Museums in Mourning

The museum world is in mourning. Today a man walk through the doors of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and shot a guard. Guards had to return fire for the safety of the visitors at the museum, including a group of 165 eighth graders there on a field trip. The guard, Stephen T. Johns, subsequently died at the hospital. The Holocaust Museum will be closed tomorrow and flags will be flown at half mast in his honor. I've been to DC twice and of course my favorite place is the mall. So many fabulous museums in such close proximity. My most recent trip to DC was last August. It was a wonderful trip and the first time my husband had been. On our last day in DC we stopped to get frozen lemonades after we had finally been asked to leave the Natural History Museum because it was closing time. It was such a lovely evening to be sitting on a bench at the Mall watching the sun set after a hot August day. We watched some guys playing football and there were little girls turning cartwheels in the grass. It was so peaceful. In my mind that image has been changed. A shot rings out and everyone scatters for safety. The football is left abandon on the field. Peace is lost. I can't imagine being one of the guards. Have they ever had to fire their guns before? I'm sure it has changed their lives forever. Their peace is lost. I can't imagine being on the staff of the museum. When they go back to work in a few days they will be missing a coworker, a friend. Their peace is lost. In my mind there are just certain words that should not go together in phrases. A new phrase has been added to this list: museum shooting. The museum world has changed. I think most people in museums feel that museums are peaceful establishments of knowledge and learning (unless it's a children's museum - then it's a loud, fun crazy place of learning). That was changed today. Our peace was lost. The museum world is not only mourning the death of Officer Johns, we mourn the lost of our peace. Tomorrow every museum should have its flag at half mast.

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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