Less is More

From the desk of Tim Willis, Director of Exhibitions and Visitor Experience

I’m intrigued by what is going on in a visitor’s mind when they first arrive in a museum. I suspect it’s a mix of excitement (we hope) and anxiety (where do I go, where do I pay, what’s on?).

Design theory says that people need time and room to adjust from the outside world before they negotiate the beginning of a visit – and I’m sure this is right. However, in many cases (our situation included) the architecture of the building does not allow this respite. Instead, one is required immediately to make decisions.

Adding to the anxiety I’m sure, is the information we seem determined to thrust in their way: directional signage, visitor services, admission rates, special events, membership deals and promotional blurbs of various kinds. As museum buildings age, coordinated signage treatment seems to breakdown. The result can be a cacophony – just when the visitor is looking for simplicity.

I don’t think it needs to be this way. In my view, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London provides – overall – one of the best museum experiences anywhere. Visiting the V&A is easy, and their entrance experience is a model of simplicity.

Images: Two video monitors convey all that you need to know at the V&A

The entrance rotunda is a study in restraint. The absence of signage is a real lesson. Millions of visitors come through this space every year. And it appears that they get most of what they need from just three sources – an information desk and two video monitors. It seems that focusing everyone’s attention to a very few key places is more effective than asking them to look everywhere.


Less is more.

Image: V&A’s Dale Chihuly sculpture has a certain ‘wow’ factor … but beneath it the entrance lobby is a model of restraint

Tim Willis

RBCM on TV

From the desk of Sean Rodman, Strategic Partnerships Manager at the Royal BC Museum










Have you heard of Artifact or Artifiction, the annual museum gala fundraising event? It’s a game where the guests are the players. Twenty curators with artifacts or specimens are stationed throughout our galleries. Guests have to guess: is a curator telling the truth about an artifact, or making up an explanation?



While the event is a lot of fun for both guests and curators, it is also an important way of supporting the work of the Royal BC Museum. This year, all the funds raised are going towards our educational outreach program, including sending the “Aliens Among Us” exhibit on the road.



It’s a huge event, and we work with many partners in the community to pull it off. One of our partners, CHEK News, is helping us to spread the word: they offered to create a 30 second promotional video for us that will be aired over the next few weeks.

This was my first time seeing a TV crew at work, and it was fascinating. Early one morning, while the galleries were still closed, we snuck in with a small team from CHEK. Along with us were Tony Parsons, news anchor and MC for Artifact or Artifiction, and Gavin Hanke, our Curator of Vertebrate Zoology.


The first thing that impressed me was how quickly the CHEK crew turned the centre of our Behind the Scenes gallery into an impromptu TV studio. Lights, reflectors, a big camera on a tripod, display monitors – all of it popped out of a series of carrying cases. Soon the gallery was ready to go, with our mammal display serving as backdrop to the shoot.







Tony delivered his lines professionally and, although he didn’t have a speaking part, Gavin held his own on stage. By the time the gate to the gallery was rolling upwards and a crowd of visitors was streaming in, the crew had wrapped up and was heading down the freight elevator to capture their next story.

A few days later, we received the finished product. It will air over the next few weeks, and is already available online. What happens next? Well, hopefully the promo spot on CHEK will help us to sell out of tickets soon – we’re over half-way already!

The only downside? I suspect that Gavin, our curator in the spotlight, now dreams of a career on the tube. I think his agent is already pestering the Knowledge Network for his own series….

ps. Want to watch the final product?

What I did on my summer vacation....

From the desk of Ann ten Cate, Reference Archivist at the Royal BC Museum

Like thousands of British Columbians, I’m just back from some time in the woods – so I thought it would be fun for this blog installment to look at the way that people camped in the past.

The B.C. Archives has hundreds of photographs of families and campgrounds, and I’ve chosen a few that may bring back some memories for those of you who spent your summer vacations gathered round a campfire, roasting weenies and marshmallows, and telling ghost stories.

Judging by these photos some parts of the recreational camping experience haven’t changed all that much over the last 150 years. It’s a chance to relax with family, practice some survival skills (like making coffee over a campfire!) and sleep under canvas. If you’re a hunter or fisherman there’s the added bonus of providing food for your family!

Here’s a quick look at some of my favourite archival images:

The Francis Claudet and Arthur T. Bushby families camping at Burrard Inlet, ca. 1868 E-03990

Francis Claudet was the son of an early French daguerreotypist, and was one of the first people to take photographs in B.C. He is at the centre of the photo, with Mr. and Mrs. Bushby on the right. Other photos from the same outing show that they took along some of their children, and a servant. These photos were carefully posed by Claudet and incorporate symbols that demonstrate their intrepid spirit – the axe, frying pan and kettle, the picnic on a blanket, and the tent. This was a long way from the average Victorian parlour!

