Portal to the Public: Museum Educators Collaborating with Scientists to Engage Museum Visitors with Current Science

Science museums play a role in creating visitor experiences that relate to contemporary issues in science, and in linking audiences to the scientific enterprise and the community of scientists. In the Portal to the Public approach, science researchers are trained by museum educators with experience in inquiry‐based learning, and are then given opportunities to translate their current research for museum audiences. Portal to the Public offers one solution to museums seeking to sustain a commitment to delivering experiences that reflect the dynamic pace of research, and the need to connect local communities to scientific research occurring in their midst.     

Using 3D Printing to Enhance Understanding and Engagement with Young Audiences: Lessons from Workshops in a Museum

This paper details findings from a collaborative research project that studied children learning to 3D print in a museum, and provides an overview of the study design to improve related future programs. We assessed young visitors’ capacity to grasp the technical specificities of 3D printing, as well as their engagement with the cultural history of shoemaking through the museum's collection. Combining the museum's existing pedagogical resources with hands‐on technology experiences designed by Semaphore researchers, this study enabled both researchers and museum education staff to evaluate the use of 3D‐driven curriculum and engagement materials designed for children visiting cultural heritage museums. This study raises critical questions regarding the practicality of deploying 3D media to engage young learners in museums, and this paper illuminates the challenges in developing models for children to put historical and contextual information into practice.     

Rethinking Museum Visitors: Using K‐means Cluster Analysis to Explore a Museum's Audience

Abstract Understanding visitors is a necessary and complex undertaking. In this article, we present K‐means cluster analysis as one strategy that is particularly useful in unpacking the complex nature of museum visitors. Three questions organize the article and are as follows: 1) What is K‐means cluster analysis? 2) How is K‐means cluster analysis conducted? 3) Most importantly: What are the applications of K‐means cluster analysis for museum practitioners? To answer these questions, we present five steps that are vital to conducting a K‐means cluster analysis. We also present three cases studies to demonstrate differences among the results of three K‐means cluster analyses and provide practical applications of the findings.     

Connecting a Museum with Its Community

Abstract The exhibition, Changing Places: From Black and White to Technicolor, at the Levine Museum of the New South, in Charlotte, North Carolina, is more than a story about a changing community—it’s a platform for an experience that engages its local audience.     

Engagement with news on Twitter: insights from Australia and Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines the patterns of news engagement among news consumers with different political affiliation and cultural background. We use computational methods and data from Twitter in a cross-country comparison of engagement with six online news sources in Australia and South Korea. For our analysis, we used a subset of Twitter users who retweeted at least one political story during the period of collection, and for whom we were able to predict political affiliation using correspondence analysis and data on Twitter follower ties to politicians. We find that right-wing Australian retweeters are more intense in their news engagement, compared with their left-wing counterparts, whereas in South Korea it was the opposite. Australian right-wing political retweeters have more diverse information sources, while there was no difference in information diversity between the right and left in South Korea. We discuss how the political situation in South Korea at the time of data collection may have affected our analysis. We emphasise the methodological contributions of our research and its connection to on-going research into the behavioural foundations of ‘filter bubbles’.     

Developing a Student Research Grant Program at a Location Remote from the Museum

Museums often have smaller facilities at locations remote from the main administrative unit. Activities at these units may be somewhat distinct from those at the organization's center, although fitting within the goals of the institution. Local contacts with the server and surrounding communities present unique opportunities for development of funding at these locations, opportunities not easily available at the organization's main development office. This account documents an example of a modest effort by the Southwestern Research Station (SWRS) in Portal, Arizona (a facility of the American Museum of Natural History in New York) to develop local funding for the SWRS Student Support Fund. Through local efforts developing this fund, 66 graduate students have received funding assistance for their research at the Station between 1989–2001. Institutions with more than one site should closely examine opportunities for decentralizing development efforts, relying instead on locally focused sources of funding for special projects. Such efforts reach new communities and garner local loyalties for institutional support.     

Creating a Virtuous Circle of Student Engagement with the Tech Corner

While many academic libraries have followed the public library lead in developing makerspaces, not all libraries have the money or space to dedicate to such large-scale operations. This case study explores a different approach to engaging users with new technology and investigates how to support their creativity without a costly investment in space and staffing. It demonstrates not only how students can be provided a virtual space to explore technology equipment, but also how their opinions can be leveraged for growing the collection and creating training materials.     

Piloting Consumer Health Information Services in Collaboration with a Community Research Engagement Program

At an academic health science center, librarians partnered with a community research engagement program to offer a suite of consumer health information services. The services included training staff in the use of online consumer health resources, purchasing a print collection of monographs, and creating a guide to both the online and print resources for staff use. Focus groups were conducted to assess information needs, and the workshop attendees’ online health information competency was assessed presession and postsession. This article details planning and intervention efforts, and proposes future activities to meet the information needs of HealthStreet and its clients.     

