to several pages.

And in some instances, the result is downright confusing to visitors and learners, as happens with some organizational websites.  

Because most guidelines for developing websites and tutorials were developed for new sites and courses, information architects, information designers, and instructional designers may not be aware of the compromises they are making to their original designs when they substantially revise the sites.  Furthermore, information architects, information designers, and instructional designers often believe that changes in navigation patterns resulting from a revision carry through to the entire site, but often remnants of the old navigation patterns remain and leave the potential to create confusion among visitors and learners.  

Next post:  The Challenges of Displaying Difficult Material. 

Reflections on Museums 3: Different Ways of Learning from Museums

In their extended study of museum visitors, Falk and Dierking found that people can learn a lot from museums, but they often learned a lot about subjects they were already interested in.  And perhaps there’s some truth in that.

When reflecting on our visits to museums, I realized that existing interests played a key role in choosing which museums we visited, as well as what we saw in them.  In some cases, we both had an interest in seeing a museum, like le Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.  In other instances, the interests of one of us drove the choice of museum and the other acquiesced, such as my partner’s interest in seeing el Museo de Traje (clothing) in Spain and my interest in seeing the history museums in every city we visited.  Similarly, within museums, our interests drove our choice of exhibitions to visit.  In the Neues Museum in Berlin, we visited Nefertiti’s bust because of my partner’s interest, just as we chose to visit the galleries on the early history of Berlin in the Story of Berlin because of my interest in that subject.

What I also observed, however, was that the interest of one partner helped inspire interest in the other.  My partner’s interest in clothing and Nefertiti drove mine.  I probably acquired more new knowledge than him in these instances because my knowledge base was likely more limited than his.  By the same token, my partner acquired much more basic knowledge about the history of Berlin and Germany because I had more than he did.  In those instances, the more knowledgeable partner still learned, but it was fill-in knowledge, filling in holes in our existing knowledge bases.

More than the subject, I also observed that each of us took advantage of different learning resources offered by the museums.  To gain factual knowledge, my partner preferred the audio guides while I preferred the labels.

Part of this preference was practical; his native language is Spanish and all museums offered audio guides in his native language but few labels.  In contrast, my native language is English and most museums offered labels in my language.

The other practical consideration is speed; one can read more quickly than one can listen.  I found this true even when I read labels in Spanish and French, which are not my native languages and which I cannot read as quickly as English.

That said, I also learned that the information available from labels did not match that provided by the audio guides.  In any given instance, one provided more extensive information, though which channel did so varied among institutions.

We rarely took advantage of human tour guides except when required.  Once again, this was practical.  In some instances, tours were not available.  When they were, we could only take tours when they were scheduled, which often conflicted with our plans.  Or the tours were not conducted in languages we could easily understand.  Part of this is a self-service orientation; we prefer to do things on our own.

But when we did follow a tour guide, we found that they added a depth of knowledge not available in either the labels or audio guides.

Most of the museums also offered touch screen computers, with access to additional content about the exhibitions and their objects; we almost never used them.  In some instances, that resulted from the line-ups at the computers.  In other instances, the computers were slow or not working.  And that formed our attitudes.

One exception was the history museum in Valencia, where the computers presented acted out scenes from history in viewers’ choices of Spanish or English. I watched some of these, but because of the same time consideration as with audio guides, did not watch many.

I observed other visitors and noted that some would tour together, stop and discuss an object or case, then move on; others went at their own pace and occasionally joined one another (our plan), some read most or all of the labels (like me) while others concentrated more on the objects themselves (my partner).

And the two saw and learned different things. My partner would often mention something to me and I’d wonder where he had seen it, because he saw something I missed.  That wouldn’t be so bad, but because I read so closely, I thought I had been a thorough visitor.  I was fooling myself.

For designers of online and informal learning programs, these observations suggest many take-away issues:

• When given a choice, people will choose what interests them the most.
• To expand the horizon of choices, note that people will accompany friends and follow their suggestions—at first to be polite, but they often benefit from the choice.  
• In such situations, the two learners do not learn the same things because they’re working with different bases of knowledge.   
• Given a choice of learning media, people will choose the medium that best suits their preferences and needs.  
• Unless the design of the content on those different media is coordinated (it usually is not—the two are likely designed by different people at different times), the material presented will differ.  As a result, what people learn will differ depending on their choice of medium.  
• Even when visiting the same space, however, different learners will approach that space differently (some read, some look, some discuss).  As a result, even when the learning experience is designed to cover a single body of material, when people approach it in their own way, they each see different things.  Those differences go beyond different perspectives; different visitors see entirely different things.  One person will see something the other misses and vice versa.  

