curator hyper

7/30/2019 Curator Hyper

1/32

t fty fty fty fty ftyty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty

ty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty ftyfty fty fty fty fty

t fty fty fty fty ftyty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty

ty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty fty ftyfty fty fty fty fty

CURATOR the museum journal

volume number

50 | 1 January 2007

i f t i e t h n n i v e r s a r


2/32


3/32

curator The M se m J nalVolume 50 Number 1

January 2007


4/32

Curator: The Museum Journal see s timely theoretical and practical articles that e plore issues, practices, andpolicies in the museum pro ession.

We request manuscripts be submitted via e-mail to curatorjournal@earthlin .net, with a copy [email protected]. The le should be saved in Rich Te t Format, without additional document

ormattin , and sent as an attachment to your e-mail messa e. Please provide mailin addresses (includin telephone, a , and e-mail), as well as title and institutional a liation or each author. An abstract o nomore than 150 words must accompany the manuscript. Biblio raphies and re erences should con orm tothe style presented in this journal. Authors are encoura ed to obtain photo raphs and artwor toaccompany manuscripts but not to submit them until manuscripts are accepted. Captions should includeappropriate credits. Authors are responsible or observin the laws o copyri ht when quotin or reproducin material and or any reproduction ees incurred.

Manuscripts submitted to Curator should not be under consideration by any other publishers, nor may themanuscript have been previously published elsewhere. I a manuscript is based on a lecture, readin , or tal , speci c details should accompany the submission. Curator: The Museum Journal is a re ereed quarterly journal. Submitted manuscripts will under o blind peer review.

Curator: The Museum Journal (ISSN: 0011-3069) is published quarterly by AltaMira Press, A Division o Rowman & Little eld Publishers, Inc., and the Cali ornia Academy o Sciences. Copyri ht Cali ornia

Academy o Sciences, 2007. All ri hts reserved. Permission must be obtained rom the publisher or repro-duction o any material in any orm. Curator is a journal o opinion, and the views e pressed in its articlesare not necessarily those o the publisher or the Cali ornia Academy o Sciences.

S bsc ipti ns and Inq i ies: Individuals: $40 or 1 year, $80 or 2 years, $120 or 3 years, $12.50 sin leissue; Museum Institution: $80 or 1 year, $160 or 2 years, $240 or 3 years, $25 sin le issue; Institutions:$99 or 1 year, $198 or 2 years, $297 or 3 years, $30 sin le issue. Museum Institution re ers to muse-ums, alleries, historical societies, zoos, arboreta, science and technolo y centers, botanical ardens, his-toric houses, livin history arms and sites and other museum-related elds, and libraries contained withinsuch institutions. All noninstitutional orders must be paid by personal chec , VISA, or MasterCard. Ma e

chec s payable to AltaMira Press. All subscription inquiries, orders, and renewals must be addressed toJournal Circulation, Curator: The Museum Journal, 15200 NBN Way, Blue Rid e Summit, PA 17214.Phone: (800) 462-6420; email: [email protected]. Address all editorial correspondence [email protected], with a copy to curatorjournal@earthlin .net. Permissions requests should beaddressed to Patricia Zline at [email protected]. Boo s or review should be sent to Slover Linett Strat-e ies, Inc., 4147 North Ravenswood Ave., Suite 302, Chica o, IL 60613.

Back Iss es: In ormation about availability and prices o bac issues may be obtained rom the publishersorder department (address above).

Periodicals posta e paid in Lanham, MD, and additional mailin o ces.

Indexing: Curator is re ularly listed in the International Current Awareness Services. Selected material is in-de ed in the International Bibliography o the Social Sciences.

Claims: Claims or undelivered copies must be made no later than 12 months ollowin the month o publication. The publisher will supply missin copies when losses have been sustained in transit and

when the reserve stoc will permit.

Adve tising: Current rates and speci cations may be obtained by writin to the Advertisin Mana er,Curator , 4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706; phone: (301) 459-3366 5651;

a : (301) 429-5748; email: [email protected]

Change Add ess: Si wee s advance notice must be iven when noti yin o chan e o address. Pleasesend old address label alon with the new address to ensure proper identi cation. Please speci y nameo journal. Postmaster: Send all chan es o address to Curator, c/o AltaMira Press, 15200 NBN Way, BlueRid e Summit, PA 17214.

P d cti n and C mp siti n: Detta Penna, Penna Desi n, Abbots ord, BC, Canada.

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, San Francisco, CA

ALTAMIRA PRESS, A DIVISION OF ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC., Lanham, MD

curator The M se m J nal


5/32

CurATor : The Museum JournalVolume 50 Number 1

January 2007

5 Celeb ating 50 Yea s Curator: The Museum JournalZAHAVA D. DOERINg, EDITOR

9 P esc ipti ns A t M se ms in the Decade AheadMAxWELL L. ANDERSON

19 Ae space M se ms: A Q esti n BalanceTOM D. CROUCH

33 Lets G t MY M se m: Inspi ing C nfdent Lea ne s and M se mExpl e s at Child ens M se msCAROL ENSEkI

41 The F t e Z s: A New M del C lt al Instit ti nsJOHN FRASER AND DAN WHARTON

55 Fi ty M se m Yea s, and Then S meTOM L. FREUDENHEIM

63 The Ext a dina y G wth the Science-Techn l gy M se m ALAN J. FRIEDMAN

77 The A th ity objects: F m regime Change t Pa adigm Shi t HILDE S. HEIN

87 Hype c nnecti n: Nat al Hist y M se ms, Kn wledge, and theEv lving Ec l gy C mm nity

TOM HENNES

109 D M se m Exhibiti ns Have a F t e?kATHLEEN MCLEAN

123 Child ens M se ms as Citizens: F Inspi ing ExamplesPEggY MONAHAN

127 Ab t Face: The rebi th the P t ait Galle y in the Twenty-f st Cent y MARC PACHTER

131 St dying Visit s and Making M se ms Bette ANDREW J. PEkARIk

135 on the uses M se m St dies Lite at e: A resea ch AgendaJAY ROUNDS

147 Science Cente s at 40: Middle-aged Mat ity Mid-li e C isis?ROB SEMPER

151 Fi ty Yea s Changes in Ame icas Hist y M se msMARTIN E. SULLIVAN

159 Media in the M se m: A Pe s nal Hist y SELMA THOMAS

167 The right St in the right Place: The Instit ti n C ntemp a y A t IAN WEDDE

3

ontents


6/32

curator The M se m J nal ZAHAVA D. DOERINg, Editor kAY LARSON, Managing Editor SAMUEL M. TAYLOR,Editor Emeritus

PETER LINETT,Books Editor kATHLEEN MCLEAN, Exhibitions Editor SELMA THOMAS, Museum Media Editor

EDITorIAL BoArDEDWARD H. ABLE, JR., President

American Association o Museums ADAM BICkFORDColumbia, MissouriMARgARET gOULD BURkEDirector and Curator o EducationCali ornia Academy o SciencesMARLENE CHAMBERS,Editor EmeritaDenver Art Museum

PEggY RUTH COLE Amherst, MassachusettsJUDY DIAMOND, Pro essor o In ormal Science EducationUniversity o Nebraska State Museum, LincolnZAHAVA D. DOERINgSenior Social Scientist Smithsonian InstitutionJOHN H. FALk, President Institute or Learning Innovation

Annapolis, Maryland

ELSA FEHER,Pro essor EmeritaCenter or Research in Mathematicsand Science EducationSan Diego State University JOHN FRASER Director o Interpretive ProgramsWildli e Conservation Society, New York

TERRENCE M. gOSLINER, Senior Curator Cali ornia Academy o SciencesMICHAEL gHISELINSenior Research FellowCali ornia Academy o Sciences

MYLES gORDONVice President or Education

American Museum o Natural History DAVID A. gRIMALDIChairman and Associate Curator Department o Entomology

American Museum o Natural History

ELAINE HEUMANN gURIAN Arlington, VirginiaDAVID M. kAHN, Director Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans

WATSON M. LAETSCH, Pro essor EmeritusDepartment o Plant Biology University o Cali ornia at Berkeley NEIL LANDMAN, Chairman and Curator Department o Invertebrates

American Museum o Natural History ROSS LOOMIS, Pro essor Department o Psychology Colorado State University, Fort CollinsLAURA MARTIN,Executive Vice-President Phoenix ZooLORIN I. NEVLINg, Chie EmeritusIllinois Natural History Survey, ChampaignENID SCHILDkROUT, Chairman and Curator,Department o Anthropology

American Museum o Natural History

ROBERT J. SEMPER Executive Associate Director Exploratorium, San FranciscoCAROL B. STAPP, Director

Museum Education ProgramThe George Washington University HARRIS H. SHETTEL Rockville, MarylandSAMUEL M. TAYLOR

Morristown, New Jersey DANNY WHARTON, Director Central Park Zoo, New YorkJ. WILLARD WHITSON, Vice President Please Touch MuseumPhiladelphia, PennsylvaniakEN YELLISVice President and Museum Director International Tennis Hall o Fame

Newport, Rhode Island

CALIForNIA ACADEMY oF SCIENCESgolden gate Par , San Francisco, CA 94118J. PATRICk kOCIOLEk, Executive Director

W. RICHARD BINgHAM, Chairman, Board o Trustees

ALTAMIrA PrESS4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706


7/32

i t ears o urato Celeb ating 50 Yea s Curator: The Museum Journal

Zahava D. D e ing, Edit

This is the irst issue o a new journal, entitled CURATOR . It is customary on such occa- sions to o er an explanation to the reader concerning the origin and the purpose o the newpublication, beyond that which is implicit in the nature o the articles contained in the irst issue. Such a statement is all the more appropriate in the present instance, since this journalrepresents a venture unique, we believe, in this country. Curator 1.1, 1958.

