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2 Volume 7, #4, July-Aug 2018
The International Heritage Interpretation e-Magazine.
Bobble me.
In this issue
Hi folks, and welcome to the July/Aug issue (out a little early). Lot’s going on over the past few months. I completed a new reference book “40 Years a Heritage Interpreter”, and a new course for our Heritage Interpretation Training Center “Interpretive Techniques – Interpreting the Rest of the Story hidden in objects, artifacts, landscapes and sites”. We keep receiving wonderful articles for each issue and I want to thank the regional editor and museums in South Africa for their support with great articles. We also have more research oriented articles as well. I am ready for more articles or advertisers for the Sep/Oct issue (deadline for articles is the 15th of July with a 1st of August release). If you’re interested in contributing to this upcoming issue or being one of our regional editors let me know and you can join the team. JV jvainterp@aol.com www.heritageinterp.com
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-Meet our Regional Editors -Cover photo – celebrating the wonders of poison dart frogs. -Interpreting Plymouth Rock. Matt Villamaino -How Much ‘You’ is Too Much ‘You’? Important Considerations for Visitor-Focused Interpretation Chris Brusatte, -One Soldier’s Experience”. Dr. Martha Benn Macdonald -Exploring Close to Home. Ron Kley -“Ron’s Rock” – Interpretation is Where you Find it. Ron Kley -Bringing Prehistory to London’s Classrooms. Laura Hunter -Eight “Tricks” To A Great Presentation - Speaking Tip 93 Ethan Rotman -Native Plants: Restorations and Interpretation Using The Principles of Jens Jensen (1860-1951) Werling -“Sharing My Memories of a Little Town Called Montreat---and its Billy Graham story. M.Macdonald -Interpreting the Saguaro Cactus and the Gila Woodpecker – IN Staff -Interpreting the Shiva Linga in Hundu religious traditions. Subhamoy Das -The Language of Live Interpretation - Making Contact. John A. Veverka -Get Noses Pressed up to Vitrines, not Devices. Paul C. Thistle -Shave Your Alpaca: A New Off-the-Shelf Exhibit System from Taylor Studios -A GEM of a bent and twisted idea. John Veverka -Engaging and Growing your Customer Base with New Media Technology. Gary Van Hoose -Elements of interpretation: the case of Freedom Park, Pretoria, South Africa. Lauren Marx -Art Therapy: Creating Alongside People with Dementia. Skylar Edwards -Hyper globalization in the 16th century shaped Christianity in Mexico. Rocio Carvajal Cortes. -Interpreting Concretions and Nodules in Sedimentary Rocks - Ed Clifton -Multiple Perspective Interpretation in a Historical Museum Context. Tara A. Chadwick, - The Kravis Discovery Center: Designing an Evaluation to Benchmark Success and Discover Further Opportunity for the Redesigned KDC. Emily Caselman, Emily Hammill, and Williams -InterpNEWS Marketplace.
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InterpNEWS is published six times a year as a FREE John Veverka & Associates publication and published as a service to the interpretive profession. If you would like to be added to our mailing list just send an e-mail to jvainterp@aol.com and we’ll add you to our growing mailing list. Contributions of articles are welcomed. It you would like to have an article published in InterpNEWS let me know what you have in mind. Cover photo: Poison Dart Frog – tiny and deadly. www.heritageinterp.com – jvainterp@aol.com – SKYPE: jvainterp
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J. Patrick Barry spent 35 years as an interpreter with the NPS and US Army Corps of Engineers. For 27 years he supervised the Bonneville Lock and Dam Visitor Center on the Columbia River. He was the lead interpretive trainer for the Corps for 14 years. Pat is now the owner of J. Patrick Barry Interpretive Training and Retired Ranger and Associates LLC. He serves on the Board of Directors as Communications Chair for the Corps Foundation. He served as Regional Director, Pacific Northwest Region 10, National Association for Interpretation 2016 -2017, member since 1988, and Certified Interpretive Trainer since 2002. He is the author of the newly published book: Bonneville Lock and Dam: A Gift from the People of the Great Depression. You can reach Pat at: jpatbarry@hotmail.com Ron Kley. Ron’s undergraduate and graduate training was in geology, but he has worked in museums since the 1960s, first as a curatorial/registrarial staff member and, since 1988, as an independent consultant/contractor in collection management/research/interpretation. He has worked with large governmental institutions on four continents as well as with small all-volunteer organizations from Eastern Canada to Southern Africa and Western Australia. The development of lowcost/no-cost interpretive initiatives has been one of his abiding professional interests. He welcomes the submission (to ronkley@juno.com) of papers for InterpNEWS, or informal exploration of embryonic ideas for such submissions.
Ed Clifton is a geologist with strong ties to the ocean. He spent 25 years with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Branch of Pacific Marine Geology, which he led from 1978-1981. Much of his research at the USGS focused on using SCUBA to explore geological processes in the coastal waters of the western U. S. As an aquanaut in the Tektite 1 Man-in-the-Sea Project in 1969, Ed spent 58 continuous days living in and working from an undersea habitat in the Caribbean, where he studied sediment/animal interaction. He continued these studies in 1970 for an additional 20 days of underwater living in the Tektite 2 habitat. After his retirement from the USGS in 1991, Ed spent another 8 years as an internal consultant to Conoco, Inc. Ed taught numerous courses at UCSC and Stanford, where he served as Adjunct Professor before his retirement from the USGS. His nearly 200 published papers and abstracts are largely directed toward open coast, estuarine and deep-sea environments. In 2004, the Society for Sedimentary Geology awarded him the Francis J. Pettijohn Medal for "Excellence in Sedimentology". Ed volunteers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, as a Docent at Point Lobos and at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. A regular contributor on geologic subjects to InterpNEWS, he also is a yearly lecturer in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLL)I at the California State University at Monterey Bay. You can reach Ed at: eclifton@earthlink.net
John Veverka is the editor and publisher of InterpNEWS. John has spent 40 years working as an interpretive planner and trainer. He had developed and taught a course on Interpretive Master Planning at Ohio State University where he received his B.S. and M.S. degrees majoring in interpretation. After two years working as an interpretive planning consultant in Alberta, Canada, John was recruited to return to Michigan State University to teach introductory and advanced courses in interpretation while working on a Ph.D. majoring in Heritage Interpretation. He is the author of several textbooks on heritage interpretation and is the Director of the Heritage Interpretation Training Center which offers 40 different courses in heritage interpretation. He is also an Associate Editor for the National Association for Interpretation’s Journal of Interpretation Research, and a NAI Fellow. You can visit John’s website at: www.heritageinterp.com, or contact John directly at jvainterp@aol.com.
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Cover photo – celebrating the wonders of poison dart frogs.
A creature’s size is not always an indicator of how dangerous it is. Poison dart frogs may be small, but they are among the most poisonous of all living creatures! This article contains many more poison dart frog facts, and is part of our Rainforest Animals series. Poison Dart Frog Facts The poison dart frog is Native to Central and South American rainforests. There are nearly 200 species of poison dart frog, most of which are brightly colored. This coloration is not just for show: it warns potential predators that the frogs are poisonous. Some species of poison dart frog are among the most poisonous of all living creatures. However, poison dart frog species vary in toxicity, and few are deadly. Poison dart frogs range in size from .4-2.4 inches (1-6 cm) in length (the smallest are about the size of a thumbnail). The brightly-colored skins of the poison dart frogs serve as a warning to other rainforest creatures. They know that when they see the poison dart frog’s vibrant red, blue, orange, yellow, or green hue, they are dealing with a meal that is potentially lethal. The poison dart frog’s poison is secreted from skin glands, and covers the animal’s skin. Just one lick of a poison dart frog could be fatal, and if the frog’s poison doesn’t kill the predator, it can cause nausea, swelling or paralysis. Any animal that survives the poison is unlikely to forget its effects – and will therefore avoid that species of frog in the future. Golden Poison Dart Frog
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InterpNEWS The deadliest poison comes from the feared golden poison dart frog. Found only in Colombia, South America, one frog carries enough poison to kill 10 grown men! It only takes two micrograms (.000002 of a gram) to kill one person. The golden poison dart frog has the rather scary-sounding scientific name of Phyllobates terribilis. How Poison Dart Frogs Got Their Name Hunters capture poison dart frogs and use the frog’s poison on the tips of their blow darts. After capturing the frogs, there are two ways in which the hunters extract the poison. Using the first method, the hunters hold the frog with a stick, which scares the animal into secreting the poison. The hunters then dip their darts into the secreted poison. The frogs are then released back into the forest. Using the second method, they hold the frog over a fire, causing the frog to emit a yellow froth that the hunters rub their darts in. The hunters then drop the frog into the fire to die. Poison Dart Frog Facts: The Poison Poison dart frogs that are kept and fed in captivity are often not as poisonous as those that live in the wild. Scientists think that this is because the poison dart frogs don’t actually make their own poison, but that it comes from chemicals in the frog’s natural food. 10 Poison Dart Frog Facts 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
As well as in the rainforests, poison dart frogs are also found on a few Hawaiian Islands. Generally, the brighter their color, the more poisonous they are. In zoos, poison dart frogs are fed crickets. poison dart frogs have excellent eyesight. Poison dart frogs can live up to 10 years in captivity. Some species, such as the Blue Poison Dart Frog, are endangered. This is due to deforestation and the pet market. 7. The poison-dipped darts of hunters can be dried and stored for 10 years without losing their potency. 8. poison dart frogs are in the scientific family Dendrobatidae. 9. Only frogs in the genus Phyllobates are used by hunters for poisoning their darts. This genus includes the golden poison dart frog (Phyllobates terribilis). 10. Unlike most tropical frogs, which are nocturnal (active at night), poison dart frogs are diurnal (active during the day).
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Interpreting Plymouth Rock By Matt Villamaino
“Really?” “That’s it?” “I thought it would be bigger.” These are some of the common comments we hear from visitors looking at Plymouth Rock. Known to people throughout the world, Plymouth Rock is famous for being the landing site of the Pilgrims in 1620. Did they actually step off the boat and onto the rock? Oral tradition alone tells us that they did, and those that could tell us for sure are long dead. To look at it, Plymouth Rock is not necessarily impressive. It is housed under a neo-classical portico, which to some overpowers the appearance of the rock. Inside the portico, Plymouth Rock is located about eight feet below street level. Visitors look over an iron railing and down upon it. Not all of the rock is visible, about half of it is underground. The piece that you can see is not that large, and most people have seen boulders that are much larger. Looking at the rock itself, it has a prominent vertical crack running through it and the numbers “1620” are carved into it. Several sites have listed Plymouth Rock on their lists of the world’s most “disappointing” or “lamest” landmarks to visit, with some going so far as to say tourists should avoid visiting them. Locals call it the “Plymouth Pebble” and some will yell out of their cars to the visitors as they drive by “It’s a fake!” Geology and rocks can be hard topics to interpret. The “So what?” about them is not immediately apparent to most visitors. After all, what do they have in common with a rock? What then, do you do if the primary feature of your site, one which people travel from all over the world to see is a rock? At Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth Massachusetts, the home of Plymouth Rock, answering this question is an important part of the visitor experience. How can we get visitors to appreciate Plymouth Rock and not think of it as “just a rock”? There are many stories that can be told about the rock. How did it become known as Plymouth Rock? How did the crack happen? What were its movements around town? One could even talk about its geological history and how it is literally part of the “foundation” of America. While visitors are indeed interested in these stories, they do not answer the “So what?” about why the rock is important – they are just facts about the rock and will likely be forgotten before too long.
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While we certainly want to share some of the history of Plymouth when we talk about Plymouth Rock, what we really want to do is make it relevant to them, build an emotional connection with the visitors, and perhaps inspire them to learn more about its history. How can we do this though? After all, isn’t it “just a rock?” In Interpretation: Making A Difference on Purpose, Sam Ham describes Knockan Theory (pp 130-133) as a way to increase interest in topics that are not as intrinsically interesting as other topics. Essentially, the goal is to connect something of low inherent interest, to something of higher inherent interest. Topics with higher inherent interest include things with a human component, something that is dangerous, or a surprising fact. Looking deeper at it, Plymouth Rock is more than “just a rock.” It does not matter if the Pilgrims actually stepped on it or not, because the true importance of Plymouth Rock today is as a symbol. As a symbol, it means many things to many people. Asking a dozen people what it means to them could generate twice as many answers. Sharing some of these meanings with visitors and weaving the stories behind the rock into the symbols not only tells the stories of the rock, the Pilgrims, and the Wampanoag, but frames it in such a way that visitors will be more likely to relate to. When visitors return home, they may not remember all of the specific stories, but hopefully they will remember why Plymouth Rock is important and think about what it means to them. Instead of simply talking about the difficulty of the voyage and the first winter in Plymouth, we can share how the rock represents the bravery of those settlers coming over to the new world. There was no guarantee that they would succeed, or even survive – but they came anyway. In the Lost Colony of Roanoke all of the settlers vanished without a trace. In the settlement at Jamestown Virginia, around eight out of ten settlers died each year. Knowing that, would you get on the Mayflower? Despite this, the Pilgrims still came to the new world which required an incredible amount of bravery, and this rock represents that bravery and the faith they had that they would succeed. Instead of just talking about its connections the Pilgrims, we must also share its connections with the Wampanoag. Many times when people come to Plymouth, it is all “Pilgrims, Pilgrims, Pilgrims.” They forget that the Wampanoag had lived in this area for eight to ten thousand years before the arrival of the Mayflower, and that they are still here today. Without the help of the Wampanoag, would the Pilgrims have survived? What happened to the Wampanoag and the other Native tribes in the region in the years after the Pilgrims arrival? While to some the rock represents the bravery, perseverance, and faith of the Pilgrims, it also represents the help they received from the Wampanoag and what happened to the Native people as more Europeans settled what became the United States. The keynote program at Pilgrim Memorial State Park is called the Rock Talk – it is a ten-minute talk given every thirty minutes at Plymouth Rock. While each staff member that gives it uses the same theme and overall structure, they can still personalize it by sharing different meanings that Plymouth Rock represents. During the summer, over 5,000 people each week listen to the rock talk. By making it about the significance of the rock and not just talking about the rock itself, we create a much more meaningful experience for them, and hopefully one that they will remember for some time. Matt Villamaino (m.villamaino@gmail.com)
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How Much ‘You’ is Too Much ‘You’? Important Considerations for VisitorFocused Interpretation Chris Brusatte, Interpretive Planner at Taylor Studios, Inc.
Purina Farms Visitor Center, designed by Taylor Studios. Photo courtesy of Purina Farms Visitor Center and Taylor Studios, Inc.
Over the past decade or so, museums and other interpretive sites have begun focusing intensely on the visitor. This trend has spread as sites hope to become more relevant to their audiences. Text in exhibits and on signage utilizes second-person and an abundance of questions like: What do you see? How does this make you feel? What would you have done in [insert famous person]’s shoes? For the most part, these efforts are positive and often quite successful. Visitors are called to relate directly to something or someone that would otherwise seem inaccessible, incomprehensible, or simply boring. They do not simply read, but are asked to ponder questions and consider the perspectives of others. They are transformed into active learners, engaged in discovering content that has been made relevant to their interests and to their own daily lives. But sometimes this visitor-focused approach can go too far. If too much hard-hitting content is sacrificed, the experience becomes of little educational value. For adult audiences, second-person questioning can seem juvenile or rudimentary. The key is truly to understand your particular audience and consider who they are and what type of experience they most desire. At Taylor Studios, an exhibit design-build firm in central Illinois, we have worked with a wide range of museums, nature centers, and other interpretive sites. Many of our nature centers with school children as their core audiences find visitor-focused experiences extremely successful. A few of our museum clients with teenage and adult audiences find it far less desirable. To help others determine whether the visitor-focused approach might work for them, here are some important questions worth considering:
Who is your core audience? If children or youth are your target audience, visitor-focused interpretation works very well. Younger visitors often need content to relate directly to experiences and topics that they can understand.
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What is your educational content? What content are you wanting to teach in your exhibits, programs, and interpretive signage? Historical topics often lend themselves to visitor-focused interpretation, since the stories are usually focused on people and their lives. Science museums that explain complex scientific phenomena, on the other hand, might have a more difficult time making their exhibits relevant through the use of visitor-focused experiences.
What is your mission? Does your institution’s mission include words such as “inspiring,” “engaging,” or “making relevant”? If so, visitor-focused interpretation is probably right for you. But if your mission instead speaks to “scholarship” or “high-level education,” then a different approach is probably best.
What are you comfortable with? This is by far the least important question, but it is worth considering. If your organization is deeply uncomfortable with presenting a visitor-focused interpretive experience, then it is perhaps best to stick with a more traditional approach. Far too many sites seek to be something that they are not, and the result is both disingenuous and unsuccessful.
So what are the major takeaways? To begin with, visitor-focused interpretation is an incredibly valuable approach that makes content more engaging and relevant. But it is also important to realize that it is not the right fit for every single site. Overarching factors such as audience, content, mission, and comfort help determine whether this approach might be beneficial for your institution. As with everything in the field of interpretation, there is no “one-size-fits-all” model. So now, the important question: what do you think? Chris Brusatte Interpretive Planner Taylor Studios, Inc. Designed and built on proven process. 217.893.4874 www.taylorstudios.com/blog
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“One Soldier’s Experience” by Dr. Martha Benn Macdonald
Ever wonder why reading about Euranus Johnson Fewell and his brother, John A., both members of the Confederate Army might be engaging? Many people are interested in war stories. For example, Thomas Hardy’s speaker says in “The Man He Killed” that if the man, “he,” had not been the enemy, why the two of them might have enjoyed ale and a conversation. Probably the “he,” like the speaker, had joined the army for money and something to do. Neither the speaker nor the person he is referencing imagined being killed or wounded. Neither did these two boys from the family farm near Yorkville, South Carolina. Euranus Johnson and John A. Fewell, no doubt excited over going off to fight for the Confederacy, never imagined they would not return home together at the end of the war to the family farm near Yorkville, South Carolina, to enjoy Christmas, birthdays, picnics, weddings, family gatherings, and more. John A., a private in Company E., began his duties on November 26, 1861, and was killed nine months later at the Battle of Second Manassas on August 29, 1862, and his older brother, Euranus, who attended Kings Mountain Academy in Yorkville, joined the 5th Regiment Company F of S.C. Volunteers, and was wounded in the kidney in Chattanooga in October of 1863, where he was captured. Despite this injury, he had to join other prisoners for the long journey to the Yankee prison at Camp Morton in Indianapolis, Indiana, originally the site of the State Fair. Probably hospitalized, we wonder if he saw the old black cat prowling around the hospital kitchen and gnawing on scraps killed and then fried up for the prisoners’ lunch. Wonder if Euranus heard about prisoners who, for disobeying a harsh order, were sent to the prison’s dungeon, deprived of food, or shot to death. We wonder if the hospitalized Confederate prisoners knew that those guards in blue forced prisoners to run in circles in outdoor pens on freezing winter days, snow covering the ground, as they held one shoe in their frozen hands. Many lost their toes. One Confederate died when a Yankee guard stripped him of his clothing, then bathed him outside in a tub outside, scrubbing him down with a kitchen broom, the temperature down to zero degrees. Not once, but twice! We hope those suffering in the hospital never witnessed or learned of the deprivations of their cell mates. Most prisons in both the North and the South were bad, some, of course, worse than others. Obviously, Camp Morton was one of the worst. When the war ended, Euranus and other Confederate prisoners were exchanged with Yankee prisoners on the James Rivers near City Point, Virginia, in late March of 1865. There, he began the long trudge home to the Fewell farm near Yorkville, probably wondering what he would find. No longer able to farm because of his severe injury, Euranus was able to teach school.
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That he received a good education at the Kings Mountain Academy in Yorkville, South Carolina, before the war was wonderful, and his experiences in the War, along with his devotion to God, helped him grow as a teacher and scholar. He married, and he and his wife had five children. He served his community, dying of consumption at the age of 47 years and 17 days. Euranus Fewell was buried at Beth Shiloh Presbyterian a short distance from the farm. Wonder why he was named Euranus? Perhaps his mother or father might have been interested in astronomy, a course which was part of the school curriculum in the nineteenth century. One of your ancestors could have been the speaker in Hardy’s poem or the enemy. No doubt, each of us has had someone who fought in a war, someone who was victorious, and/or someone who was wounded, captured, or imprisoned. Knowing these stories is important, for it helps us understand the human experience--pain, separation, war, death, fear, and so much more. Looking at the Fewell brothers, using Dr. Veverka’s Provoke, Relate, Reveal helps interpreters and their audiences. In fact, that strategy has helped me, a college English instructor, for many years. This is making something real, showing the value of the experience, however painful, hurtful, whatever. Dr. Martha Macdonald College English instructor, published author, and performer. doctorbenn@gmail.com
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Exploring Close to Home Ron Kley InterpNEWS Regional Editor
Mention exploring or exploration to people of almost any age and they’re likely to think in terms of exotic environments in far distant places. While very few people are likely to visit such distant places – let alone visit them in the context of true exploration – there’s another exotic and largely unknown territory close at hand. It’s a world as exotic in its own way as jungles, deserts, polar ice caps or ocean depths, where strange and almost prehistoric-looking creatures lurk and where treasures of many sorts await discovery – all within arm’s reach – if the arm ends with a hand and the hand is holding a small garden spade or mason’s trowel. The world beneath our feet is terra incognita for most people young or old, and even those who may have poked into it for one reason or another have probably never had the experience of having their visits facilitated by an interpreter. Whether the underground kingdom is explored from a geological, biological or archaeological perspective, a visit there is the most conveniently and inexpensively accessible venue for true exploration and discovery – even where there may be a veneer of asphalt or concrete guarding the entryway. I’m going to assume for the sake of discussion that most InterpNEWS readers do what they do at a fixed institutional site, that visitors typically come to that site, and that the site includes at least some terrain that’s not paved over. (Where pavement rules there’s a need to be a bit more creative, but I’ll get to that.) It may not be necessary to move more than a single shovelful of soil to expose a menagerie of living creatures, a hint of stratigraphy and/or some bit of buried “material culture” that is evidence of a human presence in “the past.” (Be sure to replace the divot and properly dispose of any trash when you’re done.) Let’s take that scenario one step farther and consider subterranean exploration on a larger scale, which might require scheduling of an off-site field trip. Excavations, whether for public works projects or building construction happen all the time – especially in urban areas where pavement might otherwise prevent subsurface poking. It’s almost always possible to get a glimpse into these excavations from the perspective of a “sidewalk superintendent.” Try it to see what can be seen, and think about the potentials for interpretation. With a little legwork (or fingerwork on a keyboard) you can be in touch with local public works officials, the municipal office that issues building permits and/or contracting firms that do local excavation work. Find out where and when “digs” will be happening, and ask permission for an up-close peek into the excavation of even a “come on down” invitation. (That may not always be possible due to safety concerns and liability issues, but it can’t hurt to ask.) Get as close as you can to see what can be seen and think about how it might be interpreted.
