Posts
Visitor Experience
Welcoming Service Dogs to Your Museum
Service dogs are becoming more common as the years go on, and as museum professionals it can be a challenge to welcome them in among our collections. We worry about hair and dander, …
Sofa So Good: A word on behalf of older folks
I don’t know about you, but a career in museums has made it very difficult for me to be a satisfied museum visitor. I find that I am always peering into “how the sausage is made,” as it …
Unlocking the Neuroscience of Visitor Experience
The act of understanding is fundamental to the museum experience. In visiting a museum, we come to understand the objects placed before us, along with the stories of their human pasts. So …
Is Instagram culture a positive influence for museums?
Social media engagement and its impact on museums continues to be a topic of discussion in the museum field. In this article, Carly Straughan looks at how Instagram and social media …
A Museum ‘Dating’ App Helps Visitors Fall in Love with Art
As the High Museum of Art prepared to completely reinstall its collection in the fall of 2018, we began talking about how we could use mobile technologies in new and innovative ways to …
The Fixer Upper Effect: Waco museums enjoy the ride (and try to learn the deeper meaning)
It’s Monday, November 5, at 1:01 pm. I’m headed to a meeting in downtown Waco, Texas. As I drive by The Silos, a retail space developed by Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines, I am …
Ageism is All Around Us
Greetings! This is my second blog as Aroha Fellow for Museums and Creative Aging, and I begin by reiterating my invitation to meet colleagues who share an interest in creative aging during …
Magical Machinery? What AI can do for museums
When people hear I work with artificial intelligence, they often imagine that I create software that does magical things. Their minds go to humanistic androids or programs that predict …
How We Maximized Our Museum Building’s Impact on Human and Environmental Health
Abundant research demonstrates the efficacy of a building’s design to enhance and support human and environmental health. Peer-reviewed professional studies in journals such as Indoor and …
New Study Offers Clues to Dominance of Curve-Filled Museum Designs
Why do so many museum buildings have curving, rounded forms rather than rectangular ones? It might be more than an arbitrary preference. On Smithsonian.com, Meilan Solly examines several …
Four Things I Learned When I Started Thinking about Museum Accessibility
I first started working with the Disabilities community in 2011. Over the years, I’ve worked with individuals of all ages in their homes, at their jobs, and in their communities. The …
From a Teacher: How to make your museum field trips ones to remember for students and staff
“That was an awesome field trip!” “That place was so much fun.” These are the statements you want to hear from students after a field trip. As an eighteen-year veteran teacher who has …