From its inception at the American Museum o Natural History 50 years a o, Curator: The Museum Journal (as it is now called) has published articles and commentary about thetopics that matter to cultural institutions. The Editorial Statement in the rst issue, de-scribin the need or such a journal, still resonates with us today.

Although present museum problems, general and speci c, probably con ronted the very rst museum ever established, they have, with the time and the expansion o the museums unction,become vastly more varied and complex. The skill and competence now required to organize and

administer a modern museum, to plan and prepare exhibits, to serve and deal with the publicneed or education and knowledge, to use and maintain collections, and to control the mani oldinterrelations o all these and other things as well, have taken on a highly pro essional character that refects both the growing role o the museum in our culture and the high standards o per or-mance that museums have taught the public to expect.

As a result o these developments and the steady pursuit o improvement, the varied kinds o dedicated workers who make up the personnel o a museum nd themselves acing intricate prob-lems, discovering elegant solutions, contributing to a specialized corpus o knowledgeand withno medium in this country through which to record their experience, to share their triumphs, or to seek the advice or criticism o their colleagues in other institutions.

From the rst issue (January 1958), and the rst article, On Bein a Curator, the jour-nal has published the most thou ht ul writin o pro essional collea ues. Contrary to

5


8/32

6 A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

human birthdays, journals are numbered rom the rst issue and volume, so Curator cel-ebrated its tenth anniversary in 1967 and is honorin its tieth in this volume. The ne t hal century be ins with this issue.

Volume 50, Issue 1, January 2007 is a celebration and an invitation. Ei hteen muse-um and independent pro essionalsincludin academic researchers, curators, museumand zoo directors, educators, philosophers, art historianswere as ed to revisit the past and present o museums. The assi nment was deliberately open-ended. In the ori inalinvitation, we encoura ed these collea ues to address the stren ths and railties, successesand ailures o the type o museum or area o museum wor they new best, and to ad-dress the uture. They have responded with a marvelous chorus o styles and viewpoints,

rom scholarship to commentary to personal refections. All o the articles were peer-reviewed in Curators ormal process, which emphasizes actual accuracy but welcomesdi erences o interpretation. The responses have been as unique as each writer. (For in-stance, kathy McLean too the initiative to read the rst our issues o Curator , and to re-fect on what they su est about the persistence o museum concerns.) Our reluctance toimpose an or anizational ramewor or hierarchy on this wealth o viewpoints has led usto alphabetize the issue by authors surnames. We hope the table o contents encoura esbrowsin and venturin beyond ones specialty.

Initially, Curator was oriented to the interests o a natural history museum. How-ever, as the journal e panded its readership and author pool, articles be an ocusin onother venues, en a in readers in lively debate. In the past ve years, the editorial sta has made a concerted e ort to solicit interdisciplinary articles rom around the world. As

will be evident in this volume, Curator now e plores the realms o art and science, his-tory and culture. We are happy to include in this issue our art ima es by artists who usethe lan ua e, loo and technolo ies o ene research, paleobiolo y, and other scienti c disciplines, rom the e hibition The Art and Arti ce o Science,Feb. 9May 20, 2007, at theMuseum o Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Me ico. View these stri in visual e periments inthe articles by Ma well Anderson, Tom Hennes, Andrew Pe ari , and Selma Thomas.

On the cover and on the ne t pa e we show you a historic arti act rom Curator Vol-ume 1, Issue 2: A photo raph o New Yor street si ns, su estin , as the accompanyin archival te t says, that museums have never one or the easy e it, but have always point-ed bac to the heart o the city and its culture.

We welcome comments on the discussions that ollow. In the Editorial Statement o Volume 1, Issue 1, the hope was e pressed that Curator would become

. . . a vehicle or the expression o opinion, comment, refection, experience, criticism and sugges-tions by the various members o its [National Museum o American History] sta on all their ac-tivities o museum work. It is meant to serve the publication needs that all outside its traditional

scienti c and popular publications. In short, this is to be a pro essional journal worthy o the skillsand standards o modern museology.

Curator became that medium o opinion, commentary, refection, e perience, criti-cism, and su estions. It did so with the help o hundreds o pro essionals throu hout the world who have contributed articles, reviews, praise, and analysis. I hope that Curator has met your e pectations and will continue to do so.


9/32

CURATOR 50/1 JANUARY 2007 7

curator

looks at museums . . .and nds that their cartes de visite are o tendi cult to understand and sometimes quite

rayed. Here we see the strange, indecisive hando municipal authority. At what moment was it discovered that there is no museum to theright?. . . .


10/32


11/32

87

i t ears o urato Hype c nnecti n: Nat al Hist y M se ms,Kn wledge, and the Ev lving Ec l gy C mm nity

T m Hennes

Abstract Interviews conducted durin the summer o 2006 with people in andaround the international museum community su est that the interests natural his-tory museums share in common with each other and with other inds o or aniza-tions and communities are creatin an array o new lin s across institutional, socialand cultural boundaries. These lin s are active, comple , networ ed relationships di-rected toward common purposes. Museums that are ta in advanta e o this emer -in environment are becomin hyperconnected hubs across which nowled e ise chan ed and action initiated. In or in a multitude o wea ties outward at di -

erent institutional levels, museums are ndin that their shared activity with othersbrin s to themselves new and o ten une pected value across the stron ties that

bind them to ether internally as institutions. Those natural history museums most able to participate as members o lar er, interconnected entities are ndin power ulnew opportunities to more vi orously en a e the world they study and the constitu-encies they serve. In the process, they are becomin increasin ly open, active andrelevant.

Just or a moment, close your eyes and picture a natural history museum. Picture itsbuildin , collections, research, and e hibits. Picture its departments, sta , and board.Picture its community.

Open your eyes. What you just envisioned are the thin s that traditionally de nenatural history museums as distinct entities, bound to ether by what I will call the stron ties o institutional identity. For over 150 years, natural history museums have been sup-ported by their communities and patrons on the basis o these stron ties and the mis-sion that each museum represents. That is chan in . The need to respond to a natural

Tom Hennes ([email protected]) is principal o Thinc Design, 435 Hudson Street, eighth foor, New York, NY 10014.


12/32

88 TOM HENNES HYPERCONNECTION

world in crisis and to compete in the modern landscape o cultural o erin s is drivin museumsspeci cally, the divisions, departments, and even smaller pieces that com-prise museumsto participate in projects and pro rams with others outside their or ani-

zations, their local communities; even outside the lar er community o other museums,in a rowin ecosystem o a liations directed toward shared ends. Some o these a lia-tionswhat I will call wea tiesare endurin and some are temporal. They are rowin dramatically in number, importance and value as the networ s they enable are e tendin the mission and reach o their members ar beyond what any o them could do alone.

Increasin ly, the wea ties o participation in shared enterprises drive valueandinvestmentto the stron ties o institutional identity. Thin o the natural history muse-um as a networ o smaller entities, each with its own a ency, e pertise, and connectionsto myriad others throu h projects, pro rams and associations arisin rom common pur-poses and oals. In this networ ed ecolo y, participation becomes the primary driver o mission, enerator o undin , and measure o success at home and on a lobal scale. Thear ument or supportin natural history museums as scienti c and cultural entities is in-creasin ly driven not simply by their individual identities but, more importantly, by the

way they en a e with others in the world to accomplish their individual missions.

Ev l ti n

In 1997, Museum News published a set o short articles entitled Toward a Natural His-

tory Museum or the Twenty- rst Century. It captured many themescollaboration,accountability, connection to issues, activism and technolo ythat resonate today. It provides a use ul snapshot o a culture in transition, just as dot-coms were boomin and all o us were scratchin our heads over whether thin s were ettin better or ettin harder. In either case, the writersdirectors and administrators o the leadin naturalhistory museums around the countryseemed to su est that the new natural history museum would be an incremental, updated version o the old. They were impassionedabout con rontin uture challen es, but or the most part also committed to stayin thecourse: essentially the same mission and model, updated with new tools and methods

or reater reach.