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Just a few years ago the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, received the unwelcome news that access to their institution would soon be effectively blocked for an extended period of time by excavations required for a major reconstruction of the municipal water system. The museum responded by turning that “lemon-y” news into lemonade – transforming the very excavation process into an ongoing and ever-changing interpretive “exhibition.” In the process, they educated a broad spectrum of the public about what lay beneath the familiar surface of their community, and about the theory and practice of water distribution within a municipal system. This year the community of Hallowell, Maine (just a short distance from my home) is experiencing a comparable upheaval, with its entire commercial district being impacted by street closing and reconstruction coupled with major replacement of water, sewer and underground electrical utility lines – some more than a century old. I’ve passed along information about the St. Johnsbury example, and am hopeful that Hallowell can reap some of the same rewards from what was initially viewed by many (especially by downtown business owners) as an unmitigated disaster. I plan to make frequent visits, looking for specific interpretive opportunities as they arise, and passing those along to Hallowell friends who are involved in local government and schools, as well as civic, business and historical organizations. Ron ronkley@juno.com
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“Ron’s Rock” – Interpretation is where you find it. Ron Kley In the community of Hallowell, Maine, (a few miles from where I live) a new fire station is currently under construction, I noticed one day last October that the basement excavation had encountered a bedrock ledge at one corner. Drilling was then underway and, clearly, blasting would soon follow. Knowing that the site was very close to the geological contact zone between metamorphic schist and a large granite intrusion, I was curious to see what might turn up in the resulting rubble. Serendipity smiled, and there was one piece that came out which showed a wonderful small-scale example of intrusive granite fingering its way into the schist and with small detached bits (xenoliths) of schist caught in the act of being swallowed up by the granite. It was a beautiful specimen that I might have brought home and placed on a windowsill for display – except that it probably weighed two tons. It seemed like something worth noting, and it would have been a shame to have had it carted off and dumped somewhere for fill. So I took the liberty of contacting the city manager, describing the rock and suggesting (actually pleading) that it be spared from such a fate and put someplace where it could be seen (and interpreted) as a specimen of both geological and historical interest in a community that had once been a center of the granite quarrying industry. He agreed to meet me at the site and, after looking at the specimen and hearing me out, he agreed that the rock deserved to be saved. There were no municipal funds available to pay for relocating the specimen to a local park where a quarry derrick stood along with some interpretive panels detailing Hallowell’s granite quarrying history, but construction equipment already at the fire station site could gently nudge the rock into a place along the boundary of that property where it could be left with its eloquent geological evidence visible to any visitor. Perhaps the future will see some lobbying (not by me as a non-resident, but by interested Hallowellians) to have funds appropriated (or a contractor’s volunteer assistance solicited) to provide for movement to the park site of what some of my Hallowell friends now refer to as “Ron’s Rock.” Some 50 years ago I recall walking through a parking lot in Augusta, Maine, where excavation for a new shopping center was underway and had encountered a layer of blue marine clay containing many clam shells – this at an elevation of nearly 200 feet above present-day sea level. My kids were with me, and I started explaining to them that this stuff was a relic of what had once been a coastal mud flat at a time when a great ice sheet had covered the entire region to a depth of a mile or more, and the very weight of the ice had depressed the earth’s crust to such an extent that the spot where we were standing had been almost 200 feet lower. I eventually realized that a small crowd had gathered around, so I turned up my volume a few notches and tried to summarize the history of Pleistocene glaciation, deglaciation, isostacy and crustal rebound in five minutes or less. I don’t know how well I succeeded, but one of those present happened to be a reporter for the local newspaper, and he managed to transform that hole in the ground, plus elements of my impromptu interpretation, into a “gee whiz” story that attracted quite a bit of public attention to the site over several days. I have no idea as to how many people came to see the clay layer and its high-and-dry clam shells before construction covered them over with concrete and asphalt. I have no way of knowing whether any of those folks carried anything away that might persist in their memories or lead them to a greater curiosity or understanding about their physical environment, but I certainly felt that my small contribution of “pro bono” time had been a worthwhile investment in public education.
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The moral of these two stories: interpretation is not just a function that one fulfills as a hireling in a specific occupational setting; it’s a mindset and an avocation that need not and should not be constrained by a job description. Just as security officials enjoin members of the public to “See something? Say something!” if suspicious objects or circumstances are witnessed, those of us in the interpretation field should be encouraged to “See something? Interpret something!” Some people might resent such unsolicited edification (and it’s surely their right to ignore it), but I’ve found that most people will welcome it and at least a few will want to engage in a more in-depth conversation. What greater reward could an interpreter hope for? (Well, maybe a bigger paycheck, more vacation time, etc. – but if you’re reading this you know what I mean.)
Opportunities (and perhaps even responsibilities) for interpretation never end. Ron ronkley@juno.com
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Bringing Prehistory to London’s Classrooms By Laura Hunter, Archaeologist, Freelance Heritage Educator hunter.s.laura@gmail.com
As an archaeologist who specialised in prehistoric funerary practices, I never truly believed that I would earn a wage discussing my favourite topic - stone age life. I have had the pleasure of spending the last two years doing just that; developing and delivering the Museum of London’s (MOL) prehistory outreach sessions (alongside an amazing team). The sessions are designed for schools within Greater London for whom getting to the museum is difficult. The workshops bring hands on experiences and learning through play to the classroom as a supplement to prehistory education. The development of this programme was spurred by changes to the National Curriculum which were implemented in 2014. Curriculum changes for the KS2 (ages 7-11) group include new subject “units” taught in discrete blocks throughout the year, and an emphasis on historical enquiry skills to encourage critical thinking (1, 2). The aim of these changes is to move away from a slow, forward marching progression of history, and to encourage a more flexible approach, allowing schools to choose which subjects to focus on. The curriculum changes have meant that many primary school teachers are tasked with learning and teaching new history subject units alongside their current workload. Some of these topics, such as prehistory, greatly benefit from additional resources such as the in-school workshops. Our sessions also allow children to ask an expert questions- which is always fun! Some examples include: - How do you know the things you did up are old? - Are you famous? - How do you decide where to dig? - What happens to bodies when they are buried? - Did the people know they were living in the Stone Age? And how did they know the Bronze age had started? - Why didn’t people in the Bronze Age just use Iron?
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The new curriculum also outlines an emphasis on storytelling and I have seen books such as Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura, Stig of the Dump by Clive King, and Ug by Raymond Briggs used in classrooms. With the advent of curriculum changes, the MOL created more prehistory programming within the London Wall site to complement the large exhibit dedicated to prehistory, and also at the Archaeological Archive, and Docklands location. The Museum of London Docklands Learning Department had a grant from Arts Council England to create and deliver a Prehistory Outreach Programme intended to reach primary schools in London. We offered a 45 minute session aimed at Year 3 students (8-9 year olds). The grant enabled us to offer these sessions at a discounted £100 per day, regardless of whether the school had two or three sessions. The workshops were designed to be delivered in the classroom, to groups of around 30 students. We developed a session which gives an overview of prehistory (mesolithic, neolithic, bronze and iron ages) through an introduction to archaeology, a hands-on session with replica objects, and a ‘survival’ game to encourage children to imagine themselves as individuals in Prehistory. As a demonstration of the importance of archaeology in the UK, I tell the story of the king under the car park, and we learn how it was possible that Richard the third was buried under a car park in Leicester for nearly 40 years (3).
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We frame the handling activity as a challenge to students to “act like archaeologists”. They are asked to try and figure out what the replicas are made of, and what they could have been used for. I use prompting questions such as: - How does it feel? - Is it heavy? - Does it smell? - Could it have been part of something else? - How might you use it? This approach helps to reinforce the concept that prehistoric archaeology is detective work without many clues, and encourage the children to use critical thinking and materials knowledge skills. The objectmaterial link is an important concept at this age and is emphasised in curriculum guidelines. Many children come up with new and interesting ideas and begin to create narratives about how the object might be used including miming gestures! We developed a survival game which asks students to try and survive the different time periods in Prehistoric London by collecting and trading resources. Teams must work together to decide where they might want to live (eg. grasslands, forest, or marsh) in prehistoric London in order to find the resources they will need. Once they receive their resource bags which contain laminated cards of each resource, they discover that they might not have survived and must trade with other teams to get the resources they need. The game has four rounds, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, and is a great opportunity for facilitators to give a brief overview of each time period. Many children will jump in with their imaginations and provide a detailed story of their day, or specific reasons why they have chosen a certain location. The session culminates with the children ‘building’ an Iron age chariot. Their prize for surviving is the opportunity to live in a hillfort with the other teams, and a certificate for their classroom. Delivering the session has definitely been a learning experience. The session has changed and evolved over the two years of delivery, and has been a testing ground for ways of explaining concepts. It has lead to innovations such as a method of silent celebration; by waving our arms in the air ‘like we just don’t care’ after each survival round. The large number of sessions and wide scope of schools visited has also formed an image of some of the main stereotypes prevalent about the stone age. These include that stone age people weren’t smart, or couldn’t speak, and that fire can be made by hitting two pieces of flint together. It is heartening to see primary school teachers addressing these stereotypes, but still more can be done. That archaeologists don’t dig up dinosaurs is still a major point of the lessons. There have been many unexpected experiences such as several classes dressing up like people from the stone age, and receiving a thank you card from a class with the Flintstones on the front. Unfortunately the main problem I’ve run into with the sessions is teacher participation, with some teachers not participating or even leaving the classroom or disrupting sessions with private conversations at full volume. Our team has worked to make the wording in our communications clear, as well as my communicating clearly as to what is expected while at schools. This issue is an exception, the majority of schools have been very welcoming with teacher participation, and some even asking parents to volunteer to help!
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Another issue with teaching prehistory in classrooms is the lack of diversity in children’s books about the subject and learning resources. Of the many illustrations in books and resources I have seen, the characters are overwhelmingly white. This issue is a part of a larger problem in the archaeology and museum industry, but particularly in the wake of the Cheddar Man reconstruction this needs to be addressed with new resources and an open and critical discussion of historical theories (4). Many museums in the UK provide prehistory workshops and free online resources, I encourage everyone to seek out some of these programmes if interested. There are even workshops for adults - the Aston Rowant National Nature reserve runs Bushcraft sessions for adults and children (5). The outreach program has been an an amazing opportunity and I would like to thank the amazing Learning Department staff across the MOL, and encourage others to take advantage of the educational resources available for learning about Prehistory in the UK. Free Online Resources: Museum of London: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/schools/learning-resources Canterbury Christ Chuch University: (requires you to you create an account, but is free) http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-and-humanities/school-of-humanities/archaeology/stone-age-for-ks2.aspx Sources: 1. “Sshh, this new primary history curriculum is really rather good” by Tim Taylor, The Guardian, 16/07/2013 (https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2013/jul/16/new-primary-historycurriculum) 2. The National Curriculum in England, 2014, (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/381344/Master_final_na tional_curriculum_28_Nov.pdf) 3. Exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England, Wikipedia, Accessed March 12, 2018, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Richard_III_of_England ) 4. Cheddar Man: DNA shows early Briton had dark skin, by Paul Rincon, 23/02/2018, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42939192) 5. Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve Bushcraft Days (https://500bc.org/adult-bushcraft-days/)
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InterpNEWS Eight “Tricks” To A Great Presentation Speaking Tip 93 Ethan Rotman
Good presentations do not happen and excellent presenters are not born. A good presentation is one that is carefully crafted and an excellent presenter is one that hones her skills and uses her tools appropriately. Here are tricks you can incorporate to make your presentations a success. 1. Create a clear message - Know what you want your audience to know and do when you are through speaking. 2. Develop good visuals - Create visual aids that are interesting, clear, and to the point. Audiences often miss the message when visual aids (PowerPoint in particular) are poorly designed. 3. Know your audience Research the group before you arrive. Take time to meet individuals before you speak. During the talk, pay attention to the energy of the audience. 4. Allow for adequate time to prepare Preparation is critical if you are to deliver a credible and moving presentation. Create an outline, good visuals, practice; and know how to use your equipment. The first time you deliver a talk should not be in front of a “live” audience. 5. Make your audience comfortable Audiences that are uncomfortable in their chairs, hungry, thirsty, in need of a break, or in a room with poor temperature control, will have a difficult time paying attention. 6. Set up the room to meet your needs Arrange the seats, tables, lectern and the screen so it works for you and your audience. 7. Present yourself appropriately The audience will judge you based on your dress, language you use, and your level of organization. Watch your use of “French”, jargon and technical terms. 8. Evaluate your work Check your success based on the goals you set in the first step. Revise your presentation to improve your presentation skills. In truth, these are not “tricks” at all; these are steps you can take if you want to present well. Yes, it takes time to create and deliver a presentation that is memorable, a good speaker works to engage and motivate their audience – but is worth the effort. iSpeakEASY helps people present information in an exciting and relevant manner. Visit us at www.iSpeakEASY.net or www.iSpeakEASYblog.wordpress.com. Contact us for information on individual coaching or group workshops. © 2013 by iSpeakEASY. All Rights Reserved.
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Native Plants: Restorations and Interpretation Using The Principles of Jens Jensen (1860-1951) By Donn P. Werling
Jens Jensen was a Danish American landscape artist. He was one of the first to use native plants. His designs for over 500 sites in the United States ranged from private homes/estates-to Hot Springs National Park. The author was the director/interpretive naturalist for two of his most important works in Evanston, Illinois, now a part of Lighthouse Landing Park and the Henry Ford Estate for the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Both are now National Historic Landmarks. This article will be the first of three that are drawn from a just released book by the author, Jens Jensen, Landscape Architect for the Fords…& You published and available through hfha.org, The Henry Ford Heritage Association. They will introduce you to who Jensen was and how his ideas can inspire you to use and interpret native plants both on site and as an outreach extension. The global impact of his ideas/work Jensen was among the first not only to use native plants, but to use ecological principles. He was a fellow interpreter of the Indiana Dunes, the font of ecological science in America with Henry Cowles of the University of Chicago the pioneer ecologist. He was to landscape architecture what Frank Lloyd Wright was to architecture except he was a “helluva fellow” whose life should be emulated not only for his ideas but for the substance of his life. In addition to a long life of design he was a field interpreter and preservation advocate who used his national and international status and organizations (The Prairie Club of Chicago and his Friends of the Native Landscape) to save miles of Great Lakes’ shoreline and thousands of acres in what are now protected in two National Lakeshores, five state parks along with the thousands of acres in the Cook County (Chicago) Forest Preserve system. The latter became a state and national model for county parks throughout the United States. In his lifetime his work was celebrated and showcased in German (Gartenkunst) and American (The Saturday Evening Post) national magazines. The power of his ideas stem from his being a leader in the “Prairie School of Design” which along with Wright and others in Chicago called for designing with nature instead of the Victorian period of domineering designs on nature in which exotic plants became a major focus.
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His use of curvilinear designs (straight lines are unnatural) and other principles he pioneered have been almost universally adopted. This article and the two to follow while investigate how other principles he used in his designs can be used at cultural and/or natural sites that can lift what surrounds your visitor/welcome center to an artistic level of landscape gardening that idealizes but does not mimic nature. The first principle: Leave some things alone: In the siting and developing the area around a visitor or welcome center, or as an outreach extension to neighboring communities one should first and foremost be an advocate for preserving important elements of the original or native landscape. Too often designs from afar (the central office) do not recognize the importance of a specific tree, group of wildflowers, or a cultural element. Short term efficiencies trump long term interpretive and preservation benefits. Jensen once took a four hour train ride from Chicago to meet with Henry Ford in Dearborn to defend the sanctity of one large oak. Jensen had left specific instructions that he be summoned should Ford want to straighten the entrance road to his Fair Lane estate to save money and time. A second principle: Use native plants: …… A third principle: Use ecological science by designing in the fifth dimension-time: …. These principles and more are discussed and examples of their use given In this new book on Jens Jensen: Landscape Architect for the Fords…& You now available for $19.95 plus taxes, shipping and handling from the: Henry Ford Heritage Assoc. P. O. Box 2313 Dearborn, MI 48123, United States of America
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“Sharing My Memories of a Little Town Called Montreat---Musings/Ramblings around Those Mountains” (And remembering Rev. Billy Graham) By Dr. Martha Benn Macdonald
Are you/were you ever a summer person vacationing in a place whose experiences were enriched by someone who was world renowned? Maybe you were and did not realize it until later in life. Maybe you were not. It really does not matter, for every summer experience is different. It is usually an escape, is it not, from the routine, whether it’s climbing a mountain, surfing, visiting family, camping, or just reading and imagining? In February of 2018, world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham died on a mountain top in Montreat, North Carolina, at the age of 99. You may have read about him online, in magazines, in newspapers, or heard about him on the radio or television, or perhaps you knew him or his family. As a child, I remember waving to him as he and a friend were backing out of his family’s drive way onto Mississippi Road where we also owned a home. He was headed to Anderson Auditorium, the stone building where conferences, church services, and meetings were held (Anderson Auditorium was the place where the “summer folk” attended church, not to be confused with Gaither Chapel on the hill above where Billy and Ruth were married in 1943, and where the “year-around-folk” or “the winter folk” in Montreat attended church).
I was absolutely thrilled that summer afternoon when Billy Graham waved to me and smiled. I was a little girl, probably around seven or eight—and a very shy child---at that. I appreciated his genuine smile. My identical twin sister, Mary, five minutes older, was much more confident. We were playing with the Graham children on Mississippi Road. We marveled over their huge dog, Balthazar, and enjoyed looking at their gorgeous home, imagining its lay-out. It seemed very “modern” compared to our 1898 house which, in later years, I came to treasure and appreciate. We were the “summer” folks, and our house was on the other end of Mississippi Road. The Grahams lived there year around. Of course, when he wasn’t in Montreat, Dr. Graham was traveling around the world spreading the Gospel of Christ. Montreat, where it seemed to be ten degrees cooler than any other nearby mountain town or where rain seemed to pour down nearly every day after lunch, when we wanted to swim in nearby Lake Susan, hike up Lookout Mountain or Greybeard Mountain, or play tennis or baseball, do almost anything, but stay inside and rest or read (there were not always a lot of options), was a pleasant town filled with delightful paths fragranced with laurels, rhododendrons, cedars, pines, and hemlocks. Presbyterians throughout the South and perhaps some from other denominations bought old homes there, some making changes. Some built new houses. Some simply rented, but everyone paid the gate fee in the early days at the stone entrance if they were “summer folks.” They paid by the month, by the week, or for a couple of days, as I recall. This community, begun in the late 1890’s, was first called the Mountain Retreat Association. Ice was often hauled to Montreat from Black Mountain, two miles away, first by wagon, later by a truck, or by residents themselves. Black Mountain was then a very quiet village between Asheville and Ridgecrest.
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My aunt, Janie Lynn Benn, used to say that in the “old” days (1895-1910 or so), many people would take the train to Black Mountain and then hire a wagon to drive them over to Montreat where younger folks pushed their older family members or friends up the mountain. Aunt Janie recalled the time her parents’ home on Texas Road (most of the roads in the earlier years were named for the southern states, for Montreat was, after all, home to Southern Presbyterians for many years until the Southern Presbyterian Church merged with the Northern Church) being turned upside down during a tornado. Only a gas chimney broke, and according to the tale, the house was turned back over, simply a little higher on the mountain. A strange image, a wonderful miracle! Do you agree? Billy Graham may have taken the short cut via Texas Road to Anderson Auditorium when he preached that night when he waved to me, or any night he headed for Anderson Auditorium. Or he may have taken the longer route. Either way, he would have turned immediately to the right from Mississippi onto Louisiana and made a left on Assembly Drive, then a right onto Texas (short cut) or a right on Lookout Road (longer), crossing the creek, looking perhaps at the enchanting waterfalls on the left, and parked at the auditorium. Of course, he may have turned to the left on Louisiana, then eventually made his way to Tennessee Road by the tennis courts to Assembly Drive and on to Anderson Auditorium, but that would have been longer. I did not know.
The Billy Graham House before "they" moved up the mountain (left), Anderson Auditorium---the place where Billy Graham preached, where summer church was held (right).