In terms of informal learning, what this means is that it’s only useful if we don’t care about the specifics that people learn.  But if we do care, then informal learning might not be most appropriate because each person leaves having had experienced different content, much less with a different understanding of the subject.  For building a basic body of knowledge, informal learning probably doesn’t make much sense.   It prevents people from building the common basis of knowledge that permits knowledgeable participation in a conversation.

For building a personalized base of knowledge, as is necessary for building expertise, informal learning is terrific because it allows a person to tailor knowledge to his or her own needs.  And because the learner is constantly tailoring knowledge to his or her own needs, they’re also choosing what they don’t learn—and that’s always something to learn later.  Perhaps that’s why true experts always say that they don’t know anything about the field.  They know what they’ve chosen not to learn yet.  That they can label what they don’t know is what makes them experts.  

Next post:  Lessons for information architecture from the spatial design of museums. 

Reflections on Museums 2: What Museums Cost Visitors—and Lessons for Information Architects and Information Designers

Although individual museums may wonder what to charge visitors, and some museum organizations consider the issue, for the vast majority of visitors, we primarily consider the issue on a case-by-case basis.  That is, we decide to visit a museum and, when we learn about the admission fee, we decide whether or not to pay it.

Admittedly, I haven’t looked for it, but I can’t say that I’ve seen much widespread discussion of the cost of museum visits.  Although most tour books include admission costs in their descriptions of museums, most reviews do not.  Nor have my museum reviews mentioned admission costs.

But the issue of cost quickly went top of mind when I began my marathon of museum visits this winter.  After visiting nearly 30 museums in as many days, museum admission costs admittedly became a daily issue.  In this post, I explore these costs—then relate the implications to information designers and information architects.

Basic Admission Fees Are Competitive within Their Markets
And in the process of facing it that frequently, I quickly observed that, although admission fees would vary among specific institutions, basic admission fees in a community were remarkably similar.  For example, in Paris, museum admissions typically ran between 8 and 10 euros; in Spain, admissions were slightly lower--6 and 9 euros.

That said, museum admissions in Europe seem remarkably similar to those in Canada, but significantly higher than many museums in the U.S., as many American museums do not charge admission (like the Smithsonian) or only charge admissions to special exhibitions (like the Baltimore Museum of Art and Minneapolis Institute of Arts).

Discounts Aren’t Easy to Come by 
Of course, being the tightwad that I am, I’m always looking for a discount.  So I paid attention to some of the discounts on offer:

• People who receive public assistance can, in some countries, receive reduced or free admission.  
• Student discounts are really young people discounts.  Most are restricted to students under the age of 30, even if the person can produce documentation verifying that he or she is a full-time student.  Given the focus on mature students and the fact that many of them would benefit from museum visits but have foregone income for a year, this age limit is both arbitrary and discriminatory; it should really be named “Traditional student discount.”  

Furthermore, some student discounts are limited to students studying within the country, as is the situation in France, Germany, and Turkey.   Although this is discriminatory, it is a bit more understandable, as visits to state-sponsored museum s are an extension of state-sponsored educations.  Students studying in other states are not sponsored.  It’s not nice, but it’s a bit more understandable.  

• Teacher discounts are, available on an even more limited basis.  Spain is the most generous with its discounts; most Spanish museums offered me free admission when I showed my faculty identification.  Otherwise, only one other museum offered complimentary admission to teachers:  the Jewish Museum of Paris. All of the museums offering complimentary admission  did not ask what I taught or at what level.   
• Membership in a national museum association only works within the country.  For example, I am a member of the Canadian Association of Museums.  One of the benefits is complimentary admission to museums throughout Canada.  When I was a member of the American Association of Museums, that membership card often worked in Canada, but as the Canadian association strengthened, that happened less frequently. 