I have been wor in with natural history museums and related institutions or thepast decade as a desi ner and participant in on oin strate ic plannin processes. In my e perience with these processes I have almost always encountered a mi ture o hi h as-piration and incremental pro ress; the eld reco nizes the opportunity or chan e but has not yet reached a point where the dimensions o chan e are well understood. Asa result, limited unds tend to be directed toward choices o reater certaintybuild-in s and e hibitions constructed alon more or less amiliar linesrather than pro oundtrans ormations that require lon -term commitment to new sta n , public pro rams, or technolo y. On the sur ace, at least, the perspective o that 1997 Museum News issue stilldominates nearly a decade later.

When I was as ed to write this article, I decided to contact people in and aroundnatural history museums to hear what they are thin in about and doin . At the very


13/32


least, Id have some interestin conversations. But I thou ht I mi ht also be able to seenew patterns that would et me closer to understandin e actly whats chan in and thee tent o the chan e. These discussions were indeed interestin ; ascinatin , in act. I was

impressed, thou h not surprised, at the depth o thou ht and the de ree o passion e -pressed by each o the people with whom I spo e about natural history museums andthe world they en a e. The report that ollows is lar ely the result o those conversations,

which led me to surprisin places and brou ht many scattered ideas to ether into a morecomprehensible landscape. What I heard su ested to me that what were e periencin isnot simply a chan e o style, a twea in o mission, a shi t in capacity or even in strate y.

The picture that has be un to emer e hints at a ar more undamental evolution; I oundpieces o it in every conversation. The more Ive listened, the more Ive come to believe it is the reat opportunity o our eneration.

Natural history museums or the past century and a hal have studied and e -hibited the world throu h a detached, unsel conscious lens that betrayed little respon-sibility or that worlds condition or uture. The science o natural history museums wasthe science o description, and the versions o nature and culture presented in museumhalls were most requently denatured, detached visions o a distant other. While many o those halls persist, the institutions themselves have be un to move rom a position o detachment to one o connection; rom holdin themselves apart rom the world they once described, to en a in with a world or which they ta e responsibility. While eachindividual institution mani ests this chan e to a di erent de ree, all but the most mori-bund are a part o it. Natural history museums in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

roze the world inside them. Natural history museums in the twenty- rst century are be-innin to chan e the world around them. In the process, they are themselves chan in ,and pro oundly.

Lea ning t Dance

Terry gosliner, the lon -time Provost o the Cali ornia Academy o Sciences who is now returnin to the research ran s, has or nearly a decade been one o the si ni cant andpassionate voices shapin the Academys restructurin and rebuildin project currently

under construction in golden gate Par . Durin a phone call, he told me a very inter-estin story about a donor to the new Academy. The donor, a lon time and enthusiastic supporter o the institution, had heard that the dioramas in the Academys old A ricaHall were oin to be destroyed, and he wanted to now i that were true. gosliner toldhim they werent; the dioramas were actually oin to be restored in the new hall. Imso lad, said the donor, I never actually come in to loo at them, but I always want to

now theyre here. This is the dilemma, gosliner says, o the natural history museum. People want

them to be the same as theyve always been, out o nostal ia, and in order to preserve aind o cross- enerational identity with their children and randchildren. But at the same

time theyve lost interest in this nostal ic vision. They are loo in or a ind o en a e-ment and sel -refection it cannot provide.


14/32


Mary Ale ander put it more bluntly. A lon -time museum educator and adminis-trator, shes currently in the process o revisin Museums in Motion: An Introduction to theHistory and Functions o Museums, a boo ori inally written by her ather, Edward P. Ale -

ander. I cau ht her at home in Washin ton, D.C. one Sunday a ternoon, and early in theconversation she said that based on the research shes been doin or the boo , two indso institutions seem to her to be dead: natural history museums and zoos. Both, shesays, are based in nineteenth-century thin in , and theyre becomin increasin ly ra -mented as they try to adapt to new missions. She told me, The evaluators tell us that thereason people o to zoos is to et the ids out o the house, and zoos want to tell peoplethat the planet is dyin .

Natural history museums are o erin visitors comple menus o e periencesthat deliver the disconnected equivalent o sound bites. Maybe the institution cant bemonolithic any more. I you ta e the visitors in the wee and brea them into clumps,

you et moms and ids, European visitors who are there because they now they need tobe there, the teena e id whos ascinated by the ossils. All o those are ood reasons to

o to the museum, but what do those reasons say about collections, mission, dialo ue? Whats happenin , she su ests, is that visitors are oin or the pieces, not or the bi messa e. People are oin with smaller purposes. Ale ander worries that mar etin or those smaller purposesthe Saturday visitis drivin the a enda more and more andthe whole purpose or which these institutions were ori inally oundedtheir intellec-tual underpinnin is becomin increasin ly sha y.

Those underpinnin s were established in the middle o the nineteenth century,

the time in which the study o the natural world was e plodin . The e plorations andcollectin that had be un more than a century be ore were alvanized by Darwins theo-ries o evolution, and the worlds naturalists were busily reconstructin the tree o li e.Its branches shaped the disciplines o study, becomin branches o science and de nin the or anization o the museums e hibition halls. Peoples around the lobe were alsosubjects or study in this a e o empire, and their e otic material cultures (and physicalremains) were li ewise collected and e amined. Natural history museums were placesin which the natural and cultural world was cate orized, described and e hibited or anea er public. Their e hibits were about, in Ale anders words, showin treasures to theunwashed, helpin them rise above their base instincts.

What set natural history museums apart rom other museums were their relatively equal and separate unctions o research and public edi cation. What lin ed those two

unctions to ether, however tentatively, were their collections, which had a dual role o display or the public and study or researchers. For a very lon time, there was not muchpressure to chan e. Research curators pretty much did their own thin behind the scenes,thou h a ew o them or anized the museums e hibitions. The e hibitions, in turn,brou ht in hu e numbers o the public, who helped sustain the enterprise while theresearchers collected more specimens and arti acts, wrote about them, and produced amountin body o nowled e about the world. There was tin erin at the mar ins, but all in all, the model wor ed pretty well.

In the latter hal o the twentieth century, two bi chan es started to happen. Therst was in the world the museums had studied: The planets environments were slippin


15/32


into a perceptible decline. Additionally, its non-European peoples were no lon er willin to be passive objects o scrutinythey were ndin their own voice and demandin to beheard. This be an a process o pro ound chan e in the relationship between institutions

and the places and cultures they had traditionally studied. The second bi chan e was inmuseums visitors. No lon er quite so unwashed, they be an to spend their time doin other thin s, drawn by a diversity o leisure o erin s and ndin new waystelevision,cheap and ubiquitous travel, and eventually the Interneto seein and e periencin the

worlds that had once been the almost e clusive province o natural history museums. They were becomin increasin ly sophisticated, and demandin .

In the nal third o the twentieth century, museums be an to react, haltin ly at rst but with increasin vi or. To compete with other attractions, e hibitions rew lar -

er, more intricate, more entertainin , and more educational. The bloc buster e hibitioncame onto the scene with the arrival o kin Tut in 1974 (Fal and Sheppard 2006).Meanwhile, museums be an to distance curators rom e hibitions by a layer o e hibit developers and desi ners whose e pertise was in the translation o scienti c conceptsinto e periences or the public. In many places the educational mission, directed at the

eneral public, and the research and collections mission, directed toward peer science,became increasin ly distant rom each other.

One thin remained the same, thou h. Jay Rounds touched upon what I thin isthe undamental issue when he told me that we have to bear in mind that natural history museums are not so much about the natural world as about the disciplines that study the natural world. Rounds, a pro essor o museum studies at the University o Missouri,

St. Louis and a proli c writer about museums as evolvin social phenomena (see his ar-ticle in this issue), believes we can only understand the shi t thats ta in place aroundus i we o bac to the assumption that the museum is about us rather than about theplants and animals and nature in some presumed natural state. Even i we ta e a dis-interested position o bein or nature, it comes bac to wor in out some ind o is-sue about humanness, he said, ma in a passin re erence to Neil Postmans comment that all museums are about what it means to be human. The major shi t thats oin onhas to do with our understandin o our own place in nature and our own assumptionsabout it.

We are in a period o transition between the old, ontolo ically-driven study repre-

sentin an ordered natural world we sou ht to master, and a new, more interdisciplinary study o a disordered, sel -or anizin natural world in which our species is but one o many co-dependent actors. The evolution our institutions are under oin ra mentin but also reor anizin in new waysrefects our rowin awareness o nature. This pro-cess o chan e, infuenced by orces outside museums immediate control, is in tension

with our nostal ic preconceptions o limestone-encased institutional order and cohesive-ness. There are still important and cohesive understandin s to be ained and e periencesto be had, but they are no lon er solely a refection o institutional prero ative. Instead,natural history museums are just be innin to learn to dance with their visitors, with thepeoples they once considered t objects o study, and with the natural systems they once

were content to cate orize and describe. In the process, the dancersall o themare be-in chan ed by the dance.