Billy and Ruth settled in Montreat because Ruth’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Nelson Bell, medical missionaries, retired there and had a beautiful home on the corner of Louisiana Road and Assembly Drive. A Presbyterian, Ruth knew Montreat. Billy was a Baptist. That’s why the Baptists from nearby Ridgecrest, N.C. always came, intrusively peeking, determined to see their Baptist brother. Why did we go to Montreat? My father, Dr. Roderick Macdonald, simply could not decide where we should spend our summers. For several summers, we went either to Ocean Drive Beach, S.C. or to Montreat, where Daddy’s preacher brother had a home “way up on the mountain” from which one of his daughters skated down the steep hill for her summer job, taking care of missionaries’ children at one of the homes on Lookout Road. So Daddy finally settled on Montreat because his brother vacationed there and because a number of friends from Oakland Avenue Presbyterian Church in the heart of Rock Hill, South Carolina, summered there as well: Dr. Brown and his family, Bernard Craig and his family, Goody Thomas and his family, Dr. Henry Sims, president of Winthrop College (now Winthrop University) and his wife, Letitia, John Roddey and his family, and many, many others, including the Whites, from the First Presbyterian Church in Rock Hill
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They were descendants of Annie Hutchison White and her husband, George Pendleton White, early settlers (circa 1837) before the village was named Rock Hill. Parents wanted to spend their summers where they knew friends from “the Rock,” as my grown children call Rock Hill), and where it was safe. In addition, loads of activities from skating, square dancing, baseball, tennis, volleyball, crafts, hiking up Greybeard to Mount Mitchell or up Lookout Mountain where hikers had a magnificent view of Lake Susan and the Assembly Inn to swimming, canoeing, and much, much more awaited young people (“they won’t get in trouble,” so parents imagined). It was so safe that people hitchhiked. All ages loved Montreat. It was beautiful, relaxing, and gentle. My mother, choir director at Oakland Avenue for thirty-five years, along with others, enjoyed the music conferences every summer. There were, in fact, a number of conferences such as the World Missions Conference and the Women’s Conference, and others that never failed to attract life-long learners. When too many tourists got through that stone gate and swarmed around Billy Graham’s house, many from Ridgecrest, the Baptist Conference Center a few miles away, sometimes even peering into the windows, curious to know what was going on, he and his family built a lovely home on the mountain top and moved up there. Although a few tourists still ventured to meddle and climb up that mountain, the magnificent barks of either Old Balthazar or another dog kept them at bay. Whenever Billy Graham preached at Anderson Auditorium, we went, and I would like to share three memories: one painfully embarrassing to me, then an adolescent about fourteen years old, the second, my mother’s response which surprised me, and, finally, a picture in the newspaper. Please do not be offended, dear readers, by the first. Ever since I started those monthly periods, I seemed to hemorrhage (not literally, of course), but enough to bleed through. And bleed through I did on that particular Sunday night when the auditorium was so packed that my twin and I had to sit on the narrow stone steps leading to where the choir sang. When I stood up, along with nearly everyone one to the strains of “Just as I Am,” I knew something was wrong. “Martha, there’s blood all over the back of your white dress,” Mary gasped. Hyperbole! But there it was. And I could not run out of the auditorium! That was not an option. The other story relates to my mother’s response to the “Alter Call.” You may have experienced that. When the organist begins playing “Just as I am without One Plea,” members of the audience who will give their lives to Christ are invited to come forward. Even if they agree to try not to sin, they are invited to come down or to stand. Most everyone stood that night. To my surprise, there were a few people in the audience who did not stand up. One was my precious mother. Later when I asked her why, she said, “I wanted to, Martha, but I could not be a hypocrite; I know I’ll commit those sins again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and.” And that was probably the first of our many religious/theological debates through the years until Mamma died in 1998. The third story occurred when Richard Nixon visited Billy Graham. As my twin was leaving Anderson Auditorium, someone snapped her picture. We were all amazed a few days later when we saw Mary with Nixon in the distance in The Charlotte Observer. Unlike Lazarus’ sister, Mary, my twin was not visiting, and, unlike Martha, I wasn’t working. We were not named for the Biblical Mary and Martha. Montreat has changed over the years. When my children and I left Virginia in the mid 1980’s, we moved to Montreat to live in our summer home. The winter experience was an awakening. That house was cold! We enjoyed lots of beautiful snows, to name one difference. The post office and other shops, including a drug store, where you could get the most delicious scoops of Biltmore ice cream, a general store, and something else, had vanished.
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The post office was now housed in the Community Center where African-Americans who had come with earlier families had once gathered. For four years, I enjoyed teaching English, French, and Drama at Montreat College, but when we had to strike the set in Gaither Chapel (yes, we were expected to produce three plays a year, one in the fall and two in the spring, in the pulpit arena on Friday night and Saturday night, but strike the set by 11 on Saturday night, well before Sunday morning). I remember a police officer coming around to see what we were doing. “Striking the set,” I replied. I learned to keep the scenery simple. Later, I was shocked when I was chastised for producing a play by Tennessee Williams. “Duh, Martha. It’s a strict Presbyterian college, and you’re an Episcopalian.” I laughed. Compared to my “summer” experiences, the “winter” ones were different, perhaps more realistic. It doesn’t matter. During our year-around-life in Montreat, we developed an endearing friendship with Lenore Saunders to whom my mother had given clothes for her daughter when the Saunders were missionaries in the Congo. When we knew “Miss Lenore,” she was registrar at the college, and she had such a gentle spirit. She was very aware and very kind. I will always remember her telling me that the book of Proverbs was her psychologist. We were devoted to her, and she was a close friend of the Grahams. In fact, she introduced me to some of Ruth Graham’s stories and poems which I thoroughly enjoyed. I finally sold the old house on Mississippi Road. Modernized, it has lost some of the charm and delight of an 1898 home. I return to Montreat to climb those mountains and take my granddaughter to rock hop in the creeks or to slide and swing in the “new” playground named for the Reverend Dr. Julian Lake who summered there and who baptized my twin and me years ago at Oakland Avenue Presbyterian Church. The old playground with its antiquated, wooden merry-go-round remains only a memory, and a happy one at that. Everyone has different memories of nouns----those “people, places, things, and ideas,” whoever they are, whatever they are, wherever they are, and sharing those memories connects us, brings us together, unites us, and helps us to understand each other in our pilgrimage on this earth. Thank you for indulging me.
Martha Macdonald College English instructor, published author, and performer. doctorbenn@gmail.com
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Interpreting the Saguaro Cactus and the Gila Woodpecker. Carnegiea gigantea - (Cereus giganteus)
The saguaro often begins life in the shelter of a "nurse" tree or shrub which can provide a shaded, moist habitat for the germination of life. The saguaro grows very slowly -- perhaps an inch a year -- but to a great height, 15 to 50 feet. The largest plants, with more than five arms, are estimated to be 200 years old. The average old saguaro has five arms and is about 30 feet tall. The saguaro has a surprisingly shallow root system, considering its great height and weight. It is supported by a tap root that is only a pad about three feet long, as well as numerous stout roots no deeper than a foot, emanating radially from its base. More smaller roots run radially to a distance equal to the height of the saguaro. These roots wrap about rocks providing anchorage from winds across the rocky bajadas. Creamy-white, three inch wide flowers with yellow centers bloom May and June. Clustered near the ends of branches, the blossoms open during cooler desert nights and close again by the next midday. The saguaro flower is the state flower of Arizona.
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Like friends who help each other, the Gila Woodpecker and the Saguaro Cactus (Carnegiea giganteus, f/k/a Cereus giganteus) make good neighbors. A photogenic icon of the hot desert, the Saguaro Cactus, thrives in America’s arid Southwest – is what ecologists call a “keystone” member of that hot desert community. For example, the Sonoran Desert (which overlaps Arizona, California, and parts of Mexico) hosts the equivalent of “forests” of these jolly green giants, growing amidst other succulents, xerophytic shrubs, and ephemeral flowers. But, looking at Saguaro Cactus from a distance, would you guess that these prickly-spined tree-like columns provide homes for many desert denizens, including a variety of birds? They do!
The Saguaro cactus is in every way a keystone species on the Sonoran Desert’s bajadas [drainage-slope terrains]. Without it, much of the [desert neighborhood’s] richness of species would soon be dramatically reduced. For instance, many of the birds of the bajada either feed or nest (or both) on Saguaros. Gila Woodpeckers, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, and Northern (Gilded) Flickers hollow our nest cavities that are later used by American Kestrels, Elf Owls, Western Screech-Owls, Purple Martins, and Brown-crested and Ash-throated flycatchers, as well as various species of bats. Approximately 30 bird species, most recently the European Starling, have been documented to nest in woodpecker-carved Saguaro cavities. House Finches, Chihuahuan Ravens, Harris’s and Red-tailed hawks, and Great Horned Owls use the tall cactus arms as nest sites. Saguaro blossoms are fed upon by White-winged, Mourning, and Inca doves, Scott’s and Hooded orioles, House Finches, Cactus Wrens, and Curve-billed Thrashers. Sparrows and finches consume the [Saguaro] seeds. Interestingly, the Saguaro Cactus is sometimes helped by its Sonoran Desert “neighbors”, in situations that ecologists call “mutual aid” relationships—with neighbors being neighborly. One example of this “mutual aid” is seen in the behavior of the non-migratory Gila Woodpecker. (Like a good neighbor, Gila Woodpecker is “there”.) A Saguaro whose stem is injured is subject to rapid and fatal necrosis from bacterial invasion. However, the site of the injury is an ideal place for a Gila Woodpecker to begin excavating a nest cavity. In doing so, the woodpecker may remove all of the diseased tissue [i.e., bacteria-infected soft tissue], essentially curing the cactus of what might have [become] a fatal bacterial infection.
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Interpreting the Shiva Linga in Hundu religious traditions. by Subhamoy Das
Shiva limgan spiritual sacred indian stones. The Shiva Linga or Lingam is a symbol that represents Lord Shiva in Hinduism. As the most powerful of deities, temples are built in his honor that include a Shiva Linga, representing all the energies of the world and beyond. The popular belief is that the Shiva Linga represents the phallus, the emblem of the generative power in nature. According to followers of Hindu, including the teachings of Swami Sivananda, this is not only a serious mistake but also a grave blunder. In addition to the Hindu tradition, the Shiva Linga has been adopted by a number of metaphysical disciplines. In this case, it refers to a particular stone from an Indian river that is believed to have healing powers for the mind, body, and soul. To understand these dual uses for the words Shiva Linga, let's approach them one at a time and begin with the origin. They are completely different but connected in their underlying meaning and connection to Lord Shiva.
Shiva Linga: The Symbol of Shiva In Sanskrit, Linga means a "mark" or a symbol, which points to an inference. Thus the Shiva Linga is a symbol of Lord Shiva: a mark that reminds of the Omnipotent Lord, which is formless. Shiva Linga speaks to the Hindu devotee in the unmistakable language of silence. It is only the outward symbol of the formless being, Lord Shiva, who is the undying soul seated in the chambers of your heart. He is your indweller, your innermost self or Atman, and who is identical with the supreme Brahman.
The Linga as a Symbol of Creation The ancient Hindu scripture "Linga Purana" says that the foremost Linga is devoid of smell, color, taste, etc., and is spoken of as Prakriti, or Nature itself. In the post-Vedic period, the Linga became symbolical of the generative power of Lord Shiva. The Linga is like an egg and represents the Brahmanda (the cosmic egg).
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Linga signifies that the creation is affected by the union of Prakriti and Purusha, the male and the female powers of Nature. It also signifies Satya, Jnana, and Ananta—Truth, Knowledge, and Infinity.
What Does a Hindu Shiva Linga Look Like?
A Shiva Linga consists of three parts. The lowest of these is called the Brahma-Pitha; the middle one, the Vishnu-Pitha; the uppermost one, the Shiva-Pitha. These are associated with the Hindu pantheon of gods: Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver), and Shiva (the Destroyer). The typically circular base or peetham (Brahma-Pitha) holds an elongated bowl-like structure (Vishnu-Pitha) reminiscent of a flat teapot with a spout that has had the top cut off. Within the bowl rests a tall cylinder with a rounded head (Shiva-Pitha). It is in this portion of the Shiva Linga that many people see a phallus. The Shiva Linga is most often carved from stone. In Shiva Temples, they can be quite large, towering over devotees, though Lingum can also be small, close to knee-height. Many are adorned with traditional symbols or elaborate carvings, though some are somewhat industrial looking or relatively plain and simple.
The Holiest Shiva Lingas of India Of all the Shiva Lingas in India, a few stand out as holding the most importance. The temple of Lord Mahalinga at Tiruvidaimarudur, known also as Madhyarjuna, is regarded as the great Shiva temple of South India (photo on the following page).
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There are 12 Jyotir-lingas and five Pancha-bhuta Lingas in India.  
Jyotir-lingas: Kedarnath, Kashi Vishwanath, Somnath, Baijnath, Rameswar, Ghrusneswar, Bhimshankar, Mahakal, Mallikarjun, Amaleshwar, Nageshwar, and Tryambakeshwar Pancha-bhuta Lingas: Kalahastishwar, Jambukeshwar, Arunachaleshwar, Ekambareshwar of Kanjivaram, and Nataraja of Chidambaram
The Quartz Shiva Linga The Sphatika-linga is made of quartz. It is prescribed for the deepest kind of worship of Lord Shiva. It has no color of its own but takes on the color of the substance which it comes in contact with. It represents the Nirguna Brahman, the attribute-less Supreme Self or the formless Shiva.
What the Linga Means to Hindu Devotees There is a mysterious or indescribable power (or Shakti) in the Linga. It is believed to induce concentration of the mind and help focus one's attention. That is why the ancient sages and seers of India prescribed Linga to be installed in the temples of Lord Shiva. For a sincere devotee, the Linga is not merely a block of stone, it is all-radiant. It talks to him, raises him above body-consciousness, and helps him communicate with the Lord. Lord Rama worshiped the Shiva Linga at Rameshwaram. Ravana, the learned scholar, worshiped the golden Linga for its mystical powers.
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The Shiva Lingam of Metaphysical Disciplines Taking from these Hindu beliefs, the Shiva Lingam referenced by metaphysical disciplines refer to a specific stone. It is used as a healing stone, particularly for sexual fertility and potency as well as overall well-being, power, and energy. Practitioners in healing crystals and rocks believe the Shiva Lingam to be among the most powerful. It is said to bring balance and harmony to those who carry it and have great healing energy for all seven chakras. Physically, the Shiva Linga in this context is quite different from that of Hindu tradition. It is an egg-shaped stone of brown shades that is gathered from the Narmada River in the sacred Mardhata mountains. Polished to a high sheen, locals sell these stones to spiritual seekers all over the world. They can vary in size from one-half an inch in length to several feet. The markings are said to represent those found on the Lord Shiva's forehead. Those who use the Shiva Lingam see in it a symbol of fertility: the phallus representing the male and the egg the female. Together, they represent the fundamental creation of life and of Nature itself as well as a fundamental spiritual balance. The Lingam stones are used in meditation, carried with the person throughout the day, or used in healing ceremonies and rituals.
Recently, due to dry weather, the water level of the Shalmala river in Karnataka receded, revealing the presence of thousands of Shiva Lingas carved throughout the river bed. Because of these uncountable carvings, the place gets the name “Sahasralinga� (thousand Shiva Lingas). Sahasralinga has become an important pilgrimage place. On the auspicious day of Mahashivaratri thousands of pilgrims visit Sahasralinga to offer their prayers to Lord Shiva. Each Lingam in the river has a matching carving of Nandi (the Bull carrier of Lord Shiva) facing it. Shiva Lingas have been worshipped by Hindus for thousands of years. It represents divine power and energy. The worship of Shiva Linga was not confined to India only. Carvings of Shiva Lingas can be found throughout the world in nearly every ancient civilization.
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The Language of Live Interpretation Making Contact John A. Veverka
Making contact during a children’s nature walk at Ickworth Estate, in the UK. The Interpreter worked very hard to keep the children’s (and their parents) attention and did make “contact” at all audience levels.
Abstract To be effective in interpretive communication, the interpreter must know as much about visitor psychology and recreational learning principles as they do about the subject matter they are interpreting. Making contact with the visitor requires that the visitor actually understands the message or story that has been "interpreted" to them. This paper provides some ideas and key questions for interpreting to museum visitors, and considering their learning needs in developing the live interpretive program. A partial interpretive planning strategy is provided on developing interpretive themes, measurable interpretive objectives, and visitor analysis. ___________ Interpreters must speak many languages! Not particularly foreign languages, but rather the language of the everyday person. Depending on the site or resource they are working with they may be called upon to speak: - the language of children, - the language of rural visitors - the language of urban visitors - the language of "experts" - the language of local residents - the language of tourists, and more. In interpretive terms, this means that they must relate to the everyday lives of everyday people. To help the interpreter do this there are a few general concepts and principles of "recreational learning" that may come in handy. This paper will look at not only how to speak the conceptual "language" of the visitor, but how to make actual "contact" with your message or story.
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Understand your visitors! To be successful with live interpretation the interpreter should know as much about how visitors learn and remember information presented to them as they do about the resources or artifacts they are interpreting. It has been my experience that most museum interpreters are well trained in the materials of the museum or historic site, but receive little or no training in "visitor communication strategies". Here are a few general learning concepts and principles that may be of use in preparing and delivering your live interpretive program. Learning Concepts: 1. We all bring our pasts to the present. Try to find out what the knowledge or experience level of the visitors are related to your story or resource. Have they recently been to other museums or historic sites? If so, which ones? Did they have a good experience at those past visits? 2. First impressions are especially important. Make sure that the first impression the visitors have of you and your program are outstanding! This may be your greeting with the visitor at the start of the program, your appearance (are you in costume or uniform?) the visual look of the program starting point or other non-verbal cues. 3. Meanings are in people, not words. If I were to say the work "tree", what tree would come to your mind? We all have our own "visual dictionary" and personal interpretation of words. When you describe an artifact or other resource in a lecture what does the visitors visualize? Make sure that you have the appropriate visual aides with you to avoid "meaning" differences between you and the visitor. Be aware too that most technical terms are new for visitors. Be sure to define them, don't take it for granted that the visitors know what they mean. 4. Simplicity and organization clarify messages. The chief aim of interpretation is provocation NOT instruction. During an interpretive program your job is not to make the visitor a expert in history, science, art, etc. Your job is to inspire them to want to learn more. Keep the program simple, focused, and fun. Learning Principles: Here are a few general learning principles that will help with the live interpretation program planning and presentation. 1. People learn better when they're actively involved in the learning process. 2. People learn better when they're using as many senses as appropriate. 3. People prefer to learn that which is of most value to them at the present. 4. That which people discover for themselves generates a special and vital excitement and satisfaction. 5. Learning requires activity on the part of the learner. 6. People learn best from hands -on experience.
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With these concepts and principles in mind, you should also remember the following. Visitors remember: 10% of what they hear, 30% of what they read, 50% of what they see, 90% of what they do. Planning for Content To help insure success with the live interpretive program, it is helpful if the program is actually planned. Every interpretive program should be planned for success. This would include the following planning steps. 1. WHAT? What is the main theme of the program. A theme is expressed in a complete sentence, such as "The logging history of Northern Minnesota still affects each of us here today". Another theme might be "The early settlers of the Rouge River Valley found creative ways to farm the valley". The interpretive program then "illustrates the theme to the visitor". 2. WHY? Why are you giving the program? What are your objectives for the live interpretation? The following are the three kinds of objectives that are needed for any interpretive program to be "planned", with an example of each. - Learning Objectives. At the completion of the program 60% of the visitors will be able to describe three innovative farming tools invented by Rouge River Valley farmers. - Behavioral Objectives. At the completion of the program the majority of the visitors will want to look at the tools in the museum collection. - Emotional Objectives. By the completion of the program the curiosity and interest level in the visitors will be raised so that they will be motivated to want to look at the museum collections, and attend other live interpretive programs sometime in the future. Remember, objectives are measurable. They are also tools to help you focus on just what you want your program to accomplish. As you consider the theme or topic for your live presentation, and have written the objectives you want the program to accomplish, there are two very important questions you must ask yourself about your program. 1. Why would a visitor want to know that? This is an important question for you to answer about the information you are planning to present. If you can't think of several reasons why a visitor would want to learn the information in your program, you have a problem! This is where you RELATE to the visitor - give them a reason to attend the program. 2. How do you want the visitor to use the information you are interpreting to them? If you don't want them to use the information, then why are you doing the program? The answer to this question will become your behavioral objectives for your program. You don't want to spend a lot of time giving answers to questions that no one is asking!
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3. WHO? Who are the visitors coming to the program? What is their age level, knowledge level, interest level, etc. How much time do they have? What do you think some of "their objectives" for attending your program might be? Any special needs of the visitors (visual or hearing problems, handicap visitors, etc.). Considering the What?, Why?, and Who? parts of your live interpretation planning will help you focus you time and efforts. The answers to the "two questions" will help make sure the program is relevant to the visitor, not just the curators or resource experts. The Three B's. Interpreter's are in the BENEFIT business. Your interpretive program should be planned to illustrate to the visitors (and agency managers) three benefits. You should consider how the program will help: - Benefit the site or resource. For example, will the program help reduce damage to historic structures, or help keep visitors on designated trails. - Benefit the visitor. How will attending your program benefit the visitor? What's in it for them? The answer to this question is what you use to advertise the program. - How will your program benefit the agency you work for? More memberships? More gift shop sales? Better political "image"? What is the Product of your Product? In doing live interpretation it is easy to get caught up in the "interpretation" and forget what our real product is. By selling "the product of the product" you put the idea of your program in a context that the potential user knows and understands (relates to). For example, in the commercial world: - Are you selling drills, or holes? - Are you selling cosmetics, or "hope"? - Are you selling new cars, or status? What is the product of the product for your live interpretation? - Are you selling looking at artifacts or valuing the cultures/people that made them? - Are you selling looking at rooms of furniture or pride in the people that made and used the furniture? - Are you selling "collections", or the benefits to all people in the saving and conservation of historic materials? To make contact... We know from years of interpretive research that the "live interpreter" is the most powerful of all of our interpretive media and opportunities. The interpreter can instantly "read" an audience, make adjustments in the program to help relate to the different audiences they may encounter.
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They can look into the eyes of a visitor and grab the visitors imagination and emotions. They can take a boring topic and make it come to life for the visitors. But to be successful, live interpretation requires that the interpreter think about and plan for their success. Being successful with any live interpretive programs requires the interpreter to identify what they mean by success. The successful interpreter will need to understand how their visitors learn and remember information and how to provoke, relate and reveal the story to them. They will have a focused message (theme) and objectives that they are going to strive to accomplish. They never stop trying to improve their program and trying new ways of inspiring the visitors. The reward the interpreter receives from his or her work really cannot be put into words - a deep sense of satisfaction, pride, and more. The reward the visitor receives from the interpreters efforts are equally as powerful. For when a trained, focused, and inspirational interpreter meets with visitors hungry for inspiration, something special happens. They make contact and the journey begins. References Ham, Sam H. (1992) Environmental Interpretation - A practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets. North American Press, Golden, CO. Lewis, William J. (1988) Interpreting for Park Visitors. Eastern Acorn Press. Tilden, Freeman (1957). Interpreting Our Heritage. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Veverka, John A. (1995) Interpretive Master Planning. Falcon Press, Helena, MT.
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Get Noses Pressed up to Vitrines, not Devices Paul C. Thistle Reprinted with permission from: Critical Museology Miscellanea blog for critical, self-reflexive, & radical reexamination of museum practice
VITRINE a glass showcase or cabinet especially for displaying fine wares or specimens
This post argues that device apps employed as interpretation strategies in museum galleries actually undermine the quality & extent of direct experience with museum collections on exhibit. Communication technology apps are designed to monopolise the user’s attention. Smartphones are observably, experientially, & demonstrably through research behaviourally addictive. Experiencing an exhibition mediated by means of pointing one’s nose at a device screen is—first & foremost—purely interaction with the addictive hand-held device, not engagement that effectively encourages face-to-object experience. Disclaimer: Your blogger Paul C. Thistle is not now & never plans to be associated in any way, shape, or form with any competitor of THINKPROXY Location Technology. Introduction: “Who said visiting a museum is a boring experience?” was a 21 December 2017 American Alliance of Museums LinkedIn Group post by Matt Scott that provided a link to a promotion of “beacon” technology in exhibit galleries as a solution to the “yawn” factor purportedly afflicting museum patrons.[i] First of all, I am not denying that the use of communication technology in museum galleries may be a potentially useful interpretation strategy;[ii] however, I do believe there are several sizeable BUTS that need to be considered by designers of museum galleries. The iBeacon brand solution proffered by the company in question (THINKPROXY Location Technology) is promoted as an alternative to “traditional” audio tour technology (Anonymous 2017). The beacon proximity marketing IT app provides interpretive information & activities though smartphones so as to more easily match visitors’ individual interests. This is opposed to inescapably tying them to a pre-recorded audio loop technology that provides information sequentially regardless of whether or not the visitor is interested in particular topics around the pre-selected traffic route. Good idea, right? Perhaps; but to this observer, the “interactive” elements of the gallery beacons suggested by the company seem, if not somewhat lame, then seriously counterproductive activities. Unless otherwise identified, the following quotations are taken from the THINKPROXY Location Technology corporate iBeacon web page (Anonymous 2017).