The title on this one is “Gus Adams's camping outfit at Kaslo [D-07193]”, and it probably dates from around 1900. Looks like they had a good hunting trip! This was camping with a purpose.

This group seems to be the living embodiment of the phrase “happy campers”... they’ve got a guitar, a fiddle, a paddle and a rifle. What more do you need? We don’t know much about them, although the photograph is from the Nelson area and probably dates from around 1895. [B.C. Archives photo C-07816]

Car camping made it easier to bring along more stuff. I think there’s a rolling pin on the table in this photo of an unnamed family camping near Victoria around 1915 [B.C. Archives photo G-06889]. The emulsion on this photo has shrunk a bit making all of the people rather elongated. If you happen to know who they are, do let us know!

Even Emily Carr took to the woods occasionally, using a caravan as a mobile studio. Being Emily, she nicknamed it “The Elephant”. [B.C. Archives photo D-03842]




I expect that this will take a few people back to their childhoods. I can practically smell the camp smoke when I look at this one. This family was camping at Goldstream Park just outside Victoria, in 1950. [B.C. Archives photo I-26744]

Remember the 70’s when everything was orange? We’re not sure where or when this photo was taken, but I’d say this is pretty typical of that day-glo era. [B.C. Archives photo G-0001]


Insert your own camping photo here and carry on camping!

Drawing Conclusions

From the desk of Kim Gough, Program Developer at the Royal BC Museum

What is that expression – “a stitch in time saves nine”? With that in mind, we tested kid’s interactives for Behind the Scenes back in May. During that time I had put out a different specimen in a case everyday and invited kids to draw or write about it. As I suspected, a fair number of kids participated in the activity and proudly posted their pictures.

When we installed the activity in the AmusEum – the children’s gallery in the Behind the Scenes exhibition – instead of inviting kids to draw an actual specimen, we installed a light board and a stack of laminated images for them to trace. Enthusiasm for this activity went through the roof! More magnets had to be made for the kids to post their pictures and I was off to the printer to get more templates copied.



Is it the lure of the light board that attracts them? Is it the act of tracing vs. drawing? Or is it the opportunity to hang their picture in the museum gallery? It is also interesting to look at the images they are copying and to see what is popular. Kids can choose from fish, fossils, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, mammals, insects and flowers. The most popular so far? Scroll down to see…

…you might be surprised.

Invertebrates! Shells to be exact. I know, weird huh? A close second is mammals – the bear in particular, and in third place reptiles – especially turtles and snakes.



I am very pleased with the activity, not just because of the high volume but because kids are slowing down and looking more closely. And because they have the option of tracing or drawing, everybody can do it!

Inside the Cocoon

From the desk of Tim Willis, Director of Exhibitions and Visitor Experience

For the past year, we’ve been exploring how to present behind-the-scenes curatorial work to visitors – but there is one museum in the world that has committed to doing this in a big way – the Natural History Museum in London.

And so, on a recent expedition to visit relatives in the land of my birth, I finally visited a museum project that I’ve been promoting [I’m sure I’ve become quite a bore] – the new Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum.

I had been impressed by the first phase of the Darwin Centre – a kind of public atrium in their fluid collection storage and research building. But the next phase takes this concept to a new level.

I love what the Natural History Museum does. I think they exemplify how to ‘live your brand.’ Essentially, everything they do reinforces the message that they are a museum engaged in science and scientific issues that are important to the world today. A recent BBC reality television documentary series about the museum is aptly named ‘the Museum of Life’ [see links below].

The ‘Cocoon’ in its glass box.

And the Darwin Centre itself is the brand ‘writ large.’ Imagine a giant cocoon inside a glass box. ‘The Cocoon’ contains the museum’s botany and entomology collections – 30 million specimens! It has a thin outer layer. Visitors enter the structure at the top and travel gradually downward inside this outer layer – looking into the collections which are sealed in the core [the collections storage ‘specs’ are impressive: 3.5 kilometers of shelving and cabinets all contained at a constant 18C and 45%RH].

Inside the ‘Cocoon’.

The path downward is an interpretation journey – not of specific collections – but about the curatorial process. What are collections? How are they organized and stored? How are they used, what do scientists study and how do they go about it – and why should we care?

It’s not for everyone… it is quiet and thoughtful – a marked contrast to the mayhem in the dinosaur gallery close by. But I found the experience profoundly moving. For years, I’ve felt that the efforts we [museums in general] have made to explain what collections and curators do to be rather sad affairs. The window into the lab with empty worktables and microscopes say to me ‘this work is boring and everyone is out.’