16/32


The Case Dive sity

My copy o Thriving in the Knowledge Age (Fal and Sheppard 2006) happened to arrive

on the day I had scheduled a phone call with John Fal or this article. I reached him inCorvalis, Ore on, where he and his wi e, Lynn Dier in , are jointly ta in up a tenuredposition this year at Ore on State University to start a raduate pro ram in ree-choicelearnin . Fal told me that i you brou ht a roup o natural history museum people to-

ether in the mid-twentieth century and as ed them what a natural museum should loo li e, they would have voiced a reat deal o consensus based on the size o the institutionand the quality o the collection. There was only one model, and bi er was better. Most natural history museums tried, with reater and lesser success, to emulate lar e institu-tions li e the Smithsonian, the American Museum o Natural History, or the Field.

In the twenty- rst century, he says, there is no consensus. Its more about the qual-ity and type o educational e periences museums create. You can and should be ableto nd a small institution that creates better value or its community than lar er institu-tions. Creatin value, he says, is the ame these days. Museums are competin a ainst all inds o other public attractions and media. Puttin it in evolutionary terms, its all

well and ood to be a lar e eneralist when theres no competition. But as competitionincreases, bi er isnt necessarily a better strate y. Smaller, and ndin a unique niche,may be a better way to o.

That niche is a product both o the community an institution serves and its uniquecapacities, mission and assets. Fal ar ues that no sin le answer applies to all natural his-

tory museums; how the Smithsonian de nes community is very di erent rom how are ional museum mi ht de ne it. In his terms, the times require every museum to loo deeply at the niche it can most ruit ully ll within a community. And, he insists, its aquestion that cant be answered in the boardroom with the senior sta around the table;it has to come rom the community itsel .

This is a process that requires a capacity to listen, to refect, to invent and e peri-mentand then to be willin to chan e yet a ain in response to what is learned. It re-quires those who run the public side o museums to wor closely and persistently withthose who visit them. An e ample that Fal and Sheppard describe is the Bu alo Mu-seum o Science, a once nearly moribund institution which has been en a ed in recent

years in a thorou h oin revitalization process in collaboration with its community. Theoal, shaped in early wor shops with community leaders, is to create a li elon public

science education resource that people will come to routinely, and requently. I had spo-en previously with the ormer president, David Cheseborou h, about the museums

plans; I called Carroll Simon, the actin president and current leader o the revitalizationprocess, to tal about how the shi t is pro ressin .

Simon told me that the new model involved a radical move to develop a muchmore deeply acilitated, personalized ran e o services that could be swi tly and easily customized to the needs and desires o di erent roups and individuals. The museum

rst be an to e periment with a special space on the e hibit foor; called Connections,this is a fe ible, open collections area that is used or acilitated pro rams o the authen-tic processes and specimens o science. Part o a lar er philosophy o turnin the muse-


17/32


um inside out, the space is increasin ly used by schools, teacher colle es, camp roups,homeschool amilies, and a host o others. It enables the institution to e periment withdi erent ways o servin di erent needs, while helpin peopleteachers, students, ami-

lies and individualsbecome more con dent in the s ills o inquiry learnin and criticalthin in . She says that many ids are comin in on a re ular basis, and the museum sta are ettin to now them personally. The relationship builds to the point where the sta

now their individual users well enou h to anticipate a childs di culty with a project and ather the resources that they thin will be needed to help. The idea in Connectionsis to coach learnin rather than to spew acts.

Another initiative was the openin o a satellite acility, the Science Spot, which op-erates on the same philosophy but in a smaller space distant rom the museum. Locatedin a diverse nei hborhood near Bu alo State Colle e, it has become the incubator or a

uture networ o satellites lin ed to the hub o the main museum. Simon told me that a year into the e periment, they are still tryin to understand the value o a resource li ethis in a nei hborhood settin and to learn whether people will use it and build a lon -term relationship with it. While its too early to now the answer, she says that many di erent roups are be innin to use it re ularly, includin homeschoolers, many local

amilies and some private schools. The museum sta are currently analyzin the rst year and plannin their ne t steps.

But the most undamental chan e is in the way Bu alo positions science and col-lections within the institution, movin , in Simons words, rom a traditional model

where science research and the educational pro rams and e hibits were almost totally

independent o one another, to one in which they are inte rated. Li ewise, the museumno lon er relies on travelin e hibits to stren then its public pro le. Rather, it is levera in a brand rom its unique core asset, its collections. New research is conceivedto ether with public purpose as the museums science mer es with science education. At the museums Ti t Nature Preserve, a 264-acre re u e developed on a restored brown-

eld, new pro rams en a e the public in e periments in aquatic biolo y and urban ar-chaeolo y in its marshes, la es, and woodlands. At the Hiscoc Site, 40 miles away, themuseums research on Pleistocene and Holocene vertebrate ossils is bein developedinto an e tensive educational pro ram or middle school students. This ali nment mod-el, she said, is attractin scientists and educators who are passionate about the process

o science and about helpin people to learn how to learn. It encoura es the sta to ta eadvanta e o every opportunity to do the ideal thin : to turn research into a relevant public e perience.

On the West Coast, Vanda Vitali is e perimentin with a di erent ind o relevant public e perience. Vice president o public pro rams or the Natural History Mu-seum o Los An eles County, she is a scientist with a stron cultural awareness and a fair

or the untried. On several phone calls wed ed into a pac ed schedule, she told me that she maintains a perspective rom at least these three vanta e points: the conte t o Los

An eles, her museums mission, and the lan ua e that ma es both the conte t and themission en a in and relevant or the public. She ac nowled es that Los An eles may not be nown as a museum- oin city. But she claims it is a city interested in e peri-mentation, in part because so many people in L.A. wor in the visual arts, music, and


18/32


video, and because there are lots o creative people there to contribute to an innovativeunderta in . By e perimentin with di erent visual and musical orms as independent lan ua es distinct rom the lan ua e o learnin about science, she eels the museum has

the opportunity to reach out to new populations and improve their e periences. Vitali said she is always loo in outside the museum or research and inspiration.

In the past two years, the museum has mounted e hibitions li e Collapse?, based on JaredDiamonds boo , LA: light/motion/dreamsa multimedia e perience that uses the muse-ums collections to create a journey throu h the di erent landscapes o Los An elesandConversations: Collections, Artists, Curators, a collaboration between the museums curatorsand si local artists who selected elements rom the collection to create e hibits romtheir own perspectives. She believes that e hibits, at their best, can au ment the wayspeople e perience the museum and inspire curiosity or passion alon the way; or in or-mation, she hopes the museums visitors would turn to other sources as well. Her oalis to provide lin in mechanismsincludin a radio station and an e panded Websitethat can acilitate deeper e ploration.

She told me that the museum has also developed new pro rams that include o-rums or debate, musical per ormance, dance, and storytellin . E perts and curatorsspea reely with the public, while per ormin artists either create new wor s or per orm

wor s that connect in some way to the e hibitions and collections. The aim is to broadenthe audience; not just to increase numbers, but to brin in entirely new populations. Thestrate y, she says, has been particularly e ective at brin in in youn er people, rom intheir teens to their thirties.

In contrast to Vitalis approach in Los An eles, the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria,South A rica is buildin a community around the si ni cance o its collection and its socialimplications. A colonial institution that was mar inalized under apartheid, it houses an im-portantand localcollection o hominid ossils. Francis Thac eray is its actin director,and in many ways hes havin the time o his li e. A paleontolo ist, he is witnessin a fower-in o his eld a ter years o wor in in the shadows o overnment dis avor. I had previous-ly spent many hours tal in with Thac eray in connection with my own wor in South A -rica, and I called him one evenin at home or a conversation about his chan in universe.

Pressured by the Dutch Re ormed Church, Thac eray told me, the apartheid ov-ernment that e isted until Mandelas election in 1994 had suppressed the teachin o

evolution in schools and in museums. In spite o the act that the museum possessed sev-eral important ossils o Australopithecus, includin the nearly complete s ull nown asMrs. Ples, ew South A ricans were aware o the rich lode o pre-human ancestry beneathSouth A rican soil, and ewer still visited the museum. Paleontolo y was not supportedin the country because it was not in the minority overnments interest to ocus attentionon human ori ins in A rica.

All this has chan ed since 1994. The current administration not only supports re-search into human ori ins but it ta es an active interest in nancin and promotin A -rican paleontolo y. Thac eray says it has spar ed the be innin s o a resur ence in the

eld and, at the same time, the Transvaal Museum has been able to use its new oundreedom and support to spar public interest in its unique collections. A survey in 1996

showed that 95 percent o the people in the Pretoria metropolitan area had not heard o


19/32


Mrs. Ples; more recently, 80 percent o those surveyed new o the ossil. This has beenaccomplished throu h public pro rams, e hibitions, educational initiatives, and the dis-tribution o ossil casts to many schools. The result, says Thac eray, is that the ossils have

become more o a household name. People are aware o them in the way that people areaware o the Mona Lisa. Thac eray has channeled his limited resources between contin-ued research and new educational pro rams that include activities that let students et their hands dirty. He wants children to be able to touch thin s that teach them about their ancestrys eletons, ossils and roc sand be touched by them.