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Analysis of iBeacon Don’t try to make them [visitors] put down their smartphones to enjoy your exhibits. . . . Beacon technology partners up with each visitor’s smartphone. “Pings” from the beacon hit the guests’ phones. They can interact with the information, click for more in-depth stories and history, . . . First of all, unless this app automatically turns off all other notifications from the device while in the museum gallery, do we seriously want more “pings” on visitors’ smartphones while they are exploring an exhibition? Are modern museum visitors not already overly occupied with—if not addicted to—their smartphones (CBC Radio The Current 2017 discussing Alter 2017)? See the communication device usage tracking documentary (CBC Marketplace 2017a). Museums need to analyse this beacon gambit very carefully before enabling such digital “behavioural addiction.” The vast majority of smartphone users have this condition defined as: any compulsive conduct not substance-related that undermines well-being in at least one respect (CBC The Current 2017; cf. Alter 2017). I believe strongly that museums should be attempting to provide a different kind of experience apart from, or unmediated by, omnipresent smartphone screens. My ‘No’ answer to more pings derives from keeping my head up to observe daily post-smartphone life. Reasoning for my ‘Yes’ answer to the user addiction question above follows throughout this blog. Smartphones are intrusively ubiquitous in the lives of postmodern people & daily usage rates are rising rapidly. In the past 2 years alone, the average daily smartphone usage has increased from 2 hours & 48 minutes to 3 hours & 42 minutes (CBC The Current 2017). Your blogger has previously posted the following commentaries: A 2012 study by California-based Good Technology (2012) found that more than 80% of working adults in America continue to work after leaving the office for an average of 7 hours a week–just answering their smartphones. Nearly half of those surveyed believe they have no choice in this because of customer expectations [one might also say collegial as well as management expectations; e.g. impact of “Work Extending Technologies” reported in Towers, Duxbury, & Thomas 2005: 8-9 ff.]. Many users even take their smartphones to bed with them. Indeed, 40% of survey respondents continue to check messages after 10:00 p.m. and 68% do so before 8:00 a.m. (Thistle 2012a). Students surveyed report that many constantly clutch their smartphones in their hand [cf. featured first image on Anonymous 2017], do not carry them in pocket or purse, & sleep with them with notifications in one way or another turned on. . . research psychologist Dr. Larry Rosen’s findings that the avalanche of information on our communication devices producing a “relentless barrage of notifications can have adverse effects on our mental and physical health” [emphasis added] (Thistle 2015; cf. Vermes 2017). Isn’t the postmodern condition of “crackberry”[iii] a relevant issue impacting the quality of direct interaction experience with art, artifacts, & specimens in museum galleries? Forty percent of respondents to the following research reported not being successful in controlling work-related use of their mobile “Work Enhancing Technology” (Towers, Duxbury, & Thomas 2005: 19). The colonisation of the private by the employer continues, and the work organisation exists wherever and whenever an item of mobile of technology is being used for work, and also where it can be used for work [for example in a museum gallery; emphasis added] (Towers, Duxbury, & Thomas 2005: 23).
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InterpNEWS In light of this rampant workplace intrusion into leisure (Posen 2013: 109, 111-112, 247, 321 passim; Towers, Duxbury, & Thomas 2005: 14-18), shouldn’t museums really concentrate on our “core business” providing experiences aimed at interactive engagement with real objects on exhibit rather than encouraging more interaction with communication IT? May I suggest that, in line with museums’ primary business focussing on our unique collections resources, we are, by our very institutional nature & purpose, well-positioned to provide an alternative to epidemic smartphone addiction—as opposed to enabling more noses being buried in a device screen while inside our exhibition galleries. Following Robert Janes’ (2009) challenge to avoid irrelevance for museums, is crackberry not a world problem that museums can play a useful role in ameliorating? Instead of sending more notifications to visitors’ smartphones while they are on-site inside exhibition galleries, I believe strongly that museums should not be in the business of providing additional temptation for addictive device behaviour by our visitors. Further, because attention to smartphones is valuable & monetised, a large & rapidly growing IT industry exists to exploit communication technology usage. The industry is working hard & very successfully to design apps to get users to become “hooked” through strategies such as “variable rewards.” The resulting addiction has negative impacts on people’s memory, sleep, anxiety, & depression (CBC Marketplace 2017a; Alter 2017). Smartphones are taking over our lives, so this emerging problem is a serious one. In this light, I would argue against THINKPROXY Location Technology’s above expressed purpose to prevent museum visitors from putting their devices down in museum exhibition galleries. I believe it is both rational & socially beneficial for museums to avoid adding to the app load carried by contemporary addictive workextending technology users (Towers, Duxbury, & Thomas 2005: 2, 9, passim). In fact, the first solution to device addiction is in fact to turn it off & put it down. See a short & simple tip sheet to help cut down on your own smartphone usage (CBC Marketplace 2017b). To get back to the iBeacon app itself, . . . today’s museum experience doesn’t have to be boring. It can be interactive, immersive, and fun! Observers & potential users of beacon technology need to question: interactive in what sense exactly? When the app comes into contact with a beacon, the visitor gets notified of unique information, or a chance to participate in various games or surveys. As argued above, museum visitors could do well without more notifications from their devices in museum exhibition spaces. As for introducing “games or surveys,” really? Surely, when museums go to all the time, trouble, & expense of collecting & preserving 3-D art, artifacts, & specimens as well as building exhibitions featuring real objects—to say nothing of the visitors’ own opportunity costs of getting into the museum’s physical space—do we really want to employ in-gallery communication technology to mediate the same kind of experiences that smartphones can deliver at any time or place outside the museum? I contend that device apps undermine the quality & extent of direct experience with our collections on exhibit—& they drag visitor attention away from a museum’s unique core business & purpose, i.e. fostering meaningful experience directly with real objects.
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InterpNEWS Experiencing an exhibition mediated by means of pointing one’s nose at a device screen is—first & foremost— purely an experience with the hand-held device, not one directly with collections on exhibit. See the Figure 1 image & analysis outlined below regarding the experience of a visitor interacting with a device in a museum gallery. When a visitor moves away from one beacon and in proximity to the next, the second one picks up and continues the museum’s story. Is this not the same structure & outcome as the audio recording hassle that THINKPROXY Location Intelligence is critical of, i.e. having to listen to an audio tool segment that holds no visitor interest (Anonymous 2017)? Isn’t an iBeacon “ping” on your smartphone just as liable to be something else on display you walk by that you are not interested in on your way off the museum-planned traffic flow pattern? Why generate “pings” by proximity marketing technology prompting visitors to look at their smartphone? Wouldn’t making the iBeacon respond only to a visitor request for information rather than automatic proximity “pings” be preferable to reduce notification overload? We certainly know from app designers themselves who confess that their goal is to keep you on the app—to make the app “more engaging and persuasive,” i.e. addictive. Apps are calculatedly designed to foster attention to the app per se (CBC Marketplace 2017a; Alter 2017). People are tuned into games on their smartphones. Remember how obsessed everyone was with Pokémon Go? Museums can take advantage of this trend with beacon technology. In addition to offering a completely immersive, customized customer experience, beacon technology in museums can be set up to interact with visitors using games. “People are tuned into games” is patently an understatement. An 8-yearold boy’s device time tracked by the CBC Marketplace (2017a) documentary totalled 9+ hours a day (admittedly in the summer).[iv] With regard to Pokémon Go, looking for these virtual figures does not increase attention to the objects on display. Because this fad was not part of any museum exhibition design process, the Pokémon images actually appeared in front of items on exhibit. Above & beyond the obvious fact that hunting the figure images often was the sole goal pursued by those using this app, museum visitor attention is—by any app’s very design— purposefully sucked away from exhibit content by Pokémon-like communication technology. The IT system being proposed by THINKPROXY Location Technology I would argue also is set up as a misguided interpretive structure. Museum docents need to take a triangle interpretive stance, not shoulder him/herself in a direct line between the visitor & the object. Just like the proper role of the human docent, IT in exhibitions should not situate itself directly in between the visitor & the object. For example, see the second image on the THINKPROXY Location Technology Gamification web page (Anonymous 2018). Such beacon technology must occupy one of the corners of the triangular interpretive structure, not occupy the middle of a straight interpretive line between visitor & object where it will self-evidently obscure or divert attention away from the object on display.
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In addition, I maintain that we don’t need electronic beacons referring to objects in exhibit cases, unless they first & foremost—not to say principally—direct attention back to the museum’s core business: the real object on display. We need visitor attention on our exhibited objects not on their hand-held devices. Case in point: before cell phones became ubiquitous, I once watched 2 elementary-aged students with digital cameras in my small local museum/national exhibition centre. I was amazed to see them pass through the facility viewing the exhibits solely through the viewfinders of their digital cameras! Essentially, they acted as if they were precipitously taking pictures of everything that caught their eye. During the time that they were within my view, these 2 young visitors never looked at anything for any length of time except when mediated by their device’s plastic viewfinders & camera lenses–including the merchandise in our gift shop. Being museum practitioners, is it too much to expect that we would analyse our interpretive machinery through a material culture lens? Technology—like the above youths’ digital camera, the modern automobile, or a smartphone—is what the respected experimental physics professor & Director of Museum Studies Ursula Franklin (1990), author of the Real World of Technology, terms “prescriptive.” By definition, this means the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method. I suggest that a film camera would never have been used in the way that the above 2 young visitors used their digital cameras. Digital technology prescribes & in fact controls the way it is used. Dr. Franklin explains: One has to keep in mind how much the technology of doing something defines the activity itself, and, by doing so, precludes the emergence of other ways of doing “it,” whatever “it” might be. This has been so historically but it is even more so today, because so many activities are technologically structured (Franklin 1990: 17 ff.) [emphasis added]. What museums need to fear from beacon & other similar technology in museum exhibitions is that mobile technology exerts inexorable domination over how an exhibit gallery can engage visitors. For example, see the cover of the American Alliance of Museums’ bi-monthly journal Museum’s Education theme issue for September/October 2016 showing a young visitor completely engaged—not with an object on display—but with a device screen.
Figure 1. Detail from cover image of the American Alliance of Museums journal Museum 95 no. 5 (September/October) 2016.
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The image certainly is a marvellous example of intense museum visitor engagement—but not the intensity focussed on exhibit elements desired by the museum nor that promised by gallery interpretation app designers. This Museum cover image provides me with no hope that the young visitor will raise her eyes from the touch screen to the objects on display any time soon. Why? Because the “engagement” involved in the above image actually is with the device screen that is designed to hold her attention, thereby blocking her interaction with the real object(s) on exhibit. It is failing to direct her attention back to the object. Is our cover girl playing one of the recommended “games” or answering a survey (Anonymous 2017) rather than studying & reflecting on the art, artifacts, or specimens displayed around her? In this Museum cover image, the only real object our visitor engages & interacts with is the device. Anonymous (2017) also suggests the following interpretive activity: Trivia about each exhibit is a fun way to engage patrons. Choosing the best picture that describes an exhibit is another popular idea museums can use gamification to benefit their guests’ visits. Trivia by Oxford Dictionary definition is: “unimportant details or pieces of information” [emphasis added] & surely should not be regarded as a preferred in-gallery activity. Additionally, interaction generated by directing attention to pictures on devices to describe the exhibit might potentially be a worthwhile activity, but surely not inside a museum gallery where concentration on device screen pixels replaces real objects as the ‘object’ of attention. Attending to a series of pixilated digital images—whether on a large kiosk or small smartphone screen—clearly cannot be “interactive” with an object on display. Concerning museums’ use of digital images, your blogger is in the ‘boomer’ generation. Has anyone in younger generations of museum workers ever read historian William B. Hesseltine’s (1982-1983) article “The Challenge of the Artifact” in The Wisconsin Magazine of History? In my estimation, museum folk have never really grappled adequately with this thirty-five-year-old critique by Hesseltine that museums are a colossal waste of time, effort, and money because simply recording, measuring, and photographing objects, filing this data, and “discarding the junk to antique dealers or depositing it on the city dump” is the only historiographic use for artifacts [emphasis added]. Unless museum interpretation strategies engage visitors to study, think about, & interact directly with the museum objects on exhibit, we might as well follow Hesseltine’s advice & become digital institutions with collections consisting solely of electronic 1s, 0s, & resulting pixels. Of course, all of this would result in headto-head competition with the many other modern digital enterprises. Why would museums give up on the “experience economy” (Pine 2011)—for which museums are materially suited—only to compete in another business altogether? As a museum practitioner, my highest priority to is create interaction with the real object directly, not through an app presenting pixilated images on an intermediary device from which—by inherent character & explicit design—a visitor is not apt to raise his/her eyes. In my view, if IT is to be used in Museum exhibitions, designers must intentionally & forcefully direct visitor attention back to the object! Our Museum cover girl can follow iBecaon’s recommendations to play a game or seek images, but not in the gallery please! Surely, it is more appropriate for her to access museum-related pictures in pixel format or play exhibit-related games on her home, school, or ice cream parlour Wi-Fi-enabled device. Let’s work to museum strengths—especially while visitors actually are occupying our gallery spaces. Let’s market the proximity to museum collections.
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To me, it is patently obvious that museums cannot really afford to compete digitally with the billions of dollars currently being spent by our well-heeled & well-established competitors that create non-museum digital experiences. Instead museums must, by the necessity imposed by our collections, focus on & invest in the medium of real objects in our collections. Museum boards contemplating IT usage in galleries need to examine whether their institutions are trying to expand their business into competition with every other digital venture in the edutainment field. I believe it is ill-advised—not to say reckless for museum sustainability—to attempt such a strategy. Put simply, in an exhibition gallery, I don’t want visitors’ noses pressed up against any device screen. I want their noses pressed up against a vitrine contemplating actual physical objects. An extra benefit gamification offers museums is that it gathers information on the attraction’s visitors. This data can answer important questions. Which of your exhibits ended up catching and holding the most attention? . . . All well & good—for the museum institutions themselves. But what about our patrons? Listen to how app tracking functions can get dangerously personal on CBC Radio Spark (2017), an investigative journalism programme that aims at an ongoing conversation about our rapidly changing world exploring how technology, innovation, and design affects our lives. Ok, use iBeacon tracking functions in exhibit galleries, but only if visitors are fully informed by the app download’s first statement in simple & clear language about the extent of tracking & its limitation solely to the museum institution’s footprint. Analysis of Gamification: Regarding the concept of “gamification,” the related THINKPROXY Location Technology web page (Anonymous 2018) states: . . . a huge number of today’s population has a smartphone, and most of those people, especially millennials, are consumed by the games and apps on their phones. Remember the game Pokémon Go? People were literally obsessed with it, and would travel far and wide to catch digital Pokémon. This same type of gaming experience can be employed by museums to present information in a way that educates, engages, and entertains their audience. . . It is nearly impossible to rip away someone’s attention from their smartphone, so why not harness this attention and use it to your advantage? [emphasis added]. So, given the bolded statement above, why propose intensifying use of smartphones in museum galleries? The real problem is that, for beacon technology to be effective, visitor attention must first & primarily be focussed on the device that—iBeacon folks admit–is hopeless to break away from! May I suggest that this is a completely counterproductive interpretive approach in a museum gallery. Attention & interaction produced by beacon technology are not focused primarily on the exhibit content, but on the app per se. This is how apps are intentionally designed. In order for iBeacon to work, the exhibition experience must be completely mediated by the gamification organized by the technology.
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. . . it is also a way for users to find the information they want without having to interrupt their experience by having to find a museum expert to help answer their questions (Anonymous 2018). Without having to “interrupt their experience”? Perhaps not—as long as the gallery is purposefully designed as the game! However, to gamify an exhibition that has not been designed originally to serve as an environment for the game would certainly interrupt the initial museum-intended experience in the gallery.[v] Conclusion: In the end analysis, I have serious doubts about device-mediated in-gallery experiences. Beacon & smartphone connectivity might possibly be useful in some limited, but not in all—or even most—exhibition circumstances in my view. Postmodern museum visitors already behaviorally addicted to their smartphones in fact—every once and a while at least—absolutely do need to be encouraged to put down their smartphones contrary to Anonymous (2017) to permit their attention & interaction to focus directly on other things. How about real objects when patrons are present in exhibitions? Museums really should not enable additional IT addiction any more than absolutely necessary. Please, let museums strive to get visitor noses pressed up against a vitrine, not the screen of a device, because I believe it is patently obvious that—like our Museum cover girl—attention will inevitably remain on the device—as is the acknowledged objective of app designers—not on any real object on exhibit that is the singular objective of museum institutions. How do museums do this? Every piece of label copy & every docent must direct visitors compellingly back to look at & learn from exhibited objects or those presented in programming. This is what restrains the yawning response: engage the museum visitor in reading objects. In my view, it is absolutely counterproductive to use smartphone apps in museum galleries. IT functions to distance the visitor from the object of the museum experience—and this prescriptively so. Beyond this, I believe museum efforts at engagement must focus more extensively on elements of interpretation such as hands-on experience with real objects. Museum practitioners can follow guidance from sources such as The Power of Touch by University College London Institute of Archaeology & coordinator of its master’s programme in conservation, Elizabeth Pye (2007). Also see a practical way of accomplishing hands-on programming in this field as shown the article “Archaeology Excavation Simulation: Correcting the Emphasis” (Thistle 2012b). As a traditionalist museum practitioner, I believe that so-called “interactive” communication technologies encourage—if not impose—interaction only with the device per se. & not necessarily with the target subject. Witness the Museum Education theme issue cover girl. Let’s design “interactive” experience by prescribing that the visitor must look back at & read the object in question. Following from the above analysis, I believe museums should avoid duplicating the roles of digital media organisations. This will require focussing intently on what is unique and irreplaceable about experience with the real object. If our institutions are to survive, we inescapably need visitor noses pressed up to vitrines, not devices.
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References Cited: Alter, Adam. 2017. Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technologies and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. New York: Penguin Press. Anonymous [originally, but not currently, attributed to a Sanjeev Bora]. 2018. “Gamifying the Museum Experience Through Beacon Technology.” THINKPROXY Location Technology Blog iBeacon technology in Museums, IoT Posted January 04, 2018 http://thinkproxi.com/gamifying-museum-experience-beacontechnology/ (accessed 8 January 2018). Anonymous. 2017. “Who Said Visiting a Museum Is a Boring Experience?” THINKPROXY Location Technology Blog iBeacon technology in Museums, IoT Posted December 01, 2017 http://thinkproxi.com/saidvisiting-museum-boring-experience/ (accessed 8 January 2018). CBC Marketplace. 2017a. “Addicted to your phone?” Marketplace TV broadcast 3 November 2017, 22:32 minutes http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2017-2018/addicted-to-your-phone (accessed 9 January 2018). CBC Marketplace. 2017b. “Tips to cut down on your smartphone usage.” Marketplace Blog posted 3 November 2017 http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/blog/tips-to-cut-down-on-your-smartphone-usage (accessed 9 January 2017). CBC Radio Spark. 2017. “Online tracking gets really personal” Spark radio broadcast Sunday November 27, 2016 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/336-bad-driving-social-media-influence-and-more-1.3863844/onlinetracking-gets-really-personal-1.3863982 (accessed 15 January 2018). CBC Radio The Current. 2017. “Why technology is addictive and what to do about it.” The Current radio broadcast in conversation with author of Irresistible, Adam Alter (2017), 15 May 2017 12:00 AM ET, 27:21 minutes http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/why-technology-is-addictive-and-what-to-do-about-it-1.4115812 (accessed 13 January 2018). Franklin, Ursula. 1990. The Real World of Technology: CBC Massey Lectures. Toronto: CBC Enterprises & Susan Sutton. Good Technology. 2012. “Good Technology Survey Reveals Americans are Working More, but on their Own Schedule”, Sunnydale, CA: Good Technology, Inc. [original link http://www1.good.com/news/pressreleases/current-press-releases/161009045.html (accessed 6 August 2012) dead as of 9 January 2018. Current alternative link https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/print/12332 ]. Hesseltine, William B. 1982-1983. “The Challenge of the Artifact” The Wisconsin Magazine of History Vol. 66, No. 2 (Winter): 122-127. [See a more widely accessible reprint in Thomas J. Schlereth (1982: 99-100) Material Culture Studies in America: An Anthology (Nashville, TN: American Association for State & Local History).]
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Janes, Robert R. 2009. Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance, or Collapse? New York: Routledge. Pine, B. Joseph. 2011. B. The Experience Economy, Updated Edition. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing. Posen, David. 2013. Is Work Killing You? A Doctor’s Prescription for Treating Workplace Stress. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc. Pye, Elizabeth. 2007. The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Contexts. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc. Thistle, Paul C. 2015. “Smartphone Carried in Your Hand, or in Your Pocket/Purse?” Solving Task Saturation for Museum Workers Blog posted 5 July 2015 https://solvetasksaturation.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/smartphone-carried-in-your-hand-or-in-yourpocketpurse/ (accessed 9 January 2018). Thistle, Paul C. 2012a. “Smartphones & Unpaid Overtime.” Solving Task Saturation for Museum Workers Blog posted 6 August 2012 https://solvetasksaturation.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/smartphones-unpaidovertime/ (accessed 9 January 2018). Thistle, Paul C. 2012b. “Archaeology Excavation Simulation: Correcting the Emphasis.” Journal of Museum Education 37 (2): 65-76 [full article found on-line at https://books.google.ca/books?id=JEMrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=%22Paul+C.+Thistle%22&s ource=bl&ots=euGOQ695iI&sig=TkutmYcQEFId0LlP_NBtkVZ0bN8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzy5yzt qDWAhXI34MKHf7-CGg4ChDoAQgnMAE#v=onepage&q=%22Paul%20C.%20Thistle%22&f=false ; abstract found at http://lcoastpress.metapress.com/content/f600m4586088328j/ & excerpt at https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TDwrDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT9&ots=yhOimWkb54&sig =PJWlH86aB-vnYNE8WH_2jxHvUYw#v=onepage&q=Thistle&f=false . See related video of paper presentation on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtsX1AULYVA . PowerPoint slides are available at http://newsarticle.museumsontario.com/members/Conf2011/WrapUp/Ignite/ArchaeologicalExcavation_PaulThistle.pdf ] (accessed 15 January 2018). Towers, Ian, Duxbury, Linda, & Thomas, John. 2005. “Time Thieves and Space Invaders: Technology, Work and the Organisation.” Paper presented to the 4th Annual Critical Management Studies Conference, July 2005, Cambridge https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiXspLmpb7XAhWX 0YMKHe6mDpwQFggmMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdo i%3D10.1.1.98.9879%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&usg=AOvVaw1zR6kwdxu9gAkQ6jveETRx (accessed 11 January 2018). Vermes, Jason. 2017. “Notifications stress me out. How I cut them down to improve my well-being.” CBC Radio Spark blog posted December 24, 2017 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/377-notification-fatigue-seasonalghost-stories-and-more-1.4450632/notifications-stress-me-out-how-i-cut-them-down-to-improve-my-wellbeing-1.4450646 (accessed 15 January 2018).