At the Darwin Centre, the Natural History Museum is quite clearly very serious about revealing what they do and inviting visitors to share their scientific curiosity. The ‘Cocoon’ journey is beautifully paced. As you spiral down, bright pools of light tell you that another element of the story is about to be told. My favourite was the invitation to plan a trip into the field. A curator guides you as you interact with images projected onto a table – like your choice of clothes for the trip. You choose your destination [why did I choose Scotland rather than the Bahamas?], make travel arrangements, and pack your clothes and equipment. At the end of all your planning, the curator appears and admonishes you gently about what you missed.









I’m about to select my clothes for an expedition to Scotland.

The interpretive media are impressive. The Darwin Centre uses a lot of video. Four prominent staff scientists are featured and become your familiar hosts as you make the journey. There are views outside the ‘Cocoon’ into working research labs. They are impressive in the clinical technological way… but not particularly interesting. It’s the people and their work that captures one’s attention.















Views into static collection areas are animated by video projections.

One can argue about what works and what does not in the Darwin Centre, but what really impresses me most is the Natural History Museum’s determination to expose what they do behind the scenes and show its relevance to the world around them.

Tim Willis



Links:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/galleries/orange-zone/darwin-centre/index.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rp1w0

Woolly: unplugged.

From the desk of Melaina Haas, Communications Coordinator at the Royal BC Museum.




Our beloved Royal BC Museum mammoth is kind of a big deal. Nicknamed “Woolly” by those who work here, this guy has been featured in numerous cartoon strips, books, research papers, online magazines and international newspapers.

Woolly: a fine-looking fellow.

Elephants have had a looong history on this planet – at various times over 55 million years, more than 500 different kinds have walked on this Earth. And aside from the tropical African Elephant and the Asian (or Indian) Elephant, all have since disappeared. The remains of four mammoths (extinct elephants that were somewhat adapted to colder climates) have been found in British Columbia: the Woolly Mammoth, the Columbia Mammoth, the Imperial Mammoth and the Mastodon. The Woolly Mammoth, more closely related to the Asian Elephant than the African elephant, first entered North America some 65,000 years ago.

A visitor favourite and permanent fixture of the Natural History gallery for decades, the first incarnation of our Woolly was a dream in the form of a small model.

Woolly was just a dream at this point...

For the first 30 years of his life, Woolly lived behind a wall of glass.

Don't tap the glass!

In May 2004, the mammoth-sized diorama had a major overhaul. The glass barrier was removed and fans were installed, simulating the chilly ice age winds.

Woolly: undercover.

A wall made of real ice and fibreglass casts of glaciated rocks were added, completing the ice age experience.

The ice wall takes shape

The revamp was a hit. And in December 2008, Woolly found his voice. A soundtrack of wind, elephant trumpets and ptarmigan chirps was installed. Take a listen for yourself.

Although the Woolly Mammoth went extinct some 10,000 years ago, our dear Woolly continues to delight thousands of visitors every year.
For more about mammoths, read this article by Royal BC Museum curator of archaeology.

A Sure Sign of Summer

From the desk of Kim Gough, Program Developer at the Royal BC Museum.













One thing I have always enjoyed about this time of year at the museum is when the summer students start working. They bring with them such new enthusiasm, energy and ideas that I find myself rejuvenated. Meet Kelli, Fritha and Emily, the newest temporary members of the Learning and Visitor Experience department at the Royal BC Museum.

Kelli, Fritha, Emily

When I asked them about a typical day at the museum, they replied “We don’t have typical days here!” Their jobs as the Camp Inside Out coordinators give them a lot of variety. They’ve spent many long, grueling hours searching for games and activities (and testing them) to make the camps the best they can be. They have been learning all sorts of neat facts about BC’s history and natural history and have had close encounters with Giant Squid and a live snake!

It's not a game - it is research!

The coordinators are now fully dedicated to the summer camps, but before that their extra hands were getting the Behind the Scenes exhibition open. They helped build the AmusEum (they literally assembled the furniture and the tents!) and continue to check in on it – occasionally getting distracted with the books, costumes and games. Some of their quirkier tasks have included: hiding a stuffed mouse in the mammal collection for visitors to find, collecting plants for making slides, and holding a bag of crickets while the frogs get fed. The fascinating people, objects and different opportunities at the museum, will hopefully make this a summer job they will learn from and remember fondly.

Emily reveals where she hid the mouse. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

Earlier this year I went to a museum conference and met a woman who was a summer student at a museum where I worked in 2007. I was thrilled to hear that she enjoyed her experience so much that she is now enrolled in a museum studies master’s program. What was your favourite summer job? Tell us about it.