An International museum association exists, called ICOM.  A benefit of membership in that organization is complimentary admissions throughout the world.  Figuring out how to become a member, however, is another story.    

Museum Passes Are Often a Deal Worth Passing On
To mitigate museum admission costs, my partner and I explored museum passes.  These are tickets that are good for a large number of museums for a limited number of days.  To be honest, consumers need to be cautious about these.  In some instances, they can be a good deal but, in others, they could actually wind up increasing admissions expenses.   For example, we bought passes in Berlin but did not buy them in Paris.

When deciding whether or not to purchase a pass, consumers first need to consider which museums they want to visit, then check the list covered by the pass.  If the pass does not cover some of the museums on the list, then its value is reduced.

Next, consumers need to figure out how many of those museums they might visit during the time period covered by the pass.  Visitors can typically visit just 1 or 2 museums per day; perhaps even fewer when trying to discover massive museums like the Louvre.

Last, consumers need to figure out the actual admission costs of the museum.  In our case, at a rate of about 1.5 museum s per day, we paid less by paying individual admissions (even without discounts) rather than paying for the pass.  I reached the same conclusion a year earlier with the New York Museum pass, which is promoted by the same company as the Parisian pass.

In contrast, we saved money with the Berlin Museum Pass.  (Not surprisingly, the pass appears to be promoted by a different organization than the Parisian and New York passes.)  Its cost was about that of three museums and we visited 5 on the pass. But the pass  did not cover every museum we wanted to visit, such as the commercial DDR Museum and Story of Berlin, and one historic church.  We found that, as a result of purchasing the pass, we actually selected museums based on whether or not they were included on the pass.

What Does this Mean to Information Architects and Information Designers
On the surface, museums and websites are unrelated phenomena.  After all, museums are cultural institutions that exist in three dimensions; websites are informational and educational institutions that exist in two dimensions.

But, as a great speaker (whose name escapes me right now) once observed, sometimes the best ideas come from non-competitors.  And as websites struggle with the challenge of generating revenue from users, information architects and information designers might learn a few lessons from museums.

The ability to charge for content seems to have some contextual basis.  That is, museums in Europe and Canada, have similar admissions fees, and are able to charge across the board.  In contrast, museums in many American markets do not charge admission fees, perhaps making it harder for other museums in their markets to charge anything other than nominal admission fees.

In other words, market conditions might determine whether a website can charge users a general entrance fee.  In markets where most competitors do not charge fees, only a concerted action by all will change the rates. Airlines have tried this with only mixed results; when several airlines raise fares, often one will not, to skim off the rest of the business from price-conscious consumers.

When basic fees are constrained by market conditions, a la carte fees offer an alternative. For example, although many American museums do not charge a basic admission fee, they do charge fees to see special exhibitions.  These fees are often as high as, if not higher than, regular admission fees to comparable museums in other markets.  For example, special exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art require separately purchased tickets.

But the practice is not limited to American museums that do not charge a basic admission fee.  The Prado in Madrid, for example, had a general admission fee and separate fees for special exhibitions.

Information architects and designers might consider this as an alternate approach; providing access to some content either for free or for a lower general price, and providing access to other content only after purchasing a “special ticket.”  Generally, most professional associations adopt this model, providing some general information about the profession for free, but providing articles, research studies, and similar intellectual property only to paying members.

Memberships offer benefits to both parties.  For people who want to frequently visit a particular museum, or merely want to show their support, they can become a “member” of the museum.  All levels  of membership offer free admission to the general collection and special exhibitions (though they might limit visits to special exhibitions).  More costly memberships provide additional privileges, such as invitations to exhibition openings.  For those who have income limitations, like students, seniors, and families, special prices make membership affordable.

Information architects and designers might also consider such approaches to charging for their websites; a one-time visit fee (like a one-time admission fee to a museum) as well as memberships for frequent visitors and supporters.  Similarly, information architects and information designers might consider offering different levels of membership with different levels of access to information, as well as discounted memberships for groups who have limited incomes.

In some ways, this resembles the approach to websites taken by professional associations, except theirs is an all-or-nothing approach.  This approach might work better with magazines and other subscription materials, as they can charge for one issue (as some are starting to do for the iPad) and general subscriptions.

