This week the museum team came together to discuss the idea
of writing a collaborative interpretive plan for the museum. The idea came up after
discussing the way the goals of the museum were being represented by the
Chemical Heritage Foundation's overall strategic plan and mission. The museum
team felt that their goals were not fully represented within the strategic
plan, therefore writing a museum-specific interpretive plan would create a
document which outlines the detailed goals and mission of the museum team and
what they want the CHF museum to accomplish. This is a unique situation because
in most cases, museums are stand-alone entities with their own strategic plans
and mission statements {and collections care policies, and accession policies,
etc.} but the CHF museum is just one department in a larger foundation. In this
week's blog post I've decided to explore some of the ideas that were discussed
during the museum team meeting this week, and really get into the differences
between an interpretive plan and an exhibit philosophy, and why a museum should write one.
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| Planning means organization! Photo Courtesy of {Sarah Sutton} |
To better understand the task that the museum team was
taking on, the collections manager, Stephanie, gave me some examples to read
before the meeting. I looked at interpretive plans developed by Harper's Ferry
and the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, as well as the exhibit
philosophy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. After researching these
plans, there were some distinct differences between the interpretive plans and
the exhibit designs. Harper's Ferry's interpretive plan really drove home the
importance of the visitor experience. By asking the question, "what kind
of experience do you want your visitor to have at your museum?", you are
better able to steer the design of your exhibits to meet that goal. The
Harper's Ferry plan, as well as the Champaign plan, were also focused on what
happens outside of the museum space much more than any exhibit philosophy. This
means that the interpretive plan values collaboration strategies and the involvement
of major stakeholders in exhibits
and the museum as a whole.
Exhibit philosophies take a much more inward look at
exhibits and the goals that the museum has for those exhibits. Exhibit
philosophies guide the way that museum teams create exhibits, and their process
of creating exhibits. It is meant to make sure the team stays true to the mission statement and goals that drive the museum forward. Some
museums aim to be a truly participatory space, while others choose to focus on
themes of education, or community outreach, or entertainment. For example, the
exhibit philosophy created by the Science Museum of Minnesota outlines that they
want to create an experimental museum experience; "At the Science Museum
of Minnesota we believe that exhibits should involve visitors informally but
directly in the experimental process of science (playing with apparatuses,
forming hypotheses, setting up simple experiments, forming conclusions)."
The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History has a different goal in mind for their
work; they want to produce exhibits that are: "Relevant, Sustainable, Bridging, Participatory, and Igniting." Exhibit philosophies are really tuned into what unique values museums have.
Although there are differences between the two types of
plans, they both aim to guide a museum to be a more goal-driven space. Writing
a plan for your museum goes beyond the collection policy, and connects to the
public. These plans help a museum team to come together to figure out what you want to do, how you want to do it, and articulate that plan to the public (which is a great way to
incorporate transparency in your
museum). So far, the CHF museum would like to create a plan which really gets
to the heart of why they do what they do, and why the history of science is
relevant to everyone. They want to use the CHF collection to create an
experience for the visitor, not to showcase or simply share the objects in
the collection. The first interpretive plan meeting was really to get out some
ideas, express what they did like about the plans we read, and what they did
not like, and to get down a few shared goals among the team. This blog is
titled Part One, because the next blog post relating to interpretive planning will
explore what happens during the next few meetings and the specific goals and
needs of the CHF museum. Stay tuned for the details!
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