Bu alo, Los An eles, and the Transvaal Museum could scarcely be more di erent rom each other, and they are usin very di erent methods or levera in their assets and

shapin new identities. But what they share is a broader pattern that is becomin visibleto one e tent or another in every museum Ive encountered. Institutions are or in new lin s between their unique capabilities and their unique communities. They are inten-tionally reachin out to their potential users and stren thenin the connections that willbind those users to them. For some, the approach has been a matter o ne tunin to stay even with the times. For others, its more undamental, and a matter o immediate sur-

vival. But each is to one de ree or another, and with reater or lesser de rees o awareness,buildin an ecolo ical networ o users around itsel by ndin a match between what it o ers and what its communityor communities nds use ul and important. Withinthese rowin networ s o users, the success o any one institution is increasin ly oin to be dependent on the value o the lin s it enerates and the relevance o those lin s tothe communities that orm around them.

res gence relevance

In his introduction to the 1997 Museum News articles on the Natural History Museum o the twenty- rst century, Ellsworth Brown writes:

It can be ar ued that universities diminishin commitment to collections is a naturaloutcome o ocusin on their true mission, which is education. It also can be ar ued that university scientists see the same world that museum scientists see, understand it as well,and care about it equally. Is the universities shi t a nimble response to scienti c need,possible because they were not encumbered by massive physical plants dedicated to thestora e o collections? The one subject not tac led [in these articles] was whether the col-lectin paradi m under which natural history museums be an is still valid or has muchmeanin when set a ainst the massive and practical needs o Earth (1997).

Systematic biolo y, the study and classi cation o or anisms and their evolution-ary relationships to each other, is the oundin basis o the worlds natural history collec-tions. By the 1970s, it had allen out o ashion in academic institutions; as a descriptive

eld it was seen as increasin ly irrelevant in the ace o molecular biolo y, and ewer andewer people sou ht trainin in it.

Times have chan ed. The drivin ur ency to understand what is happenin to the worlds ecosystems has enerated a new need to trac chan es in biodiversity and under-


20/32


stand ecolo ical relationships. Science has awa ened to the storehouse o biodiversity maintained in the millions o specimens stored in natural history museums, and is usin this wealth o data to trac lon term chan e and support surveys o endan ered areas.

Terry gosliner says, Systematic biolo y is more relevant than its ever been, because o the way the world has chan ed. The institutions actively en a ed in research and com-municatin to the public and other constituencies are trans ormin the way they use data

or a much broader audience. In the process, they are oin to be seen by the world assomethin worth bein supported.

Some scientists and people outside the eld su est that collectin is no lon er needed. None o those I spo e to a ree. As Joel Cracra t, Lamont Curator in the Depart-ment o Ornitholo y at the American Museum o Natural History, put it: One way o thin in about it is that over 90 percent o the worlds species are still undiscovered. I

we are oin to have nowled e about species, we have a lot o collectin le t to do. Henoted, thou h, that collections row very slowly, and that in certain elds or areas itsmuch more di cult to collect than it used to be. Many countries are concerned about their enetic resources, and much more attention is paid to tra c in in animals andma in sure collectin permits are in order. Even in the United States, individual stateshave imposed re ulations on or anisms li e birds. Cracra t says that scientists have be-come much more attentive to these issues, and have a responsibility to do so. But, hesays, there is still a lot o discovery out in the world.

Niles Eldred e, curator in the American Museum o Natural Historys Paleontol-o y Department, told me: Ironically, were more necessary than be ore. The nineteenth

century is one and none o the dioramas depict anythin that still e ists. Collections areuse ul to see how much mercury was in sword sh in the 1800s. People never dreamt that these thin s would be important in this way, or studyin the environment. In a sense,these nineteenth-century institutions are even more relevant to the twenty- rst century than they were when they were ounded. Eldred es metaphor is a library o biodiver-sity. Li e any library, it will have uses down the road that may be more use ul than youcan ima ine. You eep them just to have them because itll be needed in enerations tocome.

What most scientists li e gosliner, Eldred e, and Cracra t ocus on is peer research,the main purpose o which is to advance nowled e. Debra Mos ovits, who heads the

Fields Division o Environment, Culture and Conservation (ECCo), has more pra matic objectives. Li e similar pro rams at the American Museum o Natural History and theSmithsonian, ECCo builds multidisciplinary partnerships amon institutions, overn-ments, communities and other parties to assess threatened environments and ma e well-

ounded recommendations or action. 1

This ind o activity is an easy t with the research capacity and collections o alar e natural history museum li e the Field, Mos ovits told me. ECCos wor and its rec-ommendations or action are driven by rapid biolo ical and social inventories, con-ducted in collaboration with local communities and in-country scientists. The e pertiseto conduct rapid inventories and the vast natural history collections that can be accesseddi itally in the eld are natural, inseparable museum unctions, says Mos ovits; with-out the collection, the wor would be impossible. ECCo is just be innin to scratch


21/32


the sur ace o developin new tools or conservation. In many areas o the world, or in-stance, there are no eld uides and little in ormation about what teams are li ely to nd.When you have an e cellent scan, people in the eld can o online and loo at these

specimens, she says. It saves enormous time, both in the identi cation o species and inthe preparation o eld uides to be used or inventory and monitorin . Mos ovits cant ima ine doin rapid inventories without the re erence collections. The old specimens,she says, have a new and immediately unctional li e.

This new unctional li e is not limited to biolo ical collections. While travelin in Holland two years a o, I had met Susan Le ne, the historian who heads the curato-rial department o Amsterdams Tropenmuseum and runs its international cultural proj-ects. At the time, we had spo en mostly about chan es she was ma in to the museumse hibits, but in the course o two e tended phone calls or this article, she spo e moreabout usin the material culture in the museums collections as a medium or develop-in new modes o discourse with diverse communities. The museum, ounded in 1864by Dutch colonial entrepreneurs, is joined with the Royal Tropical Institute (kIT), an ap-plied research or anization that ocuses on projects o sustainable development, poverty alleviation, biomedical research, and cultural preservation and e chan e. The museumscollections, Le ne and her collea ues have discovered, orm a tan ible basis or new

inds o dialo ue that shape consultancy wor o the kIT in the developin world andalso increase the museums cultural nowled e o the arti acts themselves.

Source communities indi enous nowled etheir intan ible herita eprovidesa common round or loo in at the collections, Le ne told me. The collections, in

turn, are tan ible herita e elements that enable new conversations to ta e place. Al-thou h the collections contain material culture that was lost enerations a o in many communities, they now thin s we really dont now, she says. These dialo ues helpthe museum to et out o art historical and ethno raphic nowled e; not that we brin bac their indi enous nowled e, but that the tan ible herita e o the museums collec-tion enables new understandin s about how culture and society are or anized. This isnot only o academic and cultural value, but also acilitates projects on the round that bene t both communities. The institute, she says, has a pro essional ethic with sourcecommunities to be consultants or capacity buildin , not just to ma e our own story about a society to which we have no responsibility, that we study or show to our com-

munity to enjoy. Those dialo ues have also helped Le ne to reshape many o the museums e hib-

its to more consciously refect the tension between its colonial past and its evolvin rolein the international community. Our collea ues in the institute e pect that they canreco nize what they are doin in what the museum tells the public in the Netherlands,she says. The kIT today views itsel as a consultancy or partners in the developin worldrather than the colonial enterprise it was at its oundin . The partnership perspective hasalso a ected what is done in the museum. It is impossible or the museum to ossilize,to be a museum o a museum. At the American Museum o Natural History, she says,you see showcases refectin a ind o view about man and nature, culture and society,based in the 1930s and 1950s. We wor in a dynamic applied political conte t in whichsuch ossilization is impossible and would be ully contrary to the wor o our collea ues


22/32


in other departments o the kIT. Not only the collections, but also the e hibits, are di-rectly relevant to the wor o the development a ency. The institutes public ace and itsdevelopment wor infuence each other and share responsibility to the communities

they serve, both in Holland and abroad. The questions acin natural history museums are chan in , and the relevance

o their collectionsin their stora e vaults and on e hibitionis chan in with them. These collections, once used principally as a descriptive catalo ue o the worlds biolo i-cal and cultural resources, are becomin increasin ly connected to the way people in andout o science understand the world and relate to it. This is important not just becauseits revitalizin museum science, but also because it enables natural history museums toreposition themselves within the lar er conte t o the world in which they operate. Astheir collections and research pro rams participate more ully in the shared concerns o lar er and more diverse networ s o researchers, or anizations, and communities, theconnections that lin them to those networ s increase in importance. At the same time,the value o the natural history museum as a critical part o those networ s be ins to dra-matically e ceed its value as a stand-alone entity.