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Endnotes: [i] “Beacon technology is the newest thing being used to stifle museum boredom in millennials” referenced on a related Anonymous (2018) web page was a [dead link when accessed 8 January 2018. [ii] Potentially useful aspects of beacon technology promoted include to: i) share “behind the scenes” exhibit information, ii) access other relevant information tied to an exhibit, iii) interesting information that could otherwise not be shared with their visitors due to space issues, & iv) more in-depth stories and history, listen to songs or first-person accounts . . . However, the associated purportedly positive uses listed, such as providing access to “fun stories, great music, right on their smartphones; . . . more in-depth stories and history, listen to songs or first-person accounts” while present in an exhibition gallery are more typical app strategies for monopolising attention focussed on a device, not exhibition elements. Therefore, I argue in this post such communication technology is in fact counterproductive. [iii] CrackBerry is the nickname given to a BlackBerry device, a handheld smartphone to which users have a tendency to become addicted. The term is a combination of “crack” – or crack cocaine, which is a highlyaddictive narcotic – and BlackBerry. While the reference to the BlackBerry as a CrackBerry is often made in jest, mental health experts say that the lure of these wireless devices is real, and the behavior of those caught up in it may be similar to that of substance abusers. If weaned off their BlackBerry phones, these users may exhibit withdrawal symptoms (Technopedia https://www.techopedia.com/definition/14902/crackberry accessed 15 January 2018). [iv] The tracking programme measuring time on the device provided an estimate of lifetime usage at the measured rate. In this 8-yearold’s case, it estimated he would be spending 15.5 years on his device. [v] Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification#Criticism for references to various other critiques of “gamification.” Author: Paul C. Thistle Paul C. Thistle is the former Curator & CAO of The Sam Waller Museum (1983-1995) and most recently Curator at the Langley Centennial Museum & National Exhibition Centre (2006-2009). He has 26+ years of mission and management work in museums. He writes the Solving Task Saturation for Museum Workers & the Critical Museology Miscellanea blogs. In the field of ethnohistory, he is the author of the national, provincial, and academic award winning book Indian-European Trade Relations in the Lower Saskatchewan River Region to 1840. Manitoba Native Studies II and related journal articles such as "The Twatt Family, 1780-1840: Amerindian, Ethnic Category, or Ethnic Group Identity?" in The Western Metis: Profile of a People. He has teaching experience at the university, college, high school, museum programming, and professional development levels. He has many conference presentations to his credit, including at the 2014 Canadian Museums Association Annual Conference, Toronto, ON & the 2012 American Association of Museums annual conference in Minneapolis, MN. His educational background includes an Interdisciplinary M.A. in history and anthropology and a B.Ed. in cross-cultural and museum education from the University of Manitoba, a B.A. in anthropology and history from the University of Waterloo, and a Museology Certificate from the University of Winnipeg. View all posts by Paul C. Thistle
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Shave Your Alpaca: A New Off-the-Shelf Exhibit System from Taylor Studios Taylor Studios, Inc
In working with our clients over the past 27 years, we have learned of the constant struggles that museums, nature centers, parks, and other interpretive sites face. For a long time we’ve wanted to start a product line that specifically helps our clients meet the difficulties they face in funding, spatial limitations, and maintenance. We’re happy to announce the official launch of this new line: the Shave Your Alpaca modular exhibit system from Taylor Studios. These exhibits are geared toward sites and institutions looking for a simple, cost-friendly way to add new museum-quality exhibits. Sites will now be able to add fresh, up-to-date exhibit components without having to pay for an entire redesign. The exhibits are flexible, changeable, and cost-friendly. How does it work? Basically, customers choose standardized but semi-customizable exhibit pieces. They can buy one, two, or however many fit into their space (and into their budget!). They can purchase more over the years as additional funding becomes available. The exhibit pieces can be updated, added-to, and changed over time, and placed together with other exhibit pieces in an endless array of configurations. Sites can select between three base components – a reader rail, tabletop exhibit, or interior kiosk. Customers who purchase a reader rail then select between one of nine different add-on options, ranging from monitors to display cases to hands-on interactives. For those who purchase a tabletop exhibit, one of four options is available: the table can have a topographical map, a diorama, an area to display tactile objects, or a light-up map activated by push buttons. Interior kiosks come in both a large and a small size, and they can be combined with one another or with the reader rails and tabletop exhibits. The array of configurations is endless.
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Finally, due to popular demand for two of Taylor Studios’ most successful designs, we are also offering a crawl-through log exhibit and an activity table. Visitors young and old enjoy venturing into Taylor Studios’ crawl-through logs at nature centers around the country, as they provide a fun and engaging way for children to learn about nature. Activity tables are also popular at sites with a lot of hands-on objects and artifacts, and they include ample storage space and shelving alongside a large flat surface for play. For all of our exhibits, we guarantee not only a low price, but a strength and durability unmatched. If this sounds like what your site needs to add new energy and freshness to your offerings, check out http://www.taylorstudios.com/shave-your-alpaca/ for further details and ordering information. Or give us a call at (217) 893-4874 and we can answer all of your questions. You asked for exhibits that are affordable, professional, flexible, and updateable – and we “herd” you! Our new Shave Your Alpaca exhibit system provides all of this and more. Start with one exhibit piece, or two, or three – or build a whole herd over time. The possibilities are endless, and the freedom of choice is sure nothing to spit at!
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A GEM of a bent and twisted idea. John Veverka Interpretive Writer/Trainer Heritage Interpretation Training Center
Years ago working on my PhD in interpretation at Michigan State University and teaching the introductory and advanced interpretation courses there, one of my textbooks (besides Tilden) was Paul Harvey’s Rest of the Stories. You can still buy these books today – check out Paul Harvey Rest of the Stories on Yahoo or Amazon. Having been bitten by the “rest of the story” bug as the most interpretive communication strategy I could use in developing interpretive text for exhibits or panels, or doing live interpretive programs or tours, I stressed and taught this format in my courses. I reminded students that of all of Tilden’s Principles (provoke, relate, reveal), the “reveal” the rest of the story was often the best part of any interpretive experience for visitors. I tried to illustrate to my students that every object, artifact, landscape or site will have a “rest of the story” to tell if we take the time to find it, shape it, and tell it in creative writing and inspirational ways. So as often happens in college courses, one student – who loved to challenge new ideas, pulled an object from his notebook and asked “does this have a rest of the story to tell”? Can you guess what he handed me? That’s also a “rest of the story”. OK – so here we go… A GEM of a bent, and twisted idea. Offices and factories in the mid 1800’s had a problem. A paper problem. It wasn’t so much the paper itself, but how unruly paper could be. In stacks, documents, letters or other arrangements they could easily come “un-ordered” and un-arranged. A good breeze or wind could also be an enemy of the documents. Someone had to do something about this paper problem. Ah – the invention of the humble paper clip. The first paper clip was invented in 1867 by Samuel Fay. In April 23, 1867 for a Ticket Fastener. Fay specified in the description that in addition to attaching tickets to garments it could be used to hold papers together. But the modern paper clip existed on paper as early as April 27, 1899. It appears on a patent issued November 9, 1899 to William D. Middlebrook of Waterbury, Connecticut. Middlebrook invented not just the paper clip but he also invented a machine to produce the paper clip. The patent drawings clearly show the final product, the common paper clip. In his description he makes reference that both the machine and the paper clip design are to be covered by the patent.
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The GEM of the idea. The most common type of wire paper clip still in use, the Gem paper clip, was never patented, but it was most likely in production in Britain in the early 1870s by "The Gem Manufacturing Company", according to the American expert on technological innovations, Professor Henry J. Petroski. He refers to an 1883 article about "Gem Paper-Fasteners", praising them for being "better than ordinary pins" for "binding together papers on the same subject, a bundle of letters, or pages of a manuscript". The paper clip goes to war. Did you k now that during the German occupation of Norway during WWII Patriots wore them in their lapels as a symbol of resistance to the German occupiers and local Nazi authorities when other signs of resistance, such as flag pins or pins showing the cipher of the exiled King Haakon VII of Norway were forbidden. The clips were meant to denote solidarity and unity ("we are bound together"). The wearing of paper clips was soon prohibited, and people wearing them could risk severe punishment. Today, the traditional paper clip is the essence of form follows function and after a century, it still works. According to the Early Office Museum, there are over 50 different designs for “paper fasteners” and paper clips. So now you know the rest of the story about a GEM of a bent, and twisted idea. Today that student who handed me a paper clip from his notebook is an excellent professional interpreter and interpretive trainer… teaching others how to tell “the rest of the stories” hidden in objects, artifacts, landscapes and sites. I guess the rest of the story has a rest of the story. ---------------------------------------------------------------
A little extra “rest of the story” – just for fun or if someone asks during your program: Why were paper clips sold in so many different designs? Many designs were initially protected by patents. As a result, other manufacturers had to come up with different designs. Also, no single paper clip design is optimal for all purposes. In marketing paper clips, suppliers emphasized the superiority of their designs on one or two of the following characteristics: 1. Does not catch, mutilate, or tear papers 2. Does not get tangled with other clips in the box 3. Holds a thick set of papers 4. Grips firmly, holds papers securely 5. Is flat or thin and takes less space in files 6. Is easily inserted 7. Is light weight and requires less postage 8. Is non-deforming 9. Is cheap (e.g., because it uses less wire) http://www.officemuseum.com/paper_clips.htm John Veverka Heritage Interpretation Training Center jvainterp@aol.com
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InterpNEWS Engaging and Growing your Customer Base with New Media Technology. Gary Van Hoose,
It’s official. The technology genie is out of the bottle in the museum world. “In the world of museums that I come from, traditional boundaries have been thrown wide open. New media technologies are expanding our collecting policies, renewing our curatorial visions and refreshing our relationship with audiences.” Sarah Kenderdine, Professor and Director of the Expanded Perception “Mixed reality gives you the superpower to and Interaction Centre at the University of New South Wales, transcend time and space” said Alex opened her presentation to the World Economic Forum1 with this Kipman of Microsoft in the Mixed Reality thought. And the signs of growth and an appetite for these blog Q&A, October 9, 2017. technologies are everywhere:
Nasdaq declared that video gaming is a bigger industry than movies or music1
Everyone remembers the user and media frenzy around the Pokemon Go augmented reality game launch in July 2016
None other than Apple launched an augmented reality platform in 2017
The virtual reality market is predicted to skyrocket from 6.4 billion to 40.4 billion by 20201
For a museum audience, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are increasingly becoming more than just options for storytelling around art and cultural heritage, they’re becoming expectations. These new technologies also open many exciting new opportunities for storytelling. “Technology is our brush, the world our canvas and we are the artists,” says Brad Waid, new media technology and education speaker, and advisor to the Alteris Group. So, what are the factors to consider when choosing the best technology fit for your museum or site? We can view some of the factors in this diagram and take a look at each element more closely. 1
Figure 1 Brad Waid New Media & Education
The Digital Masterpiece, Sarah Kenderdine, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=WgOaqBr2Mfo Investing in Video Games: This Industry Pulls In More Revenue Than Movies, Music https://www.nasdaq.com/article/investing-invideo-games-this-industry-pulls-in-more-revenue-than-movies-music-cm634585 3 Virtual reality software and hardware market size worldwide from 2016 to 2020 (in billion U.S. dollars), Statista, ttps://www.statista.com/statistics/528779/virtual-reality-market-size-worldwide/ 2
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1. What kind of experiences are you trying to create? 2. What’s the best choice for your content, still graphics, live action or animation? 3. Adults and children learn somewhat differently. What’ss the best crossover experience for both audiences to produce the desired outcomes? First, it’s about the experience People eople come to a museum or cultural site to have an experience that connects them with a larger story. When you’re deciding what technology will be the best fit for your interpretation, you want to start by thinking about the kind of experience you’re tryingg to create, and what the goals are. For many museum visitors, socialization is at the core of the experience. While the audio interpretations that gained popularity in the early 2000s provide information, they created a solitary form of viewing experience. Many in the younger generations con consider sider museums and heritage sites as unengaging, quiet zones they prefer to avoid. Kicking it up to 2018, your visitors may be looking for a way to get a more dynamic audio and visual backstory to your collection, but in a collective way. AR can give them tthat hat by enhancing your existing experience. For example, your interpretation might use AR on a tablet that’s triggered by items around the collection to provide an added engagement layer to the experience, one that can be easily shared with other group members. ers. The group can be as small as a family, or with a few table tablets, ts, a class of school children. And this kind of interface can be multigenerational, and even virtual-virtual. virtual. Imagine family members taking photos of each other enjoying the tablet experience, surrounded by the real-world world experience (and of course posting to their favorite social sites creating additional branding and traffic). To go deeper into immersion, VR can place the visitor in a time or location that doesn’t exist in real life today. It can create an entire world around a painting or sculpture, or it can bring a specific cultural site to life in an earlier or future time. With the added content depth, VR helps the viewer see, feel and understand in a more personal, first-hand first basis. By adding audience engagement elements such as a motion chair, six degrees of freedom or 360 degree video, both AR and VR can help your visitorss experience an emotional sense of connection to your amazing content. Making content choices The choice of how to present your interpretation content is highly creative, and also impacted by factors such as available visual resources, space, and budget. For example, if visual resources are available, an engaging and effective AR presentation can be created using still images such as photographs, drawings, maps, charts or other graphics.
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Triggered by features in the museum or at the cultural site, the experience can be enhanced with simple type interpretations, or a supporting audio track, creating an effective and engaging multigenerational experience. To step it up, use video instead of still images. Live video and animation are both great options, but they have different production parameters:
Simple live video can be less costly to produce than animation, but harder to update 2D animation offers some of the budget-friendly aspects of simple video, and can be updated without a re-shoot 3D animation provides incredible quality and creative flexibility, but some of the production values can sometimes be best appreciated in VR
Achieving Outcomes No matter their age, gender or cultural background, every visitor to your museum or heritage site needs to walk away with new information, ideas, and perspectives. They need to learn something new about the world...something that creates an emotional learning connection to your content and your location. Fortunately, AR and VR technologies offer exciting opportunities to appeal to all age groups, and the ability to improve upon the mutually desired outcomes. That AR and VR increase engagement in young learners is well known, but what’s less common knowledge is that it increases learning effectiveness, too. According to the U.S. Department of Education4, “Students who participate in digital learning simulations for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning had a 23 percent higher achievement rating than those who do not.” Adults learn differently than children, but AR and VR are quickly becoming important tools for their development as well. Corporations are increasingly investing in new media tools because they simplify the transfer of information. Also, the immersive nature of the technology replaces passive observation and allows people to experience situations for themselves. First-hand experience is more engaging and motivating, thereby enhancing understanding and retention. For interpretation professionals, that means for some clients, one solution is to take a Pixar point of view: create an engaging story that speaks to children, but has little touches of characterization or information that will also appeal to adults. Adoption and Expectation Another benefit to museums and heritage sites of AR and VR is individualization: as AR replaces audio tours, it also allows visitors to customize their experience, choosing the parts of the story or the path that interests them most. And that’s the flexibility visitors will be expecting in the not-too-distant future. “Augmented Reality will move beyond ‘seeking’ the experience to ‘expecting’ the experience,” says Brad Waid. 4
U.S. Department of Education Launches $680,000 Challenge for Virtual and Augmented Reality Learning Experiences https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-launches-680k-challenge-virtual-and-augmentedreality-learning-experiences.
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As the rate of AR and VR adoption increases and they become more a part of our everyday life, they will set a new level of experience museum and heritage site visitors expect. In future articles in InterpNEWS, we’ll take a look at the different levels of involvement available, new AR/VR tech and tools, including how AR and VR can work for venues of different sizes.
Gary Van Hoose (gvanhoose@alterisgroup.com) works at the Alteris Group, a global digital learning and marketing company in Michigan, USA. Along with Brad Waid, global learning and technology speaker/influencer (techbradwaid@gmail.com), each stand ready to assist with any event or speaker support as well as content creation and production of digital multimedia solutions.
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Elements of interpretation: the case of Freedom Park Pretoria, South Africa Lauren Marx Heritage and Knowledge: Senior Researcher lauren@freedompark.co.za
On 2 July 1999, Nelson Mandela stated “the day should not be far off when we shall have a people’s shrine, a freedom park, where we shall honour, with all the dignity they deserve, those who endured pain so we should experience the joy of freedom.” It is this statement that led to the establishment of Freedom Park in Pretoria, South Africa. Freedom Park is strategically situated on Salvokop, comprising of 52 hectares of undulating hills and indigenous flora. The Freedom Park Presidential Legacy Project was officially launched on 1 June 2000, with the mandate of honouring those who sacrificed their lives to attain freedom in their lifetime. Freedom Park is distinctive as it aims to be a national and international icon of humanity and freedom through the honouring of heroes and heroines and by telling a compelling and complex story of our nation’s past from the perspective of the African voice. Freedom Park is distinctive as it explores and hails our capacity for reconciliation and to promote the development of a common identity for all South Africans. The process of reconciliation required first the cleansing and healing of the nation so that the country moves away from the inclination to participate in conflicts within the families as well as nationally and to solve disagreements in a diplomatic manner. Through brutal conflicts of the past, a certain identity of oppression and segregation was imposed. However, this did not only affect the oppressed, but the oppressors as well, who were given the erroneous impression about who they truly are as a people and how they should relate to their fellow human beings. The struggle for liberation led individuals from opposing sides to engage in activities like killing and torture - all in the name of “the cause”. It is therefore crucial that individuals reconcile with themselves and others and accept, heal and forgive themselves, and on the other hand, others need to come to terms with who they are, develop confidence and pride in their identity so that they can lead a meaningful life.
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Enshrined in the vision and mission of Freedom Park is the following statement: “To provide a pioneering and empowering heritage destination in order to mobilise for reconciliation and nation building in our country; to reflect upon our past, improving our present and building our future as a united nation; and to contribute continentally and internationally to the formation of better human understanding among nations and peoples”. The Freedom Park not only derived its mandate from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), but also followed its lead in adopting the notion of Ubuntu as the foundational principle of its existence. Ubuntu is an Nguni term for humanity and denotes a humanist philosophy which is underpinned by kindness and goodness. Ubuntu is recognised as being an important source of law within the context of strained or broken relationships amongst individuals or communities and as an aid for providing remedies which contribute towards more mutually acceptable remedies for the parties in such cases. The soil of South Africa is steeped in blood characterised by a brutal pre-colonial, colonial and apartheid past. Museums in the pre-democracy era were largely characterised by the monopolised discourse of the oppressor and reflected in skewed and inaccurate storytelling with limited and one-dimensional interpretations. The establishment of Freedom Park sought to redress the historical restrictions of elucidation by incorporating various spiritual and cultural elements into the Park, which hopes to further the national and international discourse of the South African and African historical narrative. Freedom Park comprises of many elements with a democratic underpinning governing each one. Broadly speaking, Freedom Park comprises of a memorial, an interactive museum and a garden of remembrance which strives to interpret the struggles of humanity for freedom. More specifically, a copper-roofed museum named //hapo (which is a Khoi word meaning dream) incorporates a liberation struggle era which charts the struggle for democracy as a backdrop to the birth of the new South Africa. It chronicles the movement to establish inclusive nationalism as the preferred model for a unified nation. Every element of Freedom Park has been chosen for its symbolism and meaning, and the names of the elements making up Freedom Park are drawn from all 11 official languages of South Africa. A major element of Freedom Park is named the Sanctuary which serves as a place of quiet and reflection, where visitors could contemplate loved ones or simply remember those who gave their lives in the struggle for freedom. The Sanctuary comprises of a reflective pool which compromises of an eternal flame. This eternal flame was designed and installed to celebrate the unnamed soldier, and can be interpreted to symbolize the spirit of those who fought for freedom: elements of this scene (stone, water, fire) were core symbols in African ceremonies. Within African symbolism, the natural elements of water, air, earth and fire reflect/represent the sources of life, power, healing, cleansing and harmony. S'khumbuto (a siSwati word signifying a place of remembrance) is a collective name for the elements within Freedom Park which bear testimony to the various conflicts and incorporates what is known as the Wall of Names – a 697m long sandstone wall which narrates through the inscription of names the ultimate sacrifice people made for freedom. It is a stark and heart-wrenching reminder of the need to maintain democracy at all times. Also comprising part of S’khumbuto is the provocative and emotive exhibition space which profiles South Africa, the rest of the African continent and international leaders which represent the very cornerstone of democratic principles such as such as transparency, integrity, empowerment, accountability and persistence. Standing within the quiet of this garden of remembrance is an African Olive tree planted by President Thabo Mbeki in 2002 to signify the beginning of Freedom Park. This tree, interpreted as one of peace, includes a plaque that reads, “Motho ke motho ka batho” which means “A person is a person because of others”, the core principle of the African philosophy of Ubuntu. The symbolism of an olive branch dates back as far as biblical times, and over time has held significance in a multitude of cultures.
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Surrounding these elements are semi-circular poles, which can be seen from the south-eastern side of the city in what is known as “The Reeds”. The Reed sculpture, which comprises almost 200 ascending metal poles, the highest reaching up to 32 meters, also serve as aviation lights through illumination at night. These reeds are interpreted from an Nguni story symbolising rebirth and the deliverance of a people to freedom through the expression of the African voice, free from oppression and segregation within South Africa, the continent and the world.
