Museum Services
Better Museum Visits
Curator Sandra Massey with designer Greg Olson in front of their Sac and Fox Exhibit
Our focus is on people rather than things. This section is about better “visits” rather than better “exhibits” or better “collections management,” because if cultivating the visitor’s intelligence is not the center of the museum’s mission, then exhibits or collections won’t avert the failure of the institution.
We believe the primary result of a museum visit should be some enhancement of the visitor’s ability to think. The imagination must be stirred somehow. Something must happen to engage not only the passive attention of the visitor, but the active interest. It is the individuals who are able to make a museum interesting that we want to celebrate and encourage. Those individuals are America’s cultural treasure. They are much more important than the collections.
Collections, by themselves, do not engage our interest and help us think more widely, more deeply, more critically. People do that. To improve America’s museums, we have to bring the visitor’s experience to the forefront of our thinking. The people who operate museums often imagine they are stewards of “history.” They are actually stewards of their neighbors’ intelligence. That is what it means to be in the education field.
The objects and archives that represent history can easily be confused with “purpose.” If the actual purpose is to trigger an intellectually constructive experience, then objects and archives become accessories. In that role, we can ask if we are using them effectively or if they even suit our purpose. As accessories, they become less important than the human being who deploys them in a learning experience. They even become dispensable. If a natural disaster wipes out the building or the collection, the creative human beings who operate the museum can find other accessories to stimulate thinking. Their fundamental service to the population is not dependent on objects.
"21st by 21"
Let's bring our 19th-century museum practices into the 21st century in time for our statehood bicentennial in 2021. To help accomplish that goal, we have focused much of our grant-making on local projects that take steps out of the old and into the new. There are new audiences to be involved and new donations to be raised if we all get together and move! Our 21st by 21 page will show you a running tally of the projects we've funded. We'd love to see fifty new projects on this page by the end of 2010!
Workshops and Charettes
We are now in the eleventh year of offering intensive workshops for the leadership of local museums and other history organizations. Our Charette program is a consulting visit and activity-rich seminar for the leadership of an organization. We are able to serve as many as a dozen organizations per year with this free service. In 2008 we will begin to offer additional types of workshops on specific topics. Our Charette Page lists all of our current offerings. Contact Michael Bouman for information.
The Smithsonian Institution Comes to Town
We are fortunate to be the statewide brokers for a rural outreach program called Museums on Main Street. Through this program, we bring a touring Smithsonian exhibit to six Missouri communities. In addition, we provide programming advice from an appointed historian and we also provide a small grant to defray programming costs. Our goal is to get our hands on one new exhibit for this program every year. See our MOMS page for the details on this program, or contact Patricia Zahn.
Other Touring Exhibits
Our Other Exhibits Page provides information about exhibits we circulate from our office, such as Homeland: The Sac and Fox Heritage in Northeast Missouri, and from other sources. Any organization that books a touring exhibit may apply for grant or program support to make the experience much more engaging.