博物馆儿童研究中“道”与“器”的思考——来自《儿童博物馆建设运营之道》一书中的启示

美国儿童博物馆协会编著的论文集《儿童博物馆建设运营之道》,既是一部启发思路的成果汇编,又堪称是一本指导实践的实用手册。该书不仅专注于显性意义上形而下的器,还重视隐性意义上形而上的道。本文对该论文集中各位学者的真知灼见和核心观点进行归纳和述评,并在此基础上反思该书在当代博物馆儿童研究中的地位和价值。同时主张在面对与日俱增的儿童现象及材料时,不应仅止步于追求“求实”“致用”的经验,还要探寻隐匿于经验之中的本质及其关联,以“求真”实现“道器并重”。     

A Taxonomy of Museum Program Opportunities—Adapting a Model from Natural Resource Management

This paper describes a conceptual framework for the way museum managers might categorize different kinds of program opportunities, both existing and potential. This systematic approach to program planning may be useful to managers in museums seeking to expand their programs' scope and scale. The basis for this concept is borrowed from the outdoor recreation discipline, which sought, in the 1970s, to find a common language to describe supply and demand for recreation opportunities and to understand recreation opportunities in a geographic context of available natural resources. In this paper, the concept is adapted for museums and museum going as a leisure activity. The article first explores the linkages between museum supply and demand as they relate to a larger leisure marketplace. The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) is then described as it is used for outdoor recreation decision making. Following this practice, museum demand opportunities are defined and elaborated by example, and a “Visitor Opportunity System”—modeled after ROS—is presented. Specific examples are provided for applying this system approach to a variety of museum practices and planning scenarios.     

如何发现博物馆之于观众的意义——一项基于深度访谈和叙事研究的观众研究的启发

最近十年间,博物馆观众研究取得一系列具有共识性和启发性的研究成果。然而,绝大多数研究都是站在博物馆的立场,经由观众研究的发现来审视展览传播的有效性,甚至为博物馆机构的合法性提供论据。鲜有研究去真正关注博物馆体验在观众的日常生活情景中究竟扮演着什么角色。基于此,本文将从米歇尔·埃弗雷特和玛格丽特·巴雷特的富有启发性的研究入手,详细讨论该研究的个体叙事、研究发现、研究对象、方法论框架、数据收集、数据分析等方面的内容,希冀为国内博物馆观众研究领域提供另一种具有可行性的研究路径。     

Encouraging Engagement with Students and Integrating Librarians into the Curriculum through a Personal Librarian Program

Five years ago, the Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library created a Personal Librarian Program (PLP) to encourage librarian engagement with first- and second-year medical students and to promote awareness of library resources and services. Prior to the creation of the PLP, the library struggled with finding ways to connect with its medical students, especially because the library is 98% digital. The PLP was created to give students an individualized library experience and an easier way to interact with librarians. As a result, opportunities for librarian-student engagement increased, and Personal Librarian groups facilitated the integration of librarians into two first- and second-year medical school courses.     

Fostering Student Engagement and Collaboration with the Library: Student Creation of LibGuides as a Research Assignment

This article describes a project using a student-created LibGuide in conjunction with a literature review assignment for a research course. This collaborative project between a librarian and a professor of International Education was designed and implemented as an avenue for teaching information literacy and to encourage use of library resources. The methodology for the assignment is presented, and the results of the project are discussed in terms of the final products and student reviews. Implications for the use of student-created LibGuides in academic institutions and future directions for this project are presented.     

Enhancing Bibliographic Records with Tables of Contents Derived from OCR Technologies at the American Museum of Natural History Library

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a project undertaken at the American Museum of Natural History Library in 1997 and intended to enhance access to materials in the library's collection by using scanning and OCR software to digitize and add monograph tables of contents to the OPAC bibliographic records. Initially, conference proceedings already in the collection were used, but, as the project developed, other types of materials were also used. The rationale for the project is explained, the procedure developed is described, and the lessons learned from using this particular technology are outlined.     

Equity of Access to Cultural Heritage: Museum Experience as a Facilitator of Learning and Socialization in Children with Autism

This article discusses a study focused on investigating the effects of an art museum cultural experience on learning and behaviors of visitors with special needs. The participants, selected by specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, were 10 families with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The author examined how the museum environment, with its opportunities for free‐choice, object‐based, and inquiry‐based learning, helped facilitate their educational and social needs. To record changes in the subjects' content knowledge and behavior, the author employed a mixed‐methods design, including the standardized Social Responsiveness Scale, parent surveys, behavioral observations, task evaluations, and parent interviews. The findings demonstrate that participation in a tailored educational museum program positively influences cognitive and social behaviors of children living with autism, thereby contributing to their overall well‐being. The paper also discusses implications for other museums nationwide working to establish quality access programs with long‐term benefits for special needs communities.     

Taku Manawa/My Human Rights,a Case Study in Partnership: Waikato Museum Working with the Human Rights Commission

Abstract Under the Human Rights Act, the Human Rights Commission is responsible for education and advocacy about human rights in New Zealand. In order to reach more people and ensure human rights education is ongoing, the commission initiated a human rights community development approach, creating the Taku Manawa (My Human Rights) program. Representatives from key community organizations were selected for a regional pilot program. These representatives were then trained in the knowledge and ability needed to undertake human rights advocacy and implement this advocacy in their communities. This paper explains how the Waikato Museum was first identified as a key community organization or a “human rights museum.” Exploring the relationship with the Human Rights Commission and leaders from local and national community organizations, this paper also examines how Taku Manawa has encouraged positive social change and greater awareness of human rights issues through the Waikato Museum’s community events, public programming, and exhibition planning.