Isivivane (a Zulu word for a travelling cairn) is an awe-inspiring element of Freedom Park that incorporates religious practices and celebrations from all faiths and religions and represents the spiritual resting place for remembrance of those that paid with their lives in the name of freedom and liberation in their lifetime. Isivivane is made up of the Lekgotla – a traditional meeting place built around the uMlahlankosi tree - and the Lesaka – the metaphorical burial ground consisting of nine boulders, one from each province in South Africa. Each one of these features symbolize a powerful spiritual element. For example, the uMlanhlankosi (a Zulu word for 'that which buries the chief') tree is considered carrier of the spirits of the dead home.
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The Mveledzo path (a ChiVenda word meaning spiral path) links all the elements into one unified whole that stands as a monument to democracy, founded on the values of human dignity, human rights and freedom. This stone pathway is intended for contemplation and rest by the visitor and there is a strong representation of water in this area of the park which can be interpreted as a cleansing element as well as a peaceful special envelopment.
The //hapo museum (//hapo being a khoi proverb meaning "A dream is not a dream until it is shared by the entire community) is the ultimate culmination of all elements in the park into a large interpretive exhibition centre which revolves around the earliest creation of man stemming 3, 6 billion years ago and spans across seven epochs, namely Earth, Ancestors, Peopling, Resistance and Colonisation, Industrialisation and Urbanisation, Nationalism and Struggle, Nation Building and Continent Building. It is a space intended to get visitors to engage and immerse themselves in the elements which shaped the history of the country by means of visual and narrative forms. Finally, there is a road which links Freedom Park to the Voortrekker Monument, located on an adjacent hill. Although the two institutions depict sharp ideological differences, a ‘reconciliation road’ was opened as a physical and symbolic gesture of goodwill. Inaugurated on Reconciliation Day in 2011, the 1 km stretch was named “Reconciliation Road”, indicating the progress in the national project of reconciliation with the intention to remain open: an enduring bridge of promise between two mutually uncomprehending spaces. Freedom Park is a unique space in that it aims to reinterpret the history of the country through the African perspective and seeks to challenge long-held pre-democracy narratives. Each element of the Park has a symbolism and meaning that the visitor can interpret as they wish – the Park encourages open discourse through the different understanding of the elements by visitors. One of the most arduous journeys that South Africa undertook is the road to non-racialism and equality. These two principles are stressed at Freedom Park and can be recognised in all elements of the 52 ha precinct. Freedom Park owes its existence to the fight for democracy and the entrenchment of human rights for all in the free and fair South Africa we enjoy today. Lecturer and researcher, Mpho Matsipa once said of Freedom Park, “It constitutes one of the key technologies of representation, nation-building and national citizenship into a single nationalist interpretive framework”.
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Art Therapy: Creating Alongside People with Dementia Skylar Edwards Museum Science and Management University of Tulsa, OK sky.edwards999@gmail.com
Introduction Art Museums are intimate spaces for the exhibition and interpretation of aesthetics for the general public. As public trust institutions, dynamic museums strive to expand their audiences and to serve them better. Neglected audiences are those who may be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, (ADA). These requirements allow for artistic experiences to be available to as wide a range of audiences as possible. Within art museums, it is the responsibility of the educators to follow these standards of accessibility. Employing new concepts, museum educators are implementing therapeutic techniques to design programs which cater to people with impairments. Among the people who benefit from these focused programs are people with dementia. The Philbrook Museum of Art, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, recently launched a program for patients living with dementia and their caregivers titled Art Focus: Memories in the Making. This transformative program allows people with dementia to discuss and create art within an environment where mental health does not impose restrictive behaviors. Background With an impairment to memory, sociality, and motivation, dementia is a disease that affects daily functions. It is a gradual condition, commonly followed by Alzheimer’s disease, with different levels of functionality, and typically requiring eventual assisted living arrangements. Dementia is a condition that is commonly diagnosed among elderly members of the community. As average lifespans increase, the number of dementia cases also may increase. It is estimated that the number of individuals with a form of this disease will rise to 16 million by 2050. Although this is a progressive disease, without a cure, Art Focus at Philbrook aims to enhance the quality of life of people living with dementia within the local community. Quality of life includes patients’ abilities to care for themselves physically, make active decisions and engage in daily social interactions. The program is designed to fit the needs of senior citizens who are not ambulatory, but enjoy viewing and making art. Although dementia is not preventable, behavioral lifestyle changes can be made through therapeutic strategies. Holding senior programs in a museum allows people with dementia to expand their learning capacity and improve development. Opportunities for seniors, particularly seniors with dementia, to continue to learn and grow outside of an assisted living facility are limited. This is why therapeutic and accessible programming is so essential. Museums can play a leading role. Partnerships Philbrook Museum is working with the Tulsa Alzheimer’s Association to provide intimate support systems for those living with Alzheimer’s disease: early, middle, and late stages. Art Focus is made possible by a partnership between the Philbrook Museum of Art, the Tulsa Alzheimer’s Association and other local, healthcare institutions. The Alzheimer’s Association supports research and care strategies in an effort to
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“eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through contemporary research; to enhance care for all who are affected; and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health”, with the goal of eventually eradicating Alzheimer’s disease. Much of this research is conducted through evaluation and observational studies carried out by their local chapters. People living with Alzheimer’s can attend monthly programs at Philbrook. Art Focus is held the third Tuesday of every month. The Alzheimer’s Association acts as a liaison between the Philbrook and involved healthcare organizations, such as residential care centers, nursing homes, and other assisted living facilities. They communicate with neighboring care institutions to get patients involved and excited about coming to the museum for an art viewing and making program. The content of the program is crafted by museum educators, and inspired by the Alzheimer’s Association’s therapeutic research. The structure of the program is modeled on an Alzheimer’s Project presented by the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City. The program consists of multiple phases including a gallery talk/discussion, followed by an art making activity in the studio classroom. Structure Overview Art Focus is an onsite museum program that has a specific structure, whereas the content changes monthly with regularly scheduled activities for groups in care organizations, as well as for individual patients and caregivers. The program is led by a museum educator and program assistant, with assistance from the Alzheimer’s Association staff. Participants register monthly for the program to ensure proper staffing and material facilitation. Art Focus at Philbrook usually serves groups of about 20 participants, patients and caregivers. Registration is typically communicated through the Alzheimer’s Association coordinator. Time Frame The dates and times of Art Focus are set to meet the needs of the patients living with dementia. The group comes together every third Tuesday of the month, when the museum is closed to the public, thus providing a quiet space with few distractions for the selected audience and avoiding loud and disruptive environments on public days. Art Focus is never stretched more than two hours, as participants with dementia lose motivation with fatigue. All activities take place between 10:00-12:00 a.m., when the patients have the most energy to participate and engage. A short break is also planned at 11:00 a.m., with restroom availability and refreshments. The first half of the program is a seated gallery discussion, and the second half of the program is a simple art making activity. Training Philbrook relies on its education team to coordinate effective programs around museum exhibits. Full time educators research and train their assistants appropriately. Museum educators at Philbrook are not art therapists, but are skilled in specific therapeutic strategies. The art educator, typically focusing on skills, expression and technique, now focuses on strategies to facilitate personal expression through the process of art making. However, the roles of the art therapist and the art educator overlap in function. The team members who help with the Art Focus are comfortable with individuals who are living with a disability. This includes a comfort level or experience with older adults, people who require special education, and individuals who
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are nonverbal, symptoms that are similar to other types of impairments. The educators also have backgrounds or interests in art history, so they can actively direct the program. This is important for the staff and program participants to build relationships, and engage with each other. The same team members facilitate the program every month. This allows for repetition and a space for interactive development. For people living with dementia, it is important to keep a comfortable routine, with familiar faces. Responsibilities Responsibilities are distributed between a full time educator and a part time assistant. The full time educator plans the theme and gallery talk, over one piece of art. This typically lasts about 30 minutes. Following the discussion, the educator leads the group down to the studio space for refreshments and then introduces a simple art activity. They will re-introduce the theme with the instructions for the studio art project. The part time assistant welcomes the members and provides them with immediate guidance. They accompany the educator to the gallery and the studio space. Responsibilities often include: set up, material distribution, physical guidance, and motivational encouragement. The education facilitator and assistant perform their responsibilities while demonstrating patience and awareness of the participants’ specific needs. Museum Capacity Once registration is closed for the month, an RSVP list is made through the Alzheimer’s Association. On the day of participation, the attendees check in at the front entrance. An assistant welcomes the group in the lobby and guides them to the specific gallery destination. The front entrance is handicap accessible, and for large bus groups. This is important because most participants are dependent on buses for their transportation to and from the care organization. The check-in lobby is wheelchair accessible, has nearby restrooms, and is quiet and free from typical distractions, as the museum is closed to the public on Tuesdays . The program assistant creates name tags for each visitor based on the pre-registered list. Name tags are also made for staff members and volunteers facilitating the program. Name tags put everyone on a first name basis. This helps the participants with dementia to remember the staff’s names. While checking in attendees, the assistant introduces herself and introduces the participants to the Philbrook Museum, for spatial orientation. The team then briefly describes the program, letting the participant know what they will do for their time at the museum. The lobby is within a short distance of the destination, and the visitors are guided into the specific gallery space to sit and wait for the program to begin. Art Viewing Model The art viewing section of the program is an informal gallery discussion. Chairs are set out in the selected gallery space and arranged in a staggered semi-circle, facing the art piece, and facilitator. This arrangement is accessible, intimate, and allows for an open discussion (image 1). The designated works of art are chosen, partially, to be close to each other and the studio space. This avoids excess travel. Image 1, Philbrook Museum of Art, Museum Confidential Gallery
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Studio Space The studio space hosts the second part of the program. It is a safe and comfortable environment. The participants are brought into this space for refreshments, followed by the art making activity. They are reintroduced to the program, and reminded where they are and what they just accomplished in terms of socialization and collaboration. A print of the painting previously discussed is sometimes used to reintroduce the theme. The room is enclosed, with minimal distractions, but with accessible windows for participants to view the garden space. Art Making Model The art making section of the program within the studio is modeled as a simple task that encourages open interpretation. This activity is typically structured to benefit motor skills and spark memories through art making exercises. The design also promotes teamwork and collaboration. Philbrook encourages the patient and caregiver to work together to build a relationship. They are invited to pick up where one participant may have left off, adding or changing existing designs. This technique celebrates exploration, and encourages families to work together, take risks, and use the materials provided for them in a new way. Museum educators are encouraged to circle the room and celebrate individual participation and their creative process. Within art therapy, the creative process is more important than the end product and technique. People living with dementia often experience a lack of motivation or energy. The structure of the art making activity encourages participation, and to view that as an achievement. Observing social participation, when they typically do not have the motivation to do so, opens a door for further exploration and discovery in future sessions. Content Techniques for Discussion Although the structure for Art Focus is consistent, the content and facilitation change every session. The educational techniques are flexible, so that they can be accessible to the needs of the patients and specific content of the day. For example, in one October session, Raoul Dufy’s Nice, la Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels) was discussed. Dufy was known for abstracted landscapes and his use of bright colors. This piece challenged the participants with dementia to study terrestrial shapes and forms (image 2). Following the study, educators facilitated discussion to uncover realistic connections. The educator asked open ended questions, such as “What do you see?” “Is this painting realistic? How so, or not so?” “What shapes do you see?” “What might you hear in a setting such as this?” The questions were presented in a format of observation, description, interpretation and connection. Using discussion questions encourages people to engage in conversation. The “turn and talk” technique was also used with these questions. The turn and talk technique is used as a jumping off point for conversations between participants. It allows a participant to turn to their neighbor and practice the art of communication and observation that builds connections between paintings and livelihoods. This technique is a great way to facilitate stories and invite interactions between participants. The gallery that day then became a space for shared ideas and personal connections. One participant living with Alzheimer’s shared her love for the beach scene, and said how “pretty” the water was. Later, this participant’s connections might lead to a memory from a beach, but for now it is a pleasant observation in the present moment.
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The content and techniques for discussion provided those participants with an experience in the present. These techniques relieved stress on patients who typically have trouble with cognitive memory and placement. Many people living with dementia have trouble identifying themselves and their world around them. They experience a loss of well-being. The educator’s role is to facilitate interactions that do not place pressure on these cognitive impairments. This allows for a mental stimulation through social experiences. Image 2, Raoul Dufy, Nice, la Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels).
Techniques for Making Following the art viewing program, the participants are invited into the studio space for the second part of the program, to use a variety of materials to make something of their own, as it relates to the discussion. This is typically a simple task with step by step instructions given by the facilitator. It is important for the instructions and the content to be easy to follow. For the October session, the participants were encouraged to share materials with their group and create a miniature landscape piece, following the discussion of the Dufy’s Nice, la Baie des Anges. The preliminary study opened the door for a broad range of materials to be used. This encouraged a freedom of expression and an exploration of new materials. The free choice learning technique, used with abstraction, offered the opportunity to try out many different materials and patterns. Samples of the project were presented by the facilitator, in a simple format, in order to not make the activity seem too complex or overwhelming. The art making exercise is not the end product, but an encouragement to participate in the creative process. Supportive language is important for social and artistic development. Phrases are always used to encourage participation, such as “I like your use of green in this painting”, which is typically more stimulating than “this is great.” Together, the language, structure, and content should provide encouragement for creativity and pave the way for confidence (image 3). Evaluation Researched Evaluation Studies Although this program seems effective, it is difficult to ascertain whether artistic activity affects patient well-being outside of Art Focus. Upon drafting the program design, the Philbrook looked to other senior programs for realistic goals and objectives.
Image 3, Philbrook Museum of Art, Studio Art Project
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Philbrook has a long history of evaluating visitor satisfaction and regularly consults other published studies. Previous studies have found that art therapy techniques do result in significant improvements in patient quality of life, over time. These studies were measured by several evaluation methods, such as surveys and observations. For example, in a case study from Midwestern State University, students assessed the mental improvements of people living with dementia over a 12 week period in the program facilitated by the Texas Alzheimer’s Association chapter, Memories in the Making. Similar to Art Focus, the comprehensive goal is to provide participants with an improved quality of life through art encounters. The evaluation utilized a scale rating system of well-being: interest, sustained attention, pleasure, negative affect, sadness, self-esteem, and normalcy. Statistical analysis compared the amount of treatment with the amount of change seen afterward by the participants. The University’s study found that the program’s goal was in reach, as patients were better with “managing their illness” after creative activity. The benefits of hands on art making, as seen by the evaluation, included engagement in areas of socialization and physical activity. A similar study was completed in Ohio with a program called Opening Minds through Art over a 15 week period. This was an observation study completed with video data. Patients’ actions were observed as they participated in an arts activity. “Domains” of well-being were tracked in this method. The Greater Cincinnati Chapter Well-Being Observation Tool was used to record the information. The results were presented in a graphic chart for definition and refined assessment (image 4). Results concluded that “high frequencies” of well-being were displayed during the program, and few results of disengagement were displayed (image 5). The findings of this observational study support the hypothesis that art therapy has a positive impact on people living with dementia.
Image 4, Left, Pleasure intensity during OMA and traditional activities, 10 participants . Image 5, Right, Ill-being intensity during OMA sessions, 38 participants.
On-site Evaluation The Philbrook and the Alzheimer’s Association are undertaking an evaluation study to better understand the artistic experiences of program participants with dementia and to make progressive changes to the existing program. Following the Art Focus program at Philbrook, the Alzheimer’s Association performs summative evaluation reports with each patient, typically at the conclusion of each monthly session. A summative evaluation allows the program to make necessary changes to meet audience needs every session. The content within Art Focus is prototypal, flexible, and subject to change based upon the evaluation responses.
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The Alzheimer’s Association compiles and analyzes this data and communicates changing results to the Philbrook facilitators. Because of this structure, the evaluation also acts as a formative evaluation report for future senior programs. The analyzed reports study the outcomes and long term effectiveness of the techniques used in Art Focus on the patients living with dementia. The methodology for in-house evaluations consists of surveys and observations. Observations are done by museum educators to directly measure participant performance. The observations are then recorded for educators to revisit when creating future sessions. The hand-held survey is a series of questions that is given to the each caregiver or family member (image 6). The caregiver then fills out the questionnaire with his or her accompanying participant. Evaluation questions measure visitor satisfaction and social connections between people who are experiencing similar life changes. Once the data is compiled and analyzed, the information is used to create positive changes to the experience.
Image 6, Visitor Satisfaction Survey, Alzheimer’s Association.
Conclusions Art Focus, an interactive and inclusive program, allows museum content and practice to be accessible to as wide a range of audiences as possible. This art workshop is designed to include seniors living with dementia and their caregivers. Art Focus expands the reach of museum programming to this audience, by providing engagement and inspiration through hands on art viewing and art making activities.
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Art Focus is made possible by community outreach and neighboring partnerships, and is designed with a concentrated study of areas such as: research, structure, content, and evaluation. Accessible programs are essential to a healthy museum, because they connect diverse audiences to visual culture, grow relationships within the community, and inspire creativity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Works Cited “About Us.” Alzheimer's Association, www.alz.org/about_us_about_us_.asp. Anderson, Frances E. “Art Therapy: Myths and Realities.” Art Education, vol. 33, no. 4, 1980, p. 18., doi:10.2307/3192420. Falk, John Howard., and Lynn Diane. Dierking. Lessons without Limit: How Free-Choice Learning Is Transforming Education. AltaMira, 2002. Gross, Susan M., et al. “Creativity and Dementia: Does Artistic Activity Affect Well-Being beyond the Art Class?” Dementia, vol. 14, no. 1, 2015, pp. 27–46., doi:10.1177/1471301213488899. “ Guide for Care Organizations.” Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009, www.moma.org/ “Guide for Museums.” Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009, www.moma.org/. Morreau, Lanny, and Frances E. Anderson. “Task Analysis in Art: Building Skills and Success for Handicapped Learners.” Art Education, vol. 39, no. 1, 1986, p. 52., doi:10.2307/3192942. Sauer, P. E., et al. “‘It Makes Me Feel like Myself’: Person-Centered versus Traditional Visual Arts Activities for People with Dementia.” Dementia, vol. 15, no. 5, 2014, pp. 895–912., doi:10.1177/1471301214543958.
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InterpNEWS Hyper globalization in the 16th century shaped Christianity in Mexico. By Rocio Carvajal Cortes. Editor of Sabor InterpNEWS Regional Editor
A sign of our time to explain social dynamics and cultural exchange is to attribute how we behave and react collectively to the hyperconnectivity and political and economic interdependence, it is undeniable that the role of modern technology and socialmedia facilitate an immediate exchange of information and accelerate our ability to react to world events, adopt different ideological positions and even adopt religions as a lifestyle! And who doesn’t want to go for a fancy tibetan meditation in a luxury spa, followed by a yoga session and celebrate with an all vegan ayurveda inspired brunch? It is much easier to focus our efforts as interpreters and educators to historical events past, nature and landscape and art, but what about live traditions? How do we make sense of actual living traditions that are part of our lives and we are more than happy to forgo any questioning and we hardly bother going beyond the common places of easy explanations. As a writer and traditional cook I constantly reflect on these aspects and how forgotten and obscure events still echo in our culture and have defined our worldviews, national characters and identities. In the recent issue of SABOR! This is Mexican Food Magazine I take my readers through a journey of discovery and reflection to better understand, appreciate and enjoy the grand Mexican celebrations, and I have chosen one of my favourite pieces to share with you, digging into the long and complex process that shaped Christmas, unsurprisingly the most important celebration of christendom that had a very unique cultural process of its making and the result is as fascinating as it is culturally and socially revealing. I hope you enjoy it.
Few but crucial ancient codex like that from Yanhuitlán documented the history of the old indigenous tribes through pictograms in manuscripts, in the colonial period, “tlacuilos” or royal Mexica scribers reproduced many such documents and helped friars and priests to create new, in this image we see clear hierarchical representation in which the spanish friar appears to be much larger in size and thus in importance in relationship to the indigenous scribers.
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The conversion of the indigenous population into Christianism was one of the priorities of the colonial government in the New World, the economic and political reasons behind it were that Rome was the largest financer of Spain’s colonial expansion, the reality of this process is that the relationship between the native nat population and the priests, nuns and friars was highly complex and more often than not hostile and volatile, a particularly significant added challenge was the language barrier, while at the time in Spain only a few dialects were spoken besides Castilian an or “Spanish” as it is commonly called, Mexico had dozens of regional languages and dialects, the indigenous tribes didn’t have a common alphabet but each documented their history through pictograms in manuscripts called codex. Evangelists soon resolved to implement alternative didactic methods such as re-enactments, enactments, rhyming chants, dances and relying on descriptive religious paintings as a teaching tool, and even an unprecedented and deliberate effort to incorporate certain indigenous rites and practices with a Christian makeover to facilitate adoption of the new religion. Christmas is no doubt at the centre of the catholic calendar and missionaries went to great lengths to try and teach and reinforce the importance of it, mostly because it overlapped wi with th the ancient Mexica festivities of Panquetzaliztli that took place during the fifteenth month of the Aztec calendar, that was entirely dedicated to honour the birth of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, one of the most important deities in the Aztec pantheon, panthe these celebrations culminated with human sacrifices.
The Mexica festivities of Panquetzaliztli that took place during the fifteenth month of the Aztec calendar, that was entirely dedicated to honour the birth of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, one of the most important deities in the Aztec pantheon, these celebrations culminated with human sacrifices, coincidentally it overlapped with the catholic celebration of Christmas and during the evangelization on of Mexico this ancient celebration was supplanted by the traditional Christian rites.