Hype c nnecti n

In 1998, a ter nearly 150 years as a museum without public displays, the Dutch NationalMuseum o Natural History (Naturalis) moved into a new buildin and opened its rst

major public e hibitions. Until this move, it was in many ways a quintessentially isolatednineteenth-century institution, accessible mainly to scholars, scattered amon many di -erent buildin s, and virtually invisible to the public. Dir Hout raa led the develop-

ment e ort on the new museum as its project mana er, and with the enthusiastic support o Naturaliss then-director, Wim van der Weiden, set out to ma e Naturalis as accessibleand invitin as possible. He had never wor ed in a museum be ore, and more than 10

years later, as director or public en a ement, he still consciously retains an outsiders eye. When I spo e to him in Los An eles, where he was wor in with Vanda Vitali on a col-laborative project that would brin some o Los An eless temporary e hibitions to theNetherlands, it was no lon er the museum itsel that most e cited him. It was the rela-

tionships he and others within it are buildin outside the museum.Hout raa says that the role o natural history museums is no lon er the center o

importance. Naturalis is connectin with or anizations li e the National Science Foun-dation in the Netherlands (NWO), which are doin important scienti c wor on their own but bene t rom access to the museums collections and rom its e pertise in com-municatin with the eneral public. Much o the new wor , he thin s, will happen out-side the museum, or instance by creatin public health e hibitions in hospitals to et medical in ormation out to the public. Li e many museums, Naturalis established two-

way communications with classrooms and is conductin re ular pro rams with them,but it is also wor in to develop joint pro rams with environmental or anizations li ethe World Wildli e Fund and NEMO, Amsterdams science center, to build stron er edu-cational pro rams and new communities. Thus ar, the pro rams include an indepen-


23/32


dent educational Web site (www.natuurin ormatie.nl) that is attractin 6,000-7,000 visi-tors per day, and a Dutch biodiversity re ister (www.nederlandsesoorten.nl) developed

with a hal -dozen other or anizations and many more individual collaborators.Community thin in , he says, is somewhere in the air. When Naturalis decided

to build its di ital collections database, it passed over proprietary pro rams in avor o a Web-based pro ram that is semi-open source, so that it could be customized and then

reely shared in Holland with other collaboratin institutions. The collaboration has not been without di cultythere have been disa reements about ontolo ical or anizationand hierarchybut they are bein resolved and he thin s the arran ement is to every-ones advanta e. Naturalis isnt as in or an immediate return, he told me. Instead, it haschosen to invest and invest and there will eventually be a return. Its about lon -termcollaboration and lon -term oals. 2

Collaboration isnt limited to the sharin o in ormational and educational re-sources. The Fields Debra Mos ovits believes that theres an important and stron roleacademic institutions can play in convertin environmental research into action. Therapid surveys the museum and its collaborators per orm are intended to help national

and re ional overnments and communities ma e in ormed decisions with re ard to environmental preservation and restoration. She said that overnments are willin to listento them because the scientists are perceived to spea objectively, basd on their direct ob-servations. We couldnt do what we do, she told me, i we were an NgO, or e ample.

The capacity we have to chan e conservation on the round has totally to do with the act that we are a research museum. The results have surprised even her, particularly overn-ments willin ness to implement recommendations swi tly. She pointed to Parque Na-cional Cordillera Azul, an area lar er than the state o Connecticut, that was conservedin Peru within ei ht months o an ECCo survey. You can have a hu e, hu e impact. Youreco nize that as a museum your mission is to reach out and turn science into action.

Havin both biolo ical and cultural e pertise ives ECCo the capacity to ma eood conservation recommendations that also ta e the needs o local people into

Alison Carey, Criptolithus and Eumorphoscystic, Ordovidician Period, 440-500 Mya , ambrotype,2005. From the series Organic Remains of a Former World. In Art and Artifice, Museum of FineArts, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of the artist.


24/32


account. Mos ovits says its a hu e collaboration, rather than an imposition. Re errin to Cordillera Azul, she told me The social issues run the ull spectrum, and the ey isto ure out how the people who live in and around the area can become the lon -term

stewards o the national par . Closer to home and with several Chica o institutions,ECCo has co-developed the Chica o Wilderness pro ram, which en a es local commu-nities directly in monitorin , protectin , and restorin habitat in the reater Chica oarea. The response is stri in , she said, whether local or distant.

Mos ovitss wor had rst been mentioned to me by Jonathan Haas, in a call ear-lier in the summer. Haas is a veteran museum anthropolo ist at the Field who spendshis summers these days unearthin the remains o a previously-un nown 5,000-year-oldstate spread across a thousand sites in three o the our valleys o the Norte Chico re iono northern Peru. He had noted near the end o our conversation that one o his teammembers was wor in with people in the re ion on local ecotourism or Peruvians. A ter spea in to Mos ovits, I wanted to pic up that thread a ain.

I reached him just as he was ma in preparations or a Pachamanca, a east or about 100 local supporters, riends, and collaborators that included a whole pi , two

oats, 30 chic ens, 40 uinea pi s, and 50 ilos o potatoes. The pro ram he had told meabout previously was started by An elica Arriola, who had joined the team while wor in on a masters de ree in eco-tourism in the Norte Chico. Arriola had outlined si di erent tour pro rams based on the sites in the re ion, and had completed a re istry o natural,cultural and archeolo ical resources in the area. In the course o the wor she had hadmeetin s with every community in the area, tal in to nearly everyone. He told me her

method had simply been to have a meetin in someones house, put up a blac boardand say, o ay, what do you thin you have to o er Peruvian tourists? Then, he said,shed as them what they wanted rom tourism and et into dialo ues about what wasreasonable to o er and reasonable to e pect. Virtually everyone had somethin to o er and nobodys resources were dismissed.

Now, Haas told me, Arriola is wor in on her doctorate to implement the pro ram,startin with a uide and coo boo o the re ion. At the same time, his archeolo icalcrew is wor in with the local museum and school system puttin to ether three publi-cations: a map o the archaeolo ical resources in the area, a uideboo , and a teachin

uide or local teachers. Their wor is catalyzin other activities as well. Haas said they

recently hosted a roup o people ma in a video about the wor : Its becomin li e anartists colony. Meanwhile, he is roomin two youn Peruvian Ph.D. candidates to beready to step into the projects lead a ter he retires in ve years. Theres ot to be a struc-ture to all this, he told me. Once pro rams startand he included ECCothose whoinitiated them have to put systems in place to ensure that they continue on their own.

Thats the only way, he believes, to ensure they become a permanent trans ormation innatural history museums.

Permanent or not, what Hout raa , Mos ovits and Haas describe are di erent waysin which they are creatin new lin a es between the wor they do and other individualsand or anizations around them who share in it and will ultimately carry it orward. O equal importance, they are describin instancesli e those mentioned by Vanda Vitali inLos An eles, Caroll Simon in Bu alo, Susan Le ne in Amsterdam and Francis Thac eray


25/32


in Pretoriain which their wor stimulates new inds o activity and new communitiesthat didnt e ist be ore: communities o museums, and communities around museumsthat orm throu h common interests and common objectives. Some o these will ail,

but others are li ely to persist because the social and pro essional networ s that support them in the be innin will have durable value or everyone involved, and because they

will have been inte rated into the culture o their museums. The lin s that bind them to-ether will have passed rom the node o an individual to the hub o the museum.

The idea o a natural history museum as a hub in a networ is not new, but the a-miliar ima e o a sin le hub with lots o spo es stic in out o it doesnt be in to account

or the de ree o connection happenin in the eld. Instead, museums are joinin andbuildin more comple and dynamic webs that lin them to each other, to their homecommunities, and to the communities in and around the areas in which they conduct their research. Thin o it li e this: as little networ s around each museum connect toeach other they become bi er networ s that reach out to still lar er communities, allconnected by the Internet and by a host o other social, pro essional and economic net-

wor s. The question that arises is whether these networ e ectslin s initiated by mu-

seums to each other and to disparate communitiesare isolated instances or whether they really constitute the be innin o a lar er trend. To ain a perspective rom someone

who lives and breathes networ s, I as ed Clay Shir y to have lunch with me in New Yor .Shir y is a consultant, writer, teacher and uru o the Internet who ta es a particular inter-est in social so twarepro rams that enable people to cluster and wor to ether around

common areas o interest. He has written e tensively on the rowth o the Internet, andhe and I have spo en about the relationship between museums and the Web many timesbe ore. We met at Bar Si , a noisy but com ortable haunt in the West Villa e near bothour o ces.