When several related websites want to reach the same groups of users, they might collaborate with passes.  As the museums of Berlin, New York, and Paris collaborated to offer a single pass that provides admission to several museums, so information architects and information designers who work with several websites trying to reach the same group of users might collaborate with one another by offering a “ticket” that lets users visit all of the sites for a period of time by using a single pass.  This is an idea that is being considered by the community that publishes online periodicals; news reports suggest that they are considering subscriptions that provide access to several publications at once (much like cable companies offer “packages” of specialty stations).  When creating such passes involves several publishers, the challenges are admittedly daunting, as participants need to determine what to charge, how much access to provide, and how to divide the revenue—among other questions.

And how should websites deal with “donations” of content (also known as user-generated content)? On the one hand, user-generated content—that is, tips, insights, ideas, and similar information that users contribute to the website, appears to be a gift.  On the other hand, whenever anyone can contribute to the site, usually anyone does—including people trying to advertise professional services (without paying for the privilege), sell reliable and dubious products (once again, without paying for the privilege) and people offering advice who, in reality, have a stronger need for it.  Museums face similar challenges; people want to donate items that may or may not relate to their collections and, even if they do, might not strengthen that collection.  As a result, most museums have acquisitions policies, which govern which artifacts they seek and the conditions under which they accept them.  Similarly, many online press outlets as well as specialty websites—plagued by flaming or irrelevant posts—have increasingly adopted policies regarding these “gifts” of content, limiting them to registered users whose identities they can always track.  In some instances, contributors may need to join the website (at a fee) to continue receiving the privilege of contributing.

What does this mean?  As information architects and information designers struggle with the challenges of which content to provide for free and which for a fee, and whether to allow the general public to contribute comments or only registered users, we might look to museums for models of how to approach these challenges and adapt them to our needs: general admission fees, a la carte fees, membership, passes, and gift privileges.

Next post:  Different ways of learning from museums.

Reflections on Museums 1: Tour Buses, Advance Organizers, and Truth in Organizational Communication

The next several posts reflect on the experience of visiting museums.  The first explores tour buses, advance organizers and truth in organizational communication.

Subsequent postings explore:

• The cost of museums
• How visitors learn from museum exhibits
• Lessons for information architecture from museums
• The challenges of displaying difficult material

Reflections on Museums 1: Tour Buses, Advance Organizers, and Truth in Organizational Communication
One of the more interesting surprises of my recent visit to Europe was my discovery of the city tour—you know, those double-decker buses that drive around a city and point out the sites to people.

In the past, I had never seen the point to them.  I always felt that the history museum for the city was the ideal launching pad for a visit.  These museums describe how the city evolved and, in the process, introduce the culture, key places, and famous people.  Indeed, some even have replicas, models, paintings, or photos of major places, along with statues, paintings and photos of famous people. I’m still a fan of these institutions as a starting point for a visit.  For example, if you’re visiting Montreal, make sure you check out the Montreal History Centre.  Visiting Atlanta?  Check out the Atlanta History Center.  Chicago? Check out the Chicago Historical Society.  Berlin? The Berlin Story.

But these institutions admittedly have a few limitations as a starting point for a visit. Some cities don’t really have such institutions.  For example, Toronto doesn’t. (They’ve talked about it, but so far, nothing’s there.)  Baltimore’s City Life museums served such a purpose but went bankrupt, and the one city museum—the one-of-a-kind Public Works museum—closed as part of a budget cut.  (The Maryland Historical Society fills in some of the slack.)

So what’s a visitor to do?

Take my partner’s advice and take the tour bus. At first, it was something for him to kill time when I had to finish a report during our visit to Istanbul. He loved the experience.  I thought it was just about the chance to ride on the open, upper deck of a double-decker bus (no selling point to this cold-adverse person).  But he said it gave him a sense of the layout of the city, and he appreciated the background provided by the tour guide.

He also appreciated the flexibility of European city tours. All are hop on—hop off, which let visitors get on and off.  If a site intrigues a visitor, the visitor can get off the bus and explore the site, then resume the tour.

He loved the experience so much that, by the third city, he would ask, “When am I going to be able to take my tour bus?”

