I have a hobby of photographing scientifically incorrect explanations on placards at science museums. Usually found in smaller towns.
My favorite example of this is an exhibit that I saw at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh many years ago. There was a diorama of several forest animals, and an interface that shined lights on animals with different features. The "lays eggs" light shined on an assortment of animals including a Rabbit. Rabbits don't lay eggs, they only deliver them to good boys and girls. We pointed this out to a wor…
Obviously, an easter egg. Well done Carnegie Museum! :-)
One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.
I don't remember the big Kensington museums being like that when I was a kid. There was a kids' section or two, but the rest was clearly for adults (and has stuck in my memory just as much, if not more than, the kids' sections). Seeing the real Apollo 10 (I don't remember which module) sticks very clearly in my memory. I also rode on a "heritage" train recently, and what struck me the most was that the interior decor…
The blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling of the Museum of Natural History left an indelible impression in my mind when I was six.
> But these physical exhibits require maintenance, and I was dismayed to see that several are in bad repair; some of them weren’t even working anymore, some seemed worn out, or didn’t seem well-designed to begin with. To be fair, that's what I remember children's museums being like in the 1980s as well. A significant number of exhibits would be temporarily out of order on any given day. I don't think screens are resp…
Yes, but this is the core of what they're offering. As the son of a science museum director, I've seen exactly what it takes to keep hands on science exhibits going. I agree with the article here, although I think it's appropriate to have some screens if required for an exhibit (e.g. a thermal imaging system)
This, exactly.
Sure, ok, it requires whatever it requires. That's the product. Don't do it and you have essentially no product.
> But these physical exhibits require maintenance, and I was dismayed to see that several are in bad repair; some of them weren’t even working anymore, some seemed worn out, or didn’t seem well-designed to begin with. To be fair, that's what I remember children's museums being like in the 1980s as well. A significant number of exhibits would be temporarily out of order on any given day. I don't think screens are resp…
It's not just museum exhibits and kids, it's everything . I have some maintenance roles in my background and the rate at which things like paper towel dispensers get worn down and completely destroyed when interacted with by hundreds or thousands of people a day is eye opening.
Sometimes I really feel like this is a cultural problem rather than a maintenance problem. Visiting Japan was really eye-opening for me. They have almost no trash cans in public places, but they also have far less litter; it's just a cultural norm that you might have to carry your trash for a while, and people just do it. There are great clean public bathrooms everywhere, because they are so much easier to maintain -- no one destroys them, there's no need to lock them up. They don't have to worry about paper towel dispensers being destroyed, because they don't have them; instead, everyone carries around a handkerchief-sized towel in their pocket.
I don’t know about museums near you, but most museums I’ve been to internationally are free to enter and to see most of their exhibits. They’ll often have much more in their collections than what’s on display, but they’re absolutely still a public good. We also have a responsibility to preserve stuff from the past for future generations. As our ancestors have done for us.
Interesting idea of free museums. I can't think of one museum I've ever been to that did not require purchasing a ticket. Granted, in my limited travels abroad, it has been for work with no time for that kind of thing, so my experience is solely with museums in the US.
> The philosophy of preservation runs deep and you won't struggle to find curators whose favourite day of the week is when the museum is closed to the public. Which gets back to the question - why does/should the public support a museum. If we can't see it why are we keeping it? Even with our best preservation things will be destroyed over/with time, some things quicker than others. So if people don't get to see it w…
I'm reminded of the very final scene in Raider of the Lost Ark where the Ark is deposited into a giant government warehouse full of who knows what-all historical artifacts and such, everything in various sized crates, and the whole thing just gets closed up and forgotten about. At least, that's how I remember it, but it's been a while.... I'll really have to go re-watch that actually.
i'm confused. in what way is this a response to the article? the article laments the sidelining of physical exhibits, in favor of software. you respond that the screens probably have an arduous and expensive procurement process. what's going on here?
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It's called a conversation, and yes, those happen here on HN.
When my kid was going to start preschool, we went to see a relatively posh private school in the neighborhood. The first thing they showed was a photo of a 3-year-old kid solving a jigsaw puzzle in a big touchscreen. A jigsaw puzzle, you know, that thing where 80% of the challenge for a kid that age is physically inserting the pieces the right way. In a touchscreen! They also boasted about not having any books until…
I wonder if there would be a market for schools or daycares offering "pre-digital" style classrooms with emphasis on books, blocks, puzzles, art, outdoor time, and policies to limit phones/screens. On the other hand, these kids will eventually end up in a world saturated with displays and maybe even AR, so there's some argument for getting them involved with digital stuff at some point.
I mean, that’s Montessori.
Plenty of opportunities to get exposure to digital stuff outside of school.
My wife and I toured our neighborhood public elementary school a couple years ago. Almost every classroom we passed the kids were staring at their chromebooks, even in the art room—digital art, I guess [1]. In the music room the kids were sitting at rows of desks with electronic keyboards and headphones while the teacher sat at the front of the class and gave them instructions through a microphone (to be heard throug…
When my kid was going to start preschool, we went to see a relatively posh private school in the neighborhood. The first thing they showed was a photo of a 3-year-old kid solving a jigsaw puzzle in a big touchscreen. A jigsaw puzzle, you know, that thing where 80% of the challenge for a kid that age is physically inserting the pieces the right way. In a touchscreen! They also boasted about not having any books until…
Now days is is the other way around, the expensive private schools boast no/minimal screens and the public schools have Chromebooks.
The gamification of an entire industry. Call me Boomer, but i'm into nice handcrafted, oldschool museums with as little interactive and other electronic media as possible.