The idea o a museum as a stand-alone attraction is in direct tension to becom-in a hyperconnected hub that is part o a lar er, collective enterprise, Shir y told me.In order or isolated instances o networ in to ta e hold in the eld as a whole, therehas to be a substantial bene t that outwei hs each museums instinctive desire to con-tinue on an independent course, maintainin complete control o its own a enda andits own identity. He cited the e ample o the OCLC, a library cooperative that be an in

1967 as the Ohio Colle e Library Center. It was ounded by the state o Ohio to developa computerized system to enable its 55 academic libraries to share resources and reducecosts. By 1981, the or anization had e panded substantially and was renamed the On-line Computer Library Center. Accordin to its Web site, it now has over 55,000 membersin the U.S. and 110 other countries, and its online catalo ue contains nearly 70 millionentries. Shir y told me that the value o participationshareable resources, e pertise andaccess to each others collectionswas so reat that libraries ound it more attractive tojoin the pool than to compete on holdin s and systems.

The evolution o the OCLC into a wide-ran in lobal collective ollowed a patternthat is not unli e what Shir y said is typical o the way networ s, technolo y and new methods o doin business spread in the business world. Trends that ta e hold enerally occur in three si ni cant rowth phases:


26/32


1. A hand ul o relatively secure visionaries not a raid o sharin ma e the rst boldmoves.

2. That oundin roup jollies new members alon into the collaboration, in acomple process that resembles a trade ne otiation.

3. With widenin patterns o adoption, it becomes obvious to outsiders that joinin is better than stayin out.

There are many advanta es, in Shir ys view, or natural history museums to ormnetwor s. Buildin collective databases is an obvious oneas di cult as some have

ound it. But more interestin is the possibility o si ni cantly lin in systematics withaction, or visitors with remote communities around the world. It cant happen all at once, he says, because you still need to do somethin where people who come to town

or two days can visit and still reco nize it as a museum. But the museum can bene t by joinin resources and communities to ether around areas o common interest. The

value o the museum increases or two or more constituents i it increases the value o their meetin .

Shir y hypothesized that the answers to three questions would underlie the predic-tive success o any movement o natural history museums toward lar er, broadly-basednetwor ed structures and activities:

1. Is there is enou h tradition o cooperation to et a ew members sharin ?

2. Do the early adopters have su cient moral suasion to brin other museumsalon ?

3. Is there an 800-pound orilla bi enou h to stay out and eep others out? Inother words, can anyone a ord to stand alone?

At some tippin point, Shir y says, past participation is oin to become a predic-tor o sustainability. Its about crossin the valley between we own our own users andanythin that helps all natural history museums also helps us. In Shir ys view, we arein a world in which the old ontolo ical connectionsthe stron tiesare wea enin and the wea ties are becomin more valuable. This applies equally to the comple eco-

lo ical relationships o tiny shrimp livin in rainwater pools in the rain orest canopyand to the lin s amon institutions and communities. You have to tal across disci-plines, and institutions arent well set up or this to happen under one roo . This is anopportunity or wea ties.

Natural history museums are not on the ver e o a widespread cooperative networ li e the OCLC, but some individuals and some departments have be un to ormnetwor s with each other and with many other or anizations and communities. They aresee in e pertise, resources and public participation that e ceeds what their own or a-nizations can provide. Whether these wea ties are stron enou h to pull institutionsas a whole into a more collective underta in remains to be seen. But the wea ties arebe innin to de ne a movement outward rom the community o natural history muse-ums to other, lar er social and or anizational structures. They will li ely enerate value


27/32


re ardless o whether the whole o the natural history community joins in. Clearly, themovement ains stren th rom reater participation; eepin the worlds collections ona sin le database is ar more power ul than even the lar est o the individual collections,

to name only the most obvious advanta e.I le t my lunch with Shir y thin in about his three predictors or broader networ

structures. My conversations and e perience have convinced me that the rsta traditiono cooperationis su ciently stron to avor success. For the second questionmoralsuasionit is too early to tell, but the success o shared temporary e hibitions and e -amples li e Dir Hout raa s e pandin pro rams and initiatives su ests that it is not li ely to be a deal-brea er. The third question is harder. To answer it, I had to tal to the800-pound orilla.

The Smithsonian has the only natural history museum with enou h mass to beable to tip the balance o a web o nascent networ s one way or the other. In addition toits sheer scale, the National Museum o Natural History stands out or many reasons: its

undin structure supports ree admission; it has 6.5 million visitors annually; it has anational scope; it has lin s to the lar er networ o other Smithsonian museums, and tothe ar-lar er networ o the Federal overnment, to name a ew. The Smithsonian shouldde ne hyperconnection.

Several people Id tal ed to pointed me toward Robert Sullivan, the Smithsoniansassociate director or public pro rams. A ter a ew missed attempts on both sides, he andI arran ed to tal by phone one Sunday mornin . A discussion with Sullivan, I quic ly

ound out, is a ast-movin journey throu h an a ile mind that leaps across demo raph-

ics, science, destination culture, Web technolo y, national a endas, and re ional publics.Sullivan told me that he be an to spea in 1990 about a trans ormation in theSmithsonian rom the destination culture that e isted when he arrived, to a hub in alearnin networ that de ned the audience as a national and lobal learnin commu-nity. Since that time, the Smithsonian has ocused more on addressin lar er-scale ques-tions around lobal citizenship and mana ement o the lobal commons in its e hibi-tion and national outreach pro rams. Durin the same period, he said, the audience haschan ed because o the e periences theyre havin elsewhere; they e pect customization,personalization, interaction, topical and up-to-date in ormation, searchability, and theopportunity to e tend an e perience both pre- and post-visit. More importantly, Sullivan

says, the Smithsonians audience now e pects predictive science, which is not what theinstitution traditionally does. I the Smithsonian says We dont do that, the visitors are

rustrated. The alternative is to collaborate with other institutions and learn to educatethe public on ideas the institution is not always com ortable with. This has increasedthe need or networ in not only because it ma es ood pro rammin , but because itsneeded or the science theyre producin . The science requires networ collaboration;the questions are not the identi y/quanti y questions o the nineteenth century. Natu-ral science is increasin ly collaborative science.

Sullivan used the e ample o the Smithsonians upcomin ocean e hibition to il-lustrate. The e hibition requires every department o the museum, plus NOAA, NASA,

Woods Hole, Scripps, the Monterey Aquarium, both or the Web portal and the educa-tional initiative. This demands networ in on both the public and science side. For the


28/32


Smithsonian, ormin national networ s is natural because we can wor with nationala encies that dont have educational outlets; we act as a clearin house or those a enciesand it ma es sense or everyone. He added that the public also e pects any Web portal

the institution produces to ta e them to all the participants. The oal or the ocean ini-tiative is to reach 300 million people in the rst three years. Ocean literacy is vital tothe uture o the world, and weve ot to et the messa e out, he said. It ta es a wholecommunity. Its a di erent scale. In a re ate, you realize aquariums and museums touchhundreds o millions o people each year. Were a power ul networ , but we rarely loo at our cumulative e ect.

He went on to the need to re-certi y millions o teachers. The problem is so bi , hesaid, that nobody has wanted to ta e it on. Ta in 30 teachers down the Amazon doesnt do it. Summer wor shops dont do it. They dont hit enou h numbers. The Smithson-ian is wor in on project-based, object-based interactive online pro rams. Weve always

whined and moaned that we have a better way to teach, and now theyre callin our blu . We have to step up or not be ta en seriously. We have a serious obli ation in teacher trainin . We have the materials, the science, the stu , the networ s, university networ severythin we need. The money is out there. Every teacher has to be recerti ed in scienceand technolo y, readin . We just need to et the materials out there, and it shouldnt just be the Smithsonian doin it alone. It should be a networ . The re ional or anizationscan provide re ional stu ; a teacher can come to an aquarium and do hands-on learnin and the national pro ram can be broadcast throu h a networ o zoos, science centersand natural history museums.

In Sullivans view, natural history museums are the only ones who now how to doit. We now how to et a roup o peopleartists, desi ners, technolo y people, scientists,educatorsto ether and et them to produce a creative product; universities now how todo tal in heads. He says he ets calls rom the leisure destination business all the time,li e a roup in Brazil that wants to present environmental science in a casino. The oppor-tunities are openin up everywhere or a product we now how to build, and he adds, a

ew o us, anyway. What natural history museums have to o er is a s ill set that Sullivanthin s is under-appreciated in the institutions themselves. He told me he plans to spendthe ne t ve years ocusin on the creation o as many new projects, tendin a multidisci-plinary, multimodal philosophy until it ta es root. Youre not just mana in the e hibi-

tion, he says. Its a whole system o opportunitiesand that becomes enormous.