But along the way, he talked me into trying the tour bus, too.  And I found that, like the guided tours of a software applications for new users, or that museums post on their websites, these tour buses act as advance organizers (like those Ausubel proposes for educational programs) for experiencing a new city.  Most, though not all, tours provided visitors with a brief history of the city—starting with its founding, introduced the major sections of the city (and, in some cases, put it into the context of its history), and then introduced major sites.

Some are sites that visitors are likely to explore later, like museums and historic locations; others are curiosities, like the Torre Agbar in Barcelona, a building so unique in its shape and size that only the least curious visitor could ignore it (though it is not really a tourist site).

I also learned a few practical things along the way—some that merely prepare me better for future tours, others that inform work in information and instructional design.

• As a result of having no cover and being above the traffic, the views on the upper level were much clearer than those on the lower level . Or, to be more precise, although I may have been warm on the covered and somewhat heated lower deck of the bus, I couldn’t’ see much. 
• Most tours operate in several languages (one operated in as many as ten).  To do so, most use a system that lets visitors choose the language of choice.  
• To make sure that the right narration plays at the right time, the default narration is music.  Although I am not certain of this, it seems that the buses and the key sites are equipped with some sort of technology that tells the bus when it’s entering a particular district; that, in turn, causes the system to play the recording associated with that location.  The system seems to experience glitches when a bus is idling near a signal; the same narration plays repeatedly until the bus moves away from the signal.  (This was a problem in Madrid.)  
• Some aspects of consistency are overlooked.  All of the Spanish cities had at least two bus routes and they slightly overlapped.  In Barcelona, the English narration for one route was by someone with an American accent; the other by someone with a British accent.  But in the overlapping part of the routes, the system only had one recording.  The sudden change from an American to  British voice seemed a bit odd.  
• As an added benefit to these systems, the tour companies provide a set of high quality ear phones that visitors can keep.  As someone who goes through 3 or 4 sets of earphones a year, this was an added bonus, worth $8 to $10 per tour.  
• The tour bus we took in Berlin was the exception to these tours; we had a live tour guide who narrated in both German and English. Even though I was the only Anglophone for part of the tour, he continued to narrate in both languages.  And he even translated the jokes!
• This live narration, complete with opinion, provided for a more colorful tour—not just in terms of the jokes, but also the opinions.  While providing opinion admittedly risks offending the audience, the absence of some admittedly less-than-pleasant facts can also make a tour seem unnecessarily sanitized.  For example, when pointing out the Department of Defense headquarters in Madrid,  the narrator of the tour bus noted that construction started in 1932 but wasn’t finished for two decades afterwards.  He failed to mention that the country was embroiled in a civil war during those years and the capital was temporarily moved away from Madrid, which might have had an effect on construction. 
• Professional organizational communicators often wonder what to do about similar situations.  This just reinforces my belief that it’s important to address the “big box in the middle of the room.”  Ignoring it does not make the issue go away.  Instead, people are likely to fill in the blanks.  Sometimes, they’ll do so knowledgeably (even if they have a different viewpoint than the organization would prefer).  More often than not, something will seem weird and they’ll make up their own explanation—complete or not, accurate or not. By acknowledging and explaining the situation, the communicator is allowed to address the situation in a way that’s to their benefit.  (Kind of what everyone recommended that Tiger Woods should have done when his scandal first broke, but that’s another story.)

Next post:  What Museums Cost Visitors.

Museums, Missions, and Qualified Board Members

The cash-strapped National Academy sold two paintings to cover its operating expenses. That’s a no-no in the museum world. If they sold a painting every time they ran into difficulty, they’d have no collection left.

More significantly, it’s completely antithetical to their missions. Museums are established to collect paintings (and other valuable objects), document them, store them, conduct research on them, and preserve them for the public and for future generations.

To call attention to this breach of trust, the Association of Art Museums censured the National Academy and the New York legislature is further responding with proposed legislation to make such acts illegal.

But how did the National Academy get into this place? Bad governance—and a focus on issues other than the greater good of the organization. This emphasizes, once again, the crucial role of the board in governing an organization—not only by thinking of the greater good over ideology or personal need, but by taking an active and informed role in the running of the organization.
More seriously, as one former treasurer of the organization reports here, Boards also need to recruit qualified members.
View a New York Times article describing the challenges at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/arts/design/14acad.html?_r=1&ref=design&pagewanted=all