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InterpNEWS The rites were lengthy, complex and full of symbolic acts, in one of them a priest would guide slaves and prisoners on a procession ascending a temple dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, one by one they were sacrificed, and their bodies were solemnly rolled down the stairs. The climax of the ceremony was when the priest carved a whole into a specially confectioned statue of Huitzilopochtli made of corn dough and agave syrup and pulled out a makeshift heart from it, then proceeded to offer a piece of it to the present lords and priests who would take it back to their communities and hold a holy communion with the rest of the population. This set a difficult challenge to the catholic missionaries who opted for a more organic syncretism of practices rather than implementing a suppression/imposition approach, a well documented case of this effort is that of Friar Pedro de Gante who arrived in 1523 to New Spain, and was responsible for innovating the church’s methods of conversion, by allowing a rather flexible and more tolerant mix of pagan and Christian traditions, an example of that was the introduction of chants, dances, and prayers in Castilian and indigenous languages, music and specifically the inclusion of traditional indigenous instruments was also particularly ground-breaking at the time. Another innovation was the establishment of the evangelical theatre, which was specifically created to re-enact allegories and passages of the bible related to Christmas, accompanied by music, dances and songs interpreted in native languages to facilitate the Catholic conversion. Since colonial times, in Mexico, Christmas-related celebrations begin on December 16, during these nine days ahead of every evening a posada is celebrated. This tradition is a re-enactment of the days of Advent when the Virgin Mary and Joseph were travelling from house to house asking for a room for the night, the reenactment consists in forming two groups to roleplay the innkeepers and the other the Holy Family who will form a procession on the street, holding candles in lampshades, exchanging verses and chants with the other group that’s inside the house where the posada is taking place. Often two volunteers will dress up as the Virgin Mary and Joseph and the rest as peasants, the exchange of verses reaches the end when the innkeepers finally agree to welcome the Holy Family and all sing praises while hot fruit punch is served to warm up those who have been outside and little bags or baskets with sweet treats called aguinaldos are gifted to each guest. The most anticipated moment is the breaking of a star-shaped piñata, which takes place at the end of the evening, each guest has a chance at trying to break it while the rest chant songs to guide and encourage the blind-folded participant to hit the piñata. The earliest historical record of these 9 days of prayers and celebrations is from 1587 in a document sent to Pope Sixtus V by Friar Diego de Soria from the Augustinian monastery in Acolman in today’s Mexico City, requesting a permit to carry on these celebrations.
Traditional seven point star Mexican piñatas represent the seven capital sins, the clay pots that are the structure of piñatas were filled with fruits, seeds and treats representing the heavenly rewards for defeating sinful temptations.
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Mexican piñatas had a specific cultural purpose and religious role to play during these holidays, its history reflects the cultural impact of the hyper globalised world that the colonial period went from the 16th to the century 18th century. Cultural historians have identified that is very likely that Marco Polo might have introduced a similar concept to that of modern-day piñatas, in his accounts, he mentions a Chinese tradition of making clay figurines in the shape of oxen and cows filled with seeds as part of the harvest festivals during the Ming dynasty, as well as festive paper lanterns, perhaps these anecdotes inspired the appearance of similar objects during certain festivals across several European countries including Spain during the 16th century, it is no surprise then, that Catholic missionaries took inspiration in this concept to create a religious metaphor, you see, traditional seven-point star piñatas represent the seven capital sins, the clay pots that are the structure of piñatas were filled with fruits, seeds and treats representing the heavenly rewards for defeating sinful temptations. Breaking a piñata requires the participation of all the guests as one by one every person has its turn at trying to break the piñata as the rest chant a special song and try to guide the person into hitting the piñata while disoriented and blindfolded, this allegory portrays how blind faith and perseverance will be generously rewarded. Although authentic Christmas-Mexican piñatas are star-shaped it is also common nowadays to buy “fantasy piñatas” in the shape of cartoon characters, curiously enough donkey-shaped piñatas are complete fabrication that to this day bewilders Mexicans who simply them as an American interpretation. Rocio Carvajal. Editor of SABOR! This is Mexican Food Producer of Pass the Chipotle Podcast rocio.carvajal.cortes@gmail.com
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Interpreting Concretions and Nodules in Sedimentary Rocks Ed Clifton Geologist InterpNEWS Regional Editor
The biology class was on a field trip to their local bay at low tide. A class member who wandered over to the cliffs of dark crumbly rock that lined the shore suddenly gave a loud shout. Everyone came running to see his find: a perfectly round ball of rock, about the size of a baseball. “It was just sitting there in the rock”, he said, pointing to the round depression that had housed the stone. There was much discussion and general agreement that the stone was too perfectly spherical to be natural. One of the class thought it might be an alien egg, “Like one in the movie!” The instructor, who had never seen anything like it before, suggested that they leave it there, “Just in case……”. In actuality, the stone was a concretion, a perfectly natural (and harmless) feature found in sedimentary rocks all over the world. However, the class can be excused — geologists have been perplexed by these features for years. I suspect that nearly everyone who has spent time looking at sedimentary rocks has puzzled at some point over concretions or their “cousins”, nodules. Concretions are spherical to irregular masses of rock in which the cement that binds the grains differs from that of the enclosing the rock. Nodules are geometrically similar masses composed of a mineral (or minerals) such as silica (SiO2.), calcite (CaCo3), pyrite (FeS2) or siderite (FeCO3) that differs compositionally from the enclosing rock. The size and shapes of concretions (and nodules) are highly variable. Some concretions are giant (Fig. 1), some are interconnected, some are perfectly spherical (“cannon ball” concretions), others are flattened or irregular (Fig. 2). A few form elongate rods in the rock. Some display mysterious internal cracks (septaria) (Fig. 3), and many have a fossil at their core (Fig. 4). Back in the 1950s, when I was an undergraduate at The Ohio State University, I undertook an optional senior research project on the carbonate concretions of the Ohio Shale, a rock unit that was some 400 million years old. Like most geologists, I knew what concretions were: resistant spheroidal masses within a sandstone or shale, and, like most geologists, I didn’t have a clue how or when they formed. The ones in the Ohio Shale were oblate spheroids (i.e. wider across than tall) up to 3 meters across.
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Figure 1. Giant concretions (Moeraki Boulders) and fragments of concretions on Koekohe Beach, Otago coast of New Zealand.
Figure 3. Large septarian concretion, Koekohe Beach, Otago coast of New Zealand.
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Figure 2. Concretions of diverse shapes that were found on Northern California beaches (photo by Mila Zinkova).
Figure 4. Remarkably preserved fossil fish within a concretion, probably collected from the Cretaceous Santana Formation in Brazil.
The enclosing shale layers were bent around the concretionary masses (Fig. 5), which led some geologists to think they had formed on the sea floor, and the enclosing mud had been squeezed around them during compaction. Other geologists, however, took this relationship as proof that they had formed after the shale had lithified and the outward pressure of their growth buckled the shale laminae. I found evidence that their origin lay between these extremes, that the concretions grew below the sea floor as the sediment was compacted (Clifton, 1957). Tiny spore cases that, in the center of a concretion, were spherical became progressively flattened toward their outer edges. I have been fascinated by concretions ever since.
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Today, there is general consensus that the concretions and nodules are diagenetic features, which developed following sediment accumulation, either very shortly thereafter or during the transition from sediment to rock. They can develop under burial conditions of a meter or less to (perhaps) a thousand meters. The diagenetic process begins very shortly after a sediment is deposited. Initially the water between the sediment grains has the composition of sea water, but that changes as plant material within the sediment begins to decompose and the water becomes more acidic. The acidic water dissolves calcium carbonate, stuff of most sea-shells, releasing calcium and carbonate ions into the water between the sand grains (Fig. 6).
Figure 5. “Cannonball� concretion in the Ohio Shale (from Criss et al., 1988). Note bending of shale around the concretion.
Figure 6. Sketch showing progressive dissolution of a calcium carbonate mollusk shell, releasing Calcium and carbonate ions into the pore water between the sand grains, Decomposition of organic matter also reduces the dissolved oxygen in the water trapped between the sediment grains below the seafloor. As a consequence, iron in mineral grains becomes more soluble and leaches out, adding another component to the water trapped in the sediment. With time, the chemistry of the trapped water becomes increasingly complex. It also can move as it is squeezed out of compacting clay-rich layers and forced into sandy beds with more pore space. The dissolved materials, such as calcium, magnesium or iron, may encounter a site within the sediment where they are less soluble and precipitate either as cement between existing grains or as a mass within the sediment. This latter process is poorly understood, but there is evidence that in some cases the new material begins as a gel. The causes of the initial chemical precipitation differ. In many cases, it likely coincides with the decay of organic matter. Many concretions have fossil remains at their cores. Elsewhere it may reflect variations in the pore water chemistry. Commonly we simply do not know the cause.
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In sandy sediment, calcium carbonate may fill the pore spaces, creating a small hard lump in the semiconsolidated sand (Fig. 7A). With time, this lump can grow as additional calcium carbonate accumulates (Fig. 7B). Eventually, with sufficient burial, the weight of the overlying sediment compresses the relatively loose sand into rock as the sand grains interlock (Fig. 7C). The result is spherical or irregular masses that are cemented differently from the host rock.
Figure 7. Origin of sandstone concretions. A. Dissolved calcium and carbonate in pore water of unconsolidated/loosely consolidated sand precipitate around a nucleus, forming a mass of calcium carbonate that cements the sand grains together into a concretion (blue area). B. The cemented area forms an expanding sphere of as more calcium carbonate precipitates in the space between the sand grains. C. The weight of overlying sediments compacts the sand into rock (sandstone) as the sand grains interlock (yellow matrix). The concretion, already cemented, becomes a discrete mass within the rock framework. The differences between the cement of concretions and that of the host-rock determines the character of concretions on exposed rock surfaces. Where concretionary masses are more resistant to weathering and erosion, the concretions protrude from an exposed rock surface as resistant spheres or irregular masses Fig. 8. Where they are less resistant, they erode away leaving circular depressions in the rock face (B, Fig. 9).
Figure 8. Concretionary masses exposed on a sandstone and conglomeratic cliff, Point Lobos State natural Reserve, Central California.
Figure 9. Very large, partly eroded fractured concretions (A) on a sandstone bedding surface. Circular depressions (B) are holes left by eroded concretions. Fractures through the concretions, for the most part, do not extend into the host rock enclosing the concretions.
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During the growth of a concretions, the interstitial fluids that supply it may change with time. As a result, the cement that produces a concretion may differ slightly as growth proceeds. Concentric rings on the surface of partly eroded concretions attest to these differences (Fig. 10). In some cases, cementation in the core of the concretion differs enough from that in the outer parts that, on a weathered surface, it appears as a resistant ball surrounded by a “moat” where the less resistant outer material has been removed (Fig. 11).
Figure 10. Large sandstone concretion in which the outer part is less resistant to weathering and erosion than either the concretion core or the host rock. The result is a “moat”, a depression formed by the removal of the much of the concretion’s outer part.
Figure 11. Large, partly eroded concretions on an eroded sandstone face. Note concentric structures, implying differential cementation as the concretion grew. Carmelo Formation, Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Central California.
Because the concretion and the native rock are cemented by different processes, they may behave differently under physical stress. The native rock may have a bit of flexibility that the concretions lack and as a result, a concretion subjected to external stress can crack independently from the enclosing rock. Concretions in the Carmelo Formation at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve on the Central California coast commonly display “independent” fractures that terminate at the concretion edge or extend a short distance into the enclosing rock. Weathering along these fractures can produce beautiful patterns on an exposed rock surface (A Fig. 9). Nodules originate in recently deposited sediment by a different process. Rather than having a different cement (like concretions), they consist entirely of mineral material that differs from that of the host rock (Fig. 12). Like concretions, they form in sediment before it becomes rock, and their formation may occur very shortly after the sediment accumulates. Ironstone nodules in the sediment of English bogs have cores of World War 2 ordinance (Al-Agha et al., 1995). Most sources state that nodules result from the partial or complete replacement (conversion) of the existing sand and/or mud by a mineral such as calcite (calcium carbonate), chert (silicon dioxide) or siderite (iron carbonate).
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Fig. 12. Ironstone (siderite) nodules in Eocene deep-water interbedded sandstone (light gray) and mudstone (dark gray). Oxidation of an exposed bedding plane surface has imparted a bright red color to the originally dark brownish-gray siderite. Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Central California.
I recently have found evidence that the growth of nodules may, in some cases, be accommodated by physical displacement of the host sediment, rather than a chemical conversion (Fig. 13). I do not know how common this process is, but it may be that many carbonate nodules in sandstone or mudstone grew by pushing the sediment aside rather than replacing it chemically. Some concretions and nodules contain a striking network of cracks filled with a mineral such as calcite or quartz (Figs. 14). This feature, called “septarian structure� is not well understood. The feature is generally attributed to an early episode of shrinkage within the growing concretionary or nodular mass, much as mud shrinks and forms cracks as it dries under the sun. Such an origin lends credence to the concept that the initial mass of the nodule was a soft, perhaps gel-like substance. Concretions are a challenge and a delight to interpret (Fig. 15). They readily catch the eye of the public and excite the imagination of the observer. Their prosaic origins are almost a disappointment.
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Fig. 13. Surface of a sandstone bed at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Central California which displays a large complex trace (Hilichnus Hilichnus lobosensis below pen) that is split and evidently displaced by the growth of dark siderite nodule. A second nodule appears also to divide a trace fossil and displace it laterally terally within the bed. It appears that the nodule grew within recently deposited sediment by pushing the surrounding sediment aside rather than replacing it mineralogically.
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Fig 14. Septarian eptarian nodule on display at the Canadian Museum of Nature in i Ottawa, Ontario. Photo by Keith Pomakis
Fig. 15. Happy-faced Happy concretion in Eocene sandstone, southern Oregon coast.
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References: Al-Agha, M.R., Burley, S.D., Curtis, C.D., and Esson, J., 1995, Complex cementation textures and authigenic mineral assemblages in recent concretions from the Lincolnshire Wash east coast, UK) driven by Fe(0) Fe(II) oxidation: Journal of the Geological Society, London, v. 152, pp. 157–171. Biek, B., 2015, Concretions and nodules in North Dakota,North Dakota Geological Survey website: https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/ndnotes/concretions/concretions.asp Clifton, H. E., 1957, Carbonate concretions of the Ohio Shale, Ohio Journal of Science, v,57, p. 114-124. Clifton, H. E., 2013, Concretions, nodules and weathering features of the Carmelo Formation: https://www.pointlobos.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/concretions-nodules-weathering-features_0.pdf Criss, R. E., Cooke, G. A., and Day, S. D., 1988, An organic origin for the carbonate concretions of the Ohio Shale. U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1836, 21 p. Marshal, J.D., and Pirrie, D., 2013, Carbonate concretions explained, Geology Today, The Geologist Association and the Geological Society of London (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.), v.29, p. 53-62.
Edward Clifton Geologist InterpNEWS Regional Editor eclifton@earthlink.net
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Multiple Perspective Interpretation in a Historical Museum Context. Tara A. Chadwick, Curator of Exhibitions, Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, Florida
As Curator of Exhibitions at the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society in this 201st anniversary of the start of the Seminole Wars, I find myself searching for a fresh look at the accepted pedagogy1 supporting museum interpretation. My assigned task is to integrate temporary museum exhibitions and public programming with the current mission of the Historical Society. This means I am to bring the sto stories ries of our diverse community to life through educational experiences, cultural exhibits, research, and preservation for future generations. The question becomes how to exhibit and interpret historical materials and archaeological artifacts within a museum m context that encourage observation and critical analyses. To support this it is necessary to consider the perspectives from which historical account or objects are being interpreted. This task is not easy due to a myriad of constraints. These include fa factors ctors such as funding, staff time, gallery space, historic building walls1, and limited interesting, culturally diverse materials that are likely to attract visitors while still aligning with the museum’s mission. The Historical Society is located at the cconfluence onfluence of the New River and the Florida East Coast railroad in downtown Fort Lauderdale. It is in a riverbank archaeological zone that spans at least 2,000 years of human experiences in sustenance, trade, commerce and technological enterprises. The heritage itage of the area includes a time when a family could dine out by the river, harvesting as many oysters and fish as desired, filling all protein, vitamin and mineral intake needs. A time when our current economic system, predicated on a model of scarcity, did not exist. Public programming at the Historical Society includes experiences designed to engage and inspire visitors to learn, reflect and apply their knowledge of history to their observations and reflections on life today. We serve a visitor base thatt includes local, regional and international guests of every age, gender and cultural heritage. Our local residents come from families who have lived in South Florida for generations, as well as those who have arrived more recently. How do we engage multiple le learner interest levels with perspectives from opposite sides of the spectrum of lived experiences? The museum audience includes representation as diverse as: grandchildren of Seminole warriors who refused to be removed to Oklahoma in the years during the Trail of Tears, descendants of Confederate soldiers who still feel that slavery was a justifiable economic option that should be available to business owners, and relatives of those who did not have the chance to make it to childbearing age, due to inhumane umane factors that may actually appear on their death certificates. For example, compare three versions of the same historical event, the arrest and subsequent death of Ruben Stacy in 1935. One was originally printed online in 1997, a 2014 in the Westside Gazette, Fort Lauderdale’s longest running African American community newspaper, and one fr from the Sun-Sentinel, Sentinel, the major Fort Lauderdale newspaper, as part of Broward County’s 100th anniversary.
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The manner and detail with which each story is presented provides a profoundly diverging implicit meaning in each example. Last year, the Historical Society examined its collections photograph of Ruben Stacy’s death by lynching – a copy of which is presently on display at the National Museum of African American Heritage and Culture. Later, we were able to locate the accompanying death certificate, which states in large, black print that Mr. Stacy died of a “broken neck and gun shots through the heart.” What it does not state is that there were 17 gunshots. Given the complexity of our current key stakeholders, what truly is our desired outcome as we seek to fulfil our mission of preserving history and promoting education, research and interpretation? Do we have an overarching responsibility to provide the official narrative timeline for our city, onto which various versions of political, educational, legal and social history are superimposed? Are we tackling the reality that only one official version of history has prevailed throughout most of the past 200 years? Or that it intentionally denies and excludes the experiences of at least 51% of our current residents? How vested are we in acknowledging and embracing the multiple perspectives that exist and expanding our capacity to collect, preserve, research and interpret from a lens that includes many varied viewpoints? In the social sciences, like history, there is no one, true, non-biased observer. Everyone is a participant in their own existence. Everyone brings their viewpoint to bear on their interpretations of the six steps of the scientific method: observation, theory, hypotheses, testing, conclusion and analyses. The pursuit of science itself is a process constructed from within a specific world view, one that generally precludes the existence of other ways of knowing, learning, engaging, interpreting and sharing information. One can see this when looking at anthropological documentation of education systems around the world and through time. At #FTLhistory, our daily guided tour includes the 1899 replica schoolhouse, a one room building that housed the first public school in Broward County (which at that time was still part of Dade County), 14 students ages 7-12 and their teacher, Ivy Cromartie. While this model of schooling no longer exists in public education in this country, it is still prevalent among some private, charter and home school groups. It is imperative that we expand the intellectual lens from which museum work is applied, even though we are in an era of ever shrinking arts and culture budgets while simultaneously dealing with declining visitor attendance and fewer paid admissions1. From preservation to collections; curation to programming and marketing: in order for a historical society to retain or regain acceptance, interest, loyalty and attendance from its local patrons (both current and potential), an ongoing conversation must take place. An intentional, strategic conversation that is designed to provide equitable space, time and investment, highlighting voices and perspectives that have been silenced in the traditional telling of our city’s history. Humanities professionals like historians, anthropologists and curators hold an important role in this discourse. The perspectives of those whose life experience is rooted outside the history of western European migration to the western hemisphere are especially important. Together we must question ourselves and ask: “who do we consider the experts in each field of enquiry that is considered important to our local history?” On what bases do we assign that recognition? Training? Experience? Peer review? Who are those peers? Who else has those same combinations of skill and qualifications? Are we affording experts with diverse cultural heritage equal and equitable commendation in our professional view?
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Next we must widen this examination of museum equity from personnel to content. What is collected and contained within museum holdings is determined by a certain set of priorities. What is not present in the collections or being actively collected is of equal importance and interest. Whose papers, drawings and artifacts take up the greatest storage within an institution? How often are they put on public view? Who are the historical figures with comparable expertise or importance within the community whose tangible historical artifacts are not included in the museum holdings? Why? What are the gaps? What can be done to fill those gaps where they exist? Should they be filled? That is where temporary exhibitions and public programming come into play. Although the task of re-inventing museums for the 21st century is a gargantuan, never-ending task, if key stakeholders of an institution agree with this goal, there are measures that can be implemented to build a sequential ladder toward the ideal of equity in public museums. If not, then more education, awareness, readiness and consensus building must continue until there is a recognition that each museum must work to reflect and engage their current community in order to remain a relevant and viable component of social and academic life. Once this is achieved and supported by the organizational structure, policy and practice, then the museum will continue to enjoy financial and moral support of the community, Another place in which the interpretation status quo can be explored is within the permanent galleries of each institution. Permanency is a relative term and each museum gallery has its own life cycle whether it is one of months, years or decades. So, in addition to intentionally increasing the content of multicultural historic materials, art and artifacts available for public viewing, the Historical Society has integrated an innovative component of audience participation and feedback into its most recent permanent gallery. After work pioneered by the Science Museum of Minnesota’s “We Move and We Stay” exhibit, showcasing items from the Bishop Whipple Collection, the Historical Society employed a similar strategy in its gallery design for artifacts on loan from the City of Fort Lauderdale from the 2009 archaeological survey of the Third (U.S. Military) Fort Lauderdale site located approximately three miles downriver along Fort Lauderdale Beach. Items such as charred, hand-hewn posts, hand forged copper rivets and iron nails, brass stirrups, earthenware jugs and ceramic saucers were among the everyday items uncovered during excavation. These artifacts necessarily elicit different responses from different audience members and cannot be interpreted according to one perspective without potentially causing harm to another. Unlike other cities named after the military installations that marked the start of European settlements within regions governed by the original inhabitants of this continent, the U.S Military “Fort” Lauderdale no exists as a structure. Above the surface all that exists now are skyscrapers and shopping centers constructed by soldiers’ descendants and the subsequent, multiple waves of migrants to the Sunshine State’s sunny shores. This means that in the minds of many, if not most, residents and visitors alike, the fort in our city’s name remains largely a subconscious, unquestioned concept. Not so for the small but mighty contingent of members and descendants of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. For those few tribal members who do frequent the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, the role of the military fort in the founding of the city seems never to be too far from conscious memory and continuous consideration. For example, in the recent mixed media art innovations produced by Elgin Jumper, visual art, music, literature and storytelling are woven into an experiential learning process where time becomes less linear and perspectives of who the good and bad guys are in history become as blurry as the rope in a good game of double-dutch. The role as stewards of the Everglades which was adopted upon arrival appears never to have been altered or relinquished by the Unconquered Seminoles.
