Looking Outside the Museum World

Recently at AAM 2009 in Philly I went to a session called "Eye On Design II." The point of the session was to have ten people from the museum world look outside the museum world for inspiration. The concept is not new to me and I think it is important for anyone to look outside their career field for inspiration. Frankly, it's a pretty simple way to keep the creative juices flowing. Until recently I have always looked to the education field for inspiration. I mean after all there are a lot of similarities. Both fields have the goal of instilling knowledge. Both often have inadequate budgets and all to often staffs are not really paid what they are worth. Through several educational podcasts that I listen to I've found teachers are fabulous resources for figuring out how to achieve wonderful things with no budget. But this session at AAM has inspired me to open my eyes even more and search out other fields that can inspire my work in museums.

Guided Access - Can It Aid in Device Management? – Part 2

In my last post I covered how Guided Access is being used to help us manage the iPads in our Reflection Areas. This time I want to share how Guided Access has worked on our iPod touches. The museum has 80 4th generation iPod Touches with our iOS app installed available for guests to check out. These are free thanks to the generous sponsorship of Cox Communications. After talking to colleagues at other institutions about their experiences, and trying out several alternatives, the decision was made to use iPod cases that do not cover the Home button. Even though covering the Home button could have helped control the devices, the benefits of allowing staff and knowledgeable users to easily service devices when needed seemed to outweigh the potential costs of leaving the Home button accessible. To conserve battery life and prevent new content from being installed on the iPods, we decided to use Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility to create a configuration profile to block access to ce...

Things that Endanger Your Treasures

When people find out my degree is in Museum Studies and I work at a museum, I’m constantly being asked questions like: “What things do I need to look out for in order to protect my keepsakes?” “What’s the worst thing that could happen to my great-grandmother’s wedding dress?” “So my photos are just thrown into a cardboard box, that’s probably not the best thing, right” “I could never afford to properly store my grandfather’s Bible, could I?” The majority of my answers revolve around four things that can endanger your treasures so, I’ve created a little guide on those things and solutions you can start implementing today to help mitigate them. I’ve made it in a worksheet form to really help you think through changes you might need to make. But I also wanted to share a fifth thing for you to be aware of just in this blog post and that’s how materials can interact with each other. The more complex an object is as far as the materials that it is made up of the more complex it c...

It’s Ok to Use It

I’m often asked, “But what should I DO with my family heirloom?” My response is always, “What do you want to do with it?” At this point people are often taken aback. I think they assume I’m going to tell them to lock it away in storage and never use it again for fear of breaking or damaging it. In some cases, that may be what might be best for the object. You have to consider the condition its in and what your goals are for it. If it is a book in poor condition, but you are hoping your great-grandchildren will get to see it. Then, yes, probably the best thing to do is stabilize it and store it, taking it out occasionally to check on the condition, but to try to manipulate it as little as possible. Other objects don’t necessarily need to be treated so delicately. For instance, something I chose that belonged to my maternal grandmother was soup bowls. There were only two of them and they aren’t valuable. They're Anchor Hocking from the 1970s. They were her everyday dish...

Heather Marie Wells

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