The F t e P p se

Whether the Smithsonian or one o the other lar e institutions will lead the way or sim-ply participate in an even lar er-scale phenomenon driven mainly by smaller-scale institu-tions is anybodys uess. But by Clay Shir ys metrics, at least, there is nothin standin inthe way o a trans ormation o the entire natural history landscape. Across that landscape,many di erent natural history museums are usin their capacities in e hibition, educa-tionand, even more important, listenin to build new lin s to their visitors, local andre ional communities, and other scienti c and outreach or anizations. Many are also us-


29/32


in their capacities or research and systematic collection to lin with individuals, commu-nities, NgOs, research or anizations, and overnments in active, collaborative pro rams o ecolo ical and cultural stewardship. These lin s, reachin out rom the institutions to the

communities and or anizations that participate in their e hibitions and public pro rams,and the communities and or anizations that participate in their research and action, orm anetwor with natural history museums actin as hyperconnected hubs across which nowl-ed e is enerated and e chan ed in increasin ly accessible and cohesive ways.

Each museum inhabits an important and unique position in such a networ , lin -in to a series o other networ s: communities o visitors; educational systems; com-munities in areas under study, evaluation or protection; NgOs; overnments; and other museums. Moreover, the museum lin s them not only to itsel but also to each other.

This is important because those lin s allow new clusters o individuals and or anizations within the a re ated networ to interact and share their own nowled e independently across it, o ten in unpredictable, new directions that ive the networ qualities o sel -or anization throu h the interests, motivations and activities o the diverse a ents con-nected throu h it. The value o such a networ increases e ponentiallyin part becausethe eneration o nowled e and activity is distributed across it rather than arisin solely

within in a sin le hub. 3 Each natural history museum, positionin itsel as a hub in sucha networ , as many are doin , ains enormous reach and levera e.

Not everyone, certainly, is oin to be com ortable with a cooperative, networ edecolo y in which traditional distinctionsamon museums and between museums andother types o or anizations and social structuresbecome less sharp and less important

than the speci c contributions each participant can ma e to the collective whole. Join-in with the new interconnected clusterseach with its own a ency and motivations,thou ht and activitybrin s dramatic chan es to the authority, autonomy and intellec-tual seclusion many institutions once enjoyed. Yet those who embrace the tectonic shi tsthat are occurrin beneath them will nd e traordinary new opportunities or rowth.New niches will open, and those nimble enou h to occupy them will ain.

I touched on this in a conversation with the Fields president, John McCarter, andhe put it into terms o the economics and scale o museums. Also a trustee o the Univer-sity o Chica o, he pointed out that the Fields $65 million annual bud et is tiny in rela-tion to the universitys rou hly $2 billion. None o this has viability on its own, he said.

All these institutions in todays me a-world are really small. They really need to partner with other people. He told me the rowth o partnership is both essential and or anic. When alliances are ormed, some thin s all by the wayside, but others will thrive andmuseums have to o on buildin them. His board has iven his sta and him nothin but encoura ement to develop these alliances. You have to have scal responsibility,he said, but he also stressed that research pro rams, tourin e hibitions, outreach tounderserved communities, environmental action, all require that the institution partner

with others. He li ened it to a deal fow in investment ban in the continual stream o proposals that eeps the business alive. You have to be at the center o these thin s tofourish as an institution.

The purposes or which natural history museums were ounded are no lon er su cient to sustain them. It is not that e ploration, discovery, and descriptive science


30/32


are no lon er use ul, or that there is no room or wonder at the natural world, but that these thin s by themselves no lon er constitute su cient purpose to justi y or support public institutions in a time o transition. The world and our relationship to it have

chan ed. The natural history museum that Mary Ale ander told me is dead is a solitary,hostly institution that inhabits the dualistic world o the nineteenth century, dividin

itsel between research and e hibits, between inside and outside, between science andnature, and between us and them. It is an institution modeled on sharp divisions andsolid walls.

The new model is a hyperconnected nowled e hub, be innin to coalesce withothers into what I believe will become an increasin ly dynamic networ that lin s dis-parate communities to ether and will enable all o us to better understand the comple -ity o our world and act more e ectively toward shared ends that arise rom that under-standin . The purposes that drive those ends are e traordinarily varied, and the lin s that connect themShir ys wea ties that brid e across institutional boundariesare un-damentally chan in the way institutions are or anized. Their walls are becomin moreporous; and as the wea ties that e tend outward ain in value, they will create reater

value or the stron ties that bind them to ether as individual entities. Increasin ly, thear ument or undin and maintainin these institutions will be based less on their in-trinsic value as repositories o nowled e and objects than on the importance o their collaborations, pro rams, community ties, and role in a chan in world.

This is an environment not o either/or but and/andintelli ent desi n and evo-lution. The institutions that thrive in it are most li ely oin to be those in which top-

down mana ement, academic and creative structures are able to adapt themselves to anew ecolo y o bottom-up sel -or anization. They will retain and even deepen their in-dividual character by inte ratin more ully with their communities and contributin tothe networ s in which they participate precisely those assetsthe collections and e per-tisethat most uniquely de ne them. And they will ain enormously rom the collectivecommons that the networ ecolo y will ma e available to them, throu h joint pro rams,shared nowled e, di ital resources and, most importantly, the enormous ener y o theinterconnected communities that increasin ly rede ne them.

N tes

1. For more in ormation about ECCo, see http://www. eldmuseum.or /research_collections/ecco.htm. In ormation on the American Museum o Natural HistorysCenter or Biodiversity and Conservation can be ound at http://www.amnh.or /science/ acilities/cbc.php. The National Museum o Natural History has a ran e o interdisciplinary research projects that can be ound at http://www.mnh.si.edu/rc/inter_disc_res_pro s.html.

2. Independently, Francis Thac eray told me later that the Transvaal Museum, whichhas not yet started di itizin its collections, was considerin joinin the Dutchcollaborative.

3. In his boo Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Howard Rhein old cites


31/32


Reeds Law, one o several theories overnin value in di erent inds o networ s (Rhein old 2002). Accordin to David Reed, the value o roup-

ormin networ s (e-Bay was the rst success ul e ample), in which individual

users are able to orm roups with any other users throu h a coalescence o interests or pursuits, rows e ponentially with the number o users. This meanseach roup bene ts rom the accumulated nowled e and access o each user by eneratin individual nowled e resources that can be shared. These canbe as simple as boo mar s accessed by each user, or as elaborate as detailedin ormation collected by a birdwatchin community or the bene t o other birdwatchers. The collective roup ains disproportionately throu h commonaccess to the shared commons o the resources.

re e ences

Brown, E. 1997. Catalo ue o chan e. Museum News 76 (6): 3940.Fal , J. and B. Sheppard. 2006. Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Business Models or Mu-

seums and Other Cultural Institutions. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.Rhein old, H. 2002. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambrid e, MA: Basic

Boo s.

Pe ple Inte viewed

The ollowin individuals enerously ave their time in discussion or this article. Any man lin o their words is my own; they have provided me with a window into the cur-rent world o the natural history museum ar in e cess o what I have directly quoted andIm deeply rate ul or their insi hts.

Mary Ale ander, Director, Museum Advancement Pro ram, Department o Mu-seum Services, Maryland Historical Trust.

Joel Cracra t, Lamont Curator and Curator-in-Char e, Division o Vertebrate Zool-o y-Ornitholo y, American Museum o Natural History, New Yor , NY.

Niles Eldred e, Curator, Division o Paleontolo y, American Museum o NaturalHistory, New Yor , NY.

John Fal , President, Institute or Learnin Innovation, Annapolis, MD.

Terry gosliner, Senior Curator, Department o Invertebrate Zoolo y and geolo y,Cali ornia Academy o Sciences, San Francisco, CA.

Jonathan Haas, Curator, Department o Anthropolo y, the Field Museum, Chi-ca o, IL.

geor e Hein, President, TERC; Pro essor Emeritus, Lesley University, Cambrid e,MA.

Dir Hout raa , Director o Public En a ement, Naturalis, Leiden, the Nether-lands.


32/32


Susan Le ne, Head, Curatorial Department, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, theNetherlands; part-time pro essor, Faculty o Humanities, University o Amster-dam.

John W. McCarter, Jr., President and CEO, the Field Museum, Chica o, IL.

Debra Mos ovits, Vice President, Environment, Culture and Conservation; Envi-ronmental and Conservation Pro rams, the Field Museum, Chica o, IL.

Jay Rounds, E. Desmond Lee Pro essor o Museum Studies and Community His-tory, University o Missouri, St. Louis, MO.

Enid Schild rout, Chie Curator, Museum or A rican Art, New Yor , NY.

Clay Shir y, Adjunct Pro essor, graduate Interactive Telecommunications Pro-ram, New Yor University, New Yor , NY.

Carroll A. Simon, Actin President, Bu alo Museum o Science, Bu alo, NY.Robert A. Sullivan, Associate Director or Public Pro rams, National Museum o Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washin ton, DC.

Francis Thac eray, Actin Director, Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, South A rica.

Vanda Vitali, Vice President o Public Pro rams, Natural History Museum o Los An eles County, Los An eles, CA.

In addition, than s to Mary Ale ander, Terry gosliner, geor e Hein, and Joe Mac-Donald or their very help ul comments on dra ts.

curator hyper

Documents