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Now, more than ever, attention to preservation and maintenance of language(s), lifeways, values, education methods, and their connection to the land have become priority. Transferring knowledge of history and culture from elder to youth is of paramount importance, here as it is everywhere. How we interpret the artifacts found beneath the burnt structure of the Third U.S. Military Fort Lauderdale is a perfect case in point illustrating the need for multiple perspective analyses. Consider the different perspectives of interpretations of a museum display depicting 1838 US Army uniform and artillery. An adult of Hispanic heritage might ponder how, less than two decades earlier than the time represented in the display, Florida was considered property of the King of Spain, ceded to the US in 1821. A Seminole child might view this display and consider how tribal identity and culture has been shaped by the twenty year conflict, and the epic battle from the brink of annihilation that ensued and how the Seminole Tribe of Florida is among the most influential forces in the State of Florida today. Of course both of these perspectives are likely to diverge exponentially from the baseline of accepted “normal” point of interpretive view. The one where, in another two decades, the United States would be embroiled in a Civil War that would divide the US Army into union and confederate troops. The following account is by an unknown soldier on an 1841 expedition of Colonel William Selby Harney to Chittotustenuggee’s Island during the Second Seminole War. It appears in the Niles National Register of the same year and is reprinted in Florida Antiquity: Newsletter of the Archaeological & Historical Conservancy, Inc., Vol. 2, No. 3, Winter 1991-92 p. 2.
January 2nd After passing up by the bay seven miles, we entered the mouth of Little river, a tortuous and extremely rapid outlet from the Everglades and struggled against the current until after midnight….the colonel in advance, the navy next, and the army in the rear. ….We then moved forward swiftly and noiselessly, at one time following the course of the serpentine channels, opening out occasionally into beautiful lagoons, at another forcing our way through barriers of tall saw grass. After several hours’ hard paddling, we came in sight of Chitto’s island…. And, in a tone of bitter disappointment, the colonel gave the word, “move up and land, the Indians have escaped.” January 3rd Chittotustenugee’s or Snake Warrior’s island is a most beautiful spot, containing from 18 to 20 acres; the soil is extremely rich and about two feet deep, lying on rotten lime stone. The center is cleared, but the circumference is well protected by immense live oak and wild fig tree, and an almost impenetrable thicket of mangroves. There are two towns, two dancing grounds and one council lodge, on this island; with the exception of the dancing ground and small patch of fine Cuba tobacco, the whole clearing is overrun with pumpkin, squash and melon vines, with occasionally lima beans in great luxuriance and of a most excellent quality. The Indians have been gone at least two weeks, and have left behind them… masks… baskets, kettles, fishing spears, bows, etc.”
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History as we know it today is vastly colored with the perspectives of only one of many possible palettes and now is an exciting time for all of us, as we have a unique opportunity to engage in the process of collaboratively and creatively finding ways to re-interpret and co-interpret the material evidence of our collective past. This is one way that we can encourage and promote much needed intercultural community dialogue while providing intentional space and design for multi perspective analysis. Toward this end, the Historical Society invites you to visit our newest permanent gallery and add your voice to the interpretation of early Fort Lauderdale. Please stop by for a tour of our three museum campus next time you are in our downtown arts and entertainment district. We hope you’ll follow us on facebook and check our website for the next artist talk or open rehearsal of Colorful Warrior Theatre. In these performances, history is re-told from a variety of perspectives and time periods integrating music, art and literature. Above all, let us come together and reflect on what is happening with us, to us, and around us today. If we can successfully build common spaces that encourage dialogue between and among diverse and sometimes opposing points of view, then we can more thoroughly explore how our contemporary experiences continue to be impacted by events that took place at an earlier time in the heritage of our great state, as well as by the future history that is yet to unfold. ---------------------Tara A. Chadwick is an artist and cultural consultant currently serving as Curator of Exhibitions at the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society in Broward County, Florida. The Fort Lauderdale Historical Society is open for public tours at 1, 2 and 3 pm daily. More information about current exhibits and upcoming events can be found at www.flhc.org. ____________________________________ 1
The teaching strategies that are used as the conceptual groundwork for how museum galleries are constructed has changed a lot over my past 30 years of involvement, from the curiosity shop approach to label-less display cases designed to stimulate active selflearning. The strategies we use to foster learning continue to adapt to our changing use of hand held technology and our ever shortening attention spans. Recent work by Tisliar, Milvanov, et al; Dewhurst, et. al.; and Hochtritt, et. al all help to illuminate some of the most recent trends in the academic pursit of knowledge in this area. 2
Our main museum building, the 1905 New River Inn, was the first site in Broward County ever to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. With this designation, the architecture is protected and any proposed updates, renovations, changes or construction to the exterior (which also makes up a substantial part of the interior of this particular structure) must go through a rigorous state, local and federal permitting process. 3
Here in Florida our major competitors are the likes major league sports, recreation and fantasy theme parks, while arts and cultural institutions have seen state funding slashed consistently for at least the past four years.
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The Kravis Discovery Center: Designing an Evaluation to Benchmark Success and Discover Further Opportunity for the Redesigned KDC Authors Emily Caselman, Emily Hammill, and Williams Contributors Marjorie Bontemps, Brooke Dillon, Skylar Edwards, Lacey Faulkner, Hailey Helmrich, Alex London, Molly McVey, Amanda Vestal
In July of 2017, the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, more commonly referred to as the Gilcrease Museum, installed a series of updates to the Kravis Discovery Center (KDC). The primary objective of the KDC update was to create a more interactive learning experience for visitors. Graduate students in the Museum Science and Management Program at the University of Tulsa created and completed an evaluation to determine if the objectives of the exhibit updates was being met. The KDC design team (TEQ4 Limited, Martin Howe, CEO) shared their audience engagement objectives with the evaluation team: 1.) How do visitors value their experience?, 2.) What is the effectiveness of the tablets?, 3.) Does the new design encourage user engagement?, and 4.) Are there any additional features that visitors want on the tablets and in the exhibit? This article presents the methodology by which the Center was evaluated including the data collection, data reduction and analysis, and recommendations for the Center based on the results. The full report is available upon request. Kravis Discovery Center Background Formed in the early 2000’s, the Kravis Discovery Center (KDC) presented an open and accessible storage concept containing artifacts from the Gilcrease Museum collections that represent ancient, historic, and modern Native American cultures of the Americas. In the KDC, visitors can see approximately 3,500 artifacts displayed in drawers and on glass fronted shelving that demonstrate diverse technical skills and artistry, as well as multiple stationary computer stations. Before the update, visitors browsed the drawers independently or used the six stationary computers as search engines to find specific types of items and related information. The 2017 renovation removed the computer stations and replaced them with pods and a cave station that provides interactive, theme-based stories. Each of these units was given an animal icon (Jaguar, Spider and Bear, respectively). These replacements are referred to as the Discovery Trail. The new installation added a wall of electronic tablets which visitors use to navigate both the drawers and the Discovery Trail. The updates transformed the KDC into an interactive exhibition where visitors discover and explore thousands of anthropological objects with the ease of a hand-held interactive screen.
Exploring the KDC: The Tablets and the Discovery Trail As mentioned above, the computer stations were replaced with exploratory Discovery Trail stations. This trail consisted of the Jaguar Pod, the Spider Pod, and the Bear Cave. Jaguar tells the history of Native Americans throughout North and Central America. It focuses on their original homelands and how forced relocation affected where archaeologists discovered their artifacts. Spider describes tools the Native Americans used for hunting and fishing. It focuses on the atlatl, the banner stone, and the fish hook. The Bear Cave is a small enclosed space towards the back of the exhibition that tells Native American folk stories through an interactive video.
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The majority of the time, a Gillie staffs the KDC. Gillies are volunteers at the Gilcrease Museum that receive training and are knowledgeable about the exhibits which they facilitate. They are available for visitor questions and direct visitors through the exhibits. Upon entering the KDC, visitors have the option to explore with or without a tablet. If they choose to use the tablet, they pick one up from the wall directly in front of the entrances. This tablet operates in conjunction with the exhibition’s Discovery Trail stations and serves as digital database for the objects stored on the shelves and in the drawers.
Figure 1: KDC Tablet Wall
The KDC can be explored in both a linear and nonlinear fashion when utilizing a tablet. If visitors prefer the linear option they can choose to follow The Discovery Trail, which has a pre-determined path that directs visitors to the stations mentioned previously. While on The Discovery Trail visitors watch short videos and take quizzes on the tablets regarding the content of the video. The quizzes use age-appropriate wording and concepts that are keyed to the information that visitors enter when they pick up the tablet. The Discovery Trail typically takes 20-30 minutes to complete. For a nonlinear experience, visitors explore the objects in the drawers and on shelves at their own leisure. Every object in the KDC is classified into a relevant category (arrowheads, moccasins, tomahawk pipes, etc.) and displayed with its own corresponding accession number. Visitors type each object's accession number into the tablet to view a description of the object within the KDC’s database. Regardless of which path a visitor takes, the KDC ultimately promotes investigative research and inquisitive exploration, making it one of the most unique elements in the Gilcrease.
Methodology What questions did we want to ask? Before deciding how to best evaluate KDC, the team considered different types of learning. This enabled us to better understand the ways in which visitors to the KDC gain knowledge through the Center. We studied various learning theorists and decided on three types of questions: cognitive, demographic and affective. Demographic questions were important because they helped the team to gather information about the visitors in the KDC and conversely, what demographic categories were not using the KDC. The cognitive questions allowed us to understand what people were actually learning from the KDC and how effective the KDC was when conveying the information to the visitor. The Affective questions allowed us to determine how the KDC made people feel about the exhibit and its themes. Were they enjoying the experience? Did they feel like it was worth their time? After exploring the different domains of questions, we developed the outline for what the survey instruments would look like.
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To better understand the re-installed KDC from the visitor’s perspective, team members explored both the linear and non-linear functions of the KDC and recorded any notable issues or observances. If Gillies were working, each team member made sure to explain the project to them and ask for their input on the Center. What areas did we want to focus on? From personal experience, the team was able to narrow the evaluation down to six: 1.) Visitor behavior using the Discovery Trail, 2.) Visitor behavior using the drawers, 3.) Tablet usage, 4.) Tablet and exhibition maintenance, 5.) Visitor demographics, and 6.) Gillie training, preparedness, and observations. We interviewed a selection of Gilcrease staff and stakeholders in the project in order to inform them of our evaluation and ask them for any additional information or input. We chose the stakeholder that had the most information or closest ties to each area that we chose to evaluate. For example, we presented questions on tablet and exhibition maintenance to the staff members responsible for those aspects: the Collection Manager, the Information Technology Manager, and the Digital Collections Team. The information collected in the interviews allowed the evaluation team to tailor the survey questions to reveal specific issues, such as cataloging problems. Additional Supplementary Information During our interviews with staff and stakeholders, team members received data that had been collected from different sources. One of the most informational of these was provided by Donna Gainey, the Gillie Director. She supplied the team with surveys the Gillies previously filled out. These surveys were used to track visitor numbers each day. This was important because it allowed us to pinpoint high traffic days and times in which we could procure the most visitor observations and surveys. There were also comments about observations that the Gillies made about the visitors and their experiences, which we applied to the creation of our surveys. Survey Creation Once the team came to a consensus regarding the main areas of focus and what information the stakeholders were interested in, we drafted survey instruments. We met in class (facilitated by Dr. Kerry Joels) each week to discuss progress. We combined our observances from the personal visits and the interviews with stakeholders to determine what exactly we wanted to know. With this material in mind, we created the survey as a class. Tracking Survey: Where are visitors going and what are they doing? The team created a tracking survey to determine the average amount of time spent in the exhibit, the average number of drawers opened, and the typical path taken by visitors through the center. To make these surveys simple to conduct, we used a combination of numbering, “fill in the blank” and “multiple choice” questions. This allowed us to easily record the time when the visitors entered and departed the exhibit, as well as quickly indicate the exhibit sections they visited, in order, and to make observations about their behavior. This simple method also allowed us to complete more than one tracking survey at a time. The possible areas denoted on the survey were the Gillie desk, the drawers, the tablets, or one of the three pods (Jaguar, Spider, or Bear). We wanted to know where they were most likely to go first, and what stops they were likely to make thereafter.
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Interview Survey: Demographic, Cognitive, and Affective questions Initially, we determined the interview survey was limited to 3-5 minutes. We didn’t want to take up too much of visitor’s time, but we also wanted to make sure we covered all the bases with our questions. Because of the time constraint, we asked only four to six questions for each section of the survey (aside from demographics). For the demographic section, the team included more questions because the surveyor could visually infer some of the answers before approaching the visitor (such as the age range, gender, and group size). Dr. Kerry Joels formed a packet that contains sections for each of the 6 areas of focus (mentioned in “What areas did we want to focus on”). The team determined the best question format for each piece of information, and the survey was created based on the consensus. All members reviewed it individually, and the final result was approved by Dr. Joels. The complete survey contained 23 questions consisting of the three types of questions: demographic, cognitive, and affective. Cognitive questions used a Likert-Scale such as “the tablet was user friendly”, “the discovery trail was easy to follow”, and “the drawers were easy to navigate with the tablet”. The affective questions were both “no” or “yes” as well as open ended. Examples of the “no” or “yes” type of questions are, “the experience was valuable to me” and “would you recommend the Discovery Trail to others?”. Open-ended examples consist of “What would enhance your next visit” and “are there any other features you would add to the tablet?”. Gillie Survey The team wanted to survey the Gillies as well due to the large role they play in facilitation of the KDC. We were interested in Gillie training for the KDC, observations they make on visitor experience, and how they feel about the center in general. We created a simple survey with seven open-ended questions. These were questions such as “do you feel you received enough training to facilitate the KDC?”, “What are some changes you would like to see?”, and “how do you feel about the updates in general?”. Performing Surveys Team members surveyed audiences from Tuesday, November 7th through Sunday, November 19th. The museum is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Members split each day of availability into two shifts: one from 10:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m., and the other from 1:30 p.m. until close. We created a Google calendar, and each team member signed up for shifts when available. The goal was to have at least 2 people covering each shift, so that one completed the tracking surveys, while the other performed visitor interviews. For some shifts, the team was only able to have one student completing both survey types, but there was always at least 2 people for each shift during busy times, such as weekends and family days. As mentioned above, we were able to identify these busy times due to the Gillie informational sheets we were given beforehand. In all, we interviewed 63 visitors and tracked 111 visitors. However, 6 of these tracking surveys because they were conducted with adults who accompanied school groups. The reason for school groups not being included is because they did not have a choice about how they experienced the KDC. They had to travel through in groups in a particular order. We also received 19 completed Gillie surveys.
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Gathered Data After the survey shifts, evaluators gathered the data from the tracking and interview surveys performed, as well as any Gillie surveys that had been completed, and took them to be recorded. Team members entered the data they collected into a Google Sheets document, thus holding each member accountable for entering their data in a timely manner. There was a tab for any additional comments visitors made, as well as any observations that had been made during the process. This document made it simple to see the information all students gathered simultaneously. Limitations with Data Collection As with any experiment or evaluation, there were limitations to what the team was able to accomplish. We had only two weeks to perform the surveys. Although the amount of time spent surveying was sufficient to provide the team with the necessary information to make recommendations, surveys performed for a full month or longer would have provided more statistically robust data. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, the team was unable to slate a person to be in the KDC on Wednesday afternoons. We were also unable to interview children without an adult present due to legality issues. It would have been beneficial to have perspectives from younger audiences, particularly because most of the updates are child-friendly. Data Analysis To analyze the data collected, the team enlisted a statistical consultant, Stephanie Williams. Before providing Williams with the raw data, the team cleaned it up and converted it into numerical points. For example, the Likert-Scale questions were converted so that answers were represented on a scale of 1 through 5. An answer of Strongly Disagree was represented as a 1 and an answer of Strongly Agree was represented as a 5. Answers that had numerical data to begin with were also converted in order to correspond with the other data. For the age ranges of visitors, a 1 represented visitors from 0-10 years of age and a 2 for visitors from 1120 years. The same scale was used for the total amount of time spent in the exhibit with every 10 minutes being represented by an increase of 1. This new numerical data was then put into an Excel spreadsheet.
Figure 2: Two Stop Trend Starting at Gillie
The data was analyzed using pivot tables which allow you to look at and compare the information in a variety of different ways, such as percentage of visitors who participate in the Discovery Trail, the percentage of specific age groups that visit, and percentage of visitors who strongly agree or disagree with statements. This information can be used to create charts that give a visual representation of the data findings. All but two of the final tables resulted from these pivot tables. Two of the research questions were open ended and required the use of manual data exploration in order to establish the results.
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In order to determine how many visitors began and completed, or did not complete, the Discovery Trail, the team created two data exploration charts. The results showed the evaluation team exactly how many visitors began and completed, as well as how many visitors began and did not complete, the trail. It also showed the most common paths that people took, and what paths were more likely to lead to trail completion.
What could we learn from the Data? Through the use of the descriptive statistics mentioned above, we proposed several conclusions. The team analyzed these conclusions and formulated recommendations based upon the information at hand. Doing this exercise together allowed us to find the best ways to resolve the issues encountered during the process. . We then then combined our data analysis with one another’s ideas (that were based upon our own experience in the KDC) and created feasible recommendations. Our Recommendations We noticed that Tulsa natives were a low demographic in the surveys. This suggested to us that there should be more local advertisement and outreach programs with local schools and communities. During survey work, the team asked visitors how they heard about the KDC. Some stated that they heard through word of mouth, but many said they just stumbled upon it while already visiting the museum. Very few mentioned any signage within the museum, and others said they were unsure they were allowed to come down the stairs into the area. Since the KDC is tucked away from the rest of the museum, on the bottom floor, the evaluation team suggests an increase in signage and publicity about the center. Encouraging front desk volunteers to inform guests of its presence and purpose would be a good start. Overall, the majority of visitors enjoyed using the tablets for the drawers, however they did have a few suggestions. The most common suggestion was that they wished there was a system that was similar to the old computer search engines. With this system, you could search a type of item, such a spear point, or moccasins, and it would pull up a list of the locations of these artifacts. With the new tablets, users have to find an item in the drawers, and then type that item’s number into the tablet. We suggested adding the older search feature onto the tablet so that people may use the tablets to locate items. Tablets were very well received, so improving programming for greater flexibility and richer content makes them more valuable. Everyone who took the Discovery Trail seemed to enjoy the experience. However, we had a low number of people who actually completed it; only eight out of seventeen. Some explanations for this are below. The most popular starting point when tracking visitors was the Gillie, and the second most popular was the tablets. Of those who went to the Gillie first, 70% continued on to the tablets. This showed that Gillies were in fact encouraging people to use the tablets. However, almost 90% of people who went from the Gillie to the tablets then went on to the drawers instead of the trail. This showed us that the Gillies might be encouraging people to use the drawers instead of complete the trail.
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We had 17 visitors in total actually start the trail and only eight complete it. Four of the eight started at the Gillie, then went to the tablets, and the other four started at the tablets then went to the Trail. While this number looks equal at first, all the visitors who did not complete the trail, also did not visit the Gillie first. This told us that people who did not visit the Gillie first may not have known what to expect when starting the Trail. It takes roughly 30 minutes to complete and some people may not have that much time. By visiting the Gillie first, visitors were able to gain a better understanding of what the Trail entailed. Because of this, we recommended there be some kind of upfront information for people about the Trail before they commit to it. Whether this is a sign, or a disclaimer on the screen before they begin, it would help to prevent people from getting halfway through and then bailing.
Conclusions While we had more recommendations for the Gilcrease Museum and the Kravis Discovery Center design team, overall, we found that visitors seemed to be very satisfied with the updates. They were excited to give their input, and they wanted to help review it.. . Visitors seemed to be impressed with the rich and diverse collection of the drawers, as well as the interactive components from the tablets. Although the feedback was overtly positive, it is necessary to take measures to improve visitor accessibility and satisfaction. Areas for improvement include but are not limited to: outreach, accessibility, educational programing, user-friendly technology, and flexibility. It is hopeful that the summative evaluation and the recommendations by the evaluation team will be utilized when making future adjustments to the Kravis Discovery Center. Research and evaluation is a process that is essential in a museum setting. Evaluation tells you how the public feels about your exhibits and if you are achieving your intended objectives. Failure to evaluate exhibits and programs does a great disservice to the audience and chooses complacency over improvements.
Emily Caselman Graduate Assistant McFarlin Special Collections University of Tulsa emilyacaselman@gmail.com
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June 4, 2018 *Policies for Managing Collections *Social Relevance: Environmental Sustainability in Museums *Rights & Reproductions: Guidelines and Best Practices *Practical Approaches to Disaster Preparation *AASLH Basics of Archives July 16, 2018 AASLH Caring for Museum Collections August 6, 2018 Laws & Collections Management Salvage & Recovery of Cultural Heritage Collections Grants for Museums and Historic Sites
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September 3, 2018 Moving Museum Collections Writing K-12 Lesson Plans for Museums September 17, 2018 AASLH Leadership and Administration in History Organizations October 1, 2018 Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections October 8, 2018 AASLH Museum Education and Outreach October 15, 2018 AASLH Basics of Archives AASLH Project Management for History Professionals October 22, 2018 AASLH Developing Exhibitions Part 1
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InterpNEWS – what’s coming for the rest of the year (our Sep/Oct, Nov/Dec and Jan/Feb 2019 issues. We have a call for articles, a call for advertisers, and a call for anyone who would like to be one of our regional editors. Reach over 300K in 60 countries. For advertising details and costs visit our advertising web site page at: http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpnews_advertising_details.html September/October, November/December and our first Jan/Feb 2019 issue.
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The Heritage Interpretation Training Center The Heritage Interpretation Training Center offers 39 college level courses in heritage interpretation, from introductory courses for new interpretive staff, docents and volunteers, to advanced courses for seasoned interpretive professionals. Courses can be offered/presented on site at your facility or location, or through our e-LIVE on-line self-paced interpretive courses. Some of our on-line courses are listed below. You can start the course at any time and complete the course at your own pace: Introduction to Heritage Interpretation Course. 14 Units - 2 CEU credits. $150.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/introduction_to_heritage_interpretation_cou rse.html Planning/Designing Interpretive Panels e-LIVE Course - 10 Units awarding 1.5 CEU Credits $125.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_panels_course.html Planning Interpretive Trails e-LIVE Course - 13 Units - 2.5 CEU Credits $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_trails_course.html Interpretive Writing e-LIVE Course - 8 Units and 2 CEU Credits $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_writing_course.html Training for Interpretive Trainers e-LIVE Course - 11 Units and 2 CEU Credits. $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/training_for_interp_trainers.html The Interpretive Exhibit Planners Tool Box e-LIVE course - 11 Units and 2 CEU Credits. $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_exhibits_course.html Interpretive Master Planning - e-LIVE. 13 Units, 3 CEU Credits. $275.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_master_planning_course.html A supervisors guide to Critiquing and Coaching Your Interpretive Staff, Eleven Units, 1.6 CEU Credits. $175.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/critiquing_and_coaching_interpretive_staff.h tml
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