Class of 2003 Master's Project Abstracts
Allison Akbay
Collecting Cultural Property: Art Museums and Pre-Columbian Artwork Pre-Columbian Mayan artwork has been collected by many art museums in the United States. However, the fact that Mayan artwork is often looted from archeological sites has led many to question the origin of Mayan artwork in museums. This controversy is part of the larger discussion surrounding the collection of cultural property, a thing or things of historical, artistic, cultural or scientific value owned, or claimed to be owned, by a nation and its people. As cultural property is claimed to be owned by a nation and its people there can be questions raised as to whether it is alienable and whether any museum has the right to own such property. In this project I investigate the laws and treaties that surround the collection of Mayan artwork by museums in the United States to bring to light the ethical and legal dilemmas that museums face when collecting any type of cultural property. Through surveys of art museum professionals and museum collection management policies, I developed recommendations for museum professionals and boards of trustees on the crafting of museum policies to avoid acquiring illicit or looted cultural property. These recommendations are presented in the project's accompanying handbook, Collecting Cultural Property: Policy Solutions for Museums. By following the recommendations provided, a museum will be well on its way to avoiding any legal complications or controversies that could damage its reputation and endanger the future of its collection. Victoria Deardorff
Seeking Sustainability: Collaborations between Science Museums and Community-Based Organizations During the 1990s, museum organizations, including the American Association of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), supported community programmatic partnerships through national initiatives and publications. While helpful for the establishment of museum-community relationships, these professional association attempts at community inclusiveness did not adequately address aspects for sustaining these partnerships. As a result, numerous community relationships suffered from a lack of visionary long-term planning and failed to achieve a lasting link between museums and communities. Taking into account the perspectives of both museum professionals and community organizers, this master's project investigates the conditions necessary for the creation of sustainable partnerships, and in particular, relationships between science museums and community-based organizations. Sustainability is defined not only as a length of time, but also includes strategic planning, intentional relationship cultivation, and acknowledgement of community resources as a bridge between the museum and community. Utilizing data from two national surveys and two case studies of museums that participated in the ASTC YouthALIVE! initiative, seven recommendations are presented to museum educators as well as the museum field for creating sustainable museum-community relationships. Additionally, this project advocates for incorporating sustainability into the museum field's definition of collaboration. Naida L. Kendrick
Building Viable Museum Schools: Lessons Learned by School and Museum Administrators to Ensure their Success Museums and schools have both taken on new significance and have been put under new pressures, as the definition of education has expanded to include the lifelong process of developing knowledge, skills, and character that takes place not only in the classroom, but in a variety of formal and informal settings. Museum schools collaborative projects of large scope where at least one museum and one school or school district design and operate a public school with the benefits of a museum are one way that the new definition of education has manifested itself, offering the strengths of both the formal and informal learning environment. Building upon the existing knowledge base about the emerging field of museum schools, the purpose of this master's project was to uncover the administrative, organizational and funding issues faced by museum schools, and propose strategies of how to develop a viable museum school. This research provides a framework from which professionals in the museum, foundation, school district, city, or state government community can evaluate requirements for investment in time, funding, research, and resources when contemplating opening a museum school. It also offers insights into the complexity of creating and sustaining a museum school, especially for those who seek to develop or plan to support a school reform strategy leveraging the informal educational resources found in museums. Wendy Norris
Insuring the Weird and Wonderful: Towards a Group Insurance Program for United States Art Museums The purpose of my master?s project is to inform art museum administrators of an alternative method of purchasing their institutions? insurance, including (but not limited to) fine arts, property, and liability insurance. Through a case study of the Canadian Museum Associations group insurance program, I demonstrate how a group insurance program can reduce the cost of art museums ? insurance without compromising the amount and quality of their current insurance coverage. I also explain how art museum administrators have traditionally purchased their insurance and illustrate how, through a group insurance program, they can leverage their buying power, decrease institutional insurance expenses, and strengthen professional ties with other art museums in the United States. Anel Rodriguez
When Dolls Cry: Proper Storage Techniques for Plastic Artifacts in Historical Museum Collections The purpose of this project is to inform general collections personnel working with historical museums, historical society and historic house collections in the United States about proper storage procedures to promote the longevity of plastic artifacts as well as protect them from inevitable degradation. I have chosen to focus on cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and polyurethane foam because they are among the most fragile plastics in museum collections. Taking the form of jewelry, eyeglasses, dental plates, and other personal effects, plastic has become as ubiquitous to our popular cultural history as television. However, the museum community has only recently discovered the need for its care. Far from being "indestructible", artifacts made of early plastics in museum collections have not only begun to degrade but are also endangering other collection items through off-gassing. Many of the dangers have been researched in recent years, but only by and among conservators who have put forward a number of preventive conservation standards for plastics. Proper storage is noted throughout the literature as the number one method of care. Unfortunately, for collections personnel, storage of plastics not only involves knowing how to store the different types of plastics but also being able to distinguish one plastic from the other. Traditionally, conservators, who have an extensive knowledge of chemistry, are able to make such distinctions. This project makes this information easily accessible and discernible for collections staff who are the individuals ultimately responsible for storage. I accomplished my research through a review of the literature discussing plastic and American culture, preventive conservation standards, and specific scientific properties of cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and polyurethane foam. Combined with interviews and survey results from historical institutions throughout the United States, I was able to create a manual that teaches collections professionals how to identify cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate, and polyurethane foam and provides the appropriate storage recommendations for each plastic. Melinda Simms
'Found in Collections': Reconciling Undocumented Objects in Historical Museums My master's project examines the confusion that history museums and historical societies in the U.S. face when reconciling undocumented objects'what most institutions refer to as 'found in collections,' or FIC, objects. For the purposes of my study the term 'undocumented objects' is defined as those objects in a museum's physical possession or control that lack documentation and/or sufficient evidence to prove museum ownership. They are objects that 'turn up' within the museum absent of numbers, descriptions, or documentary paperwork. Undocumented objects can be anything and everything a museum collects'and sometimes things they do not collect. FIC objects are not unique to historical institutions; they can exist in other types of institutions as well. However, because of past collecting practices, historical institutions are particularly vulnerable to the problem. The aim of my project was to research how collecting practices in American historical institutions have contributed to the present problem of FIC objects; examine museums' current procedures for reconciling their objects; and discuss the challenges of reconciling FIC items. The outcome of my research is a reference guide with procedural recommendations and research appendices for historical institutions that find themselves challenged by the task of reconciling their FIC objects. The guide is titled 'Found in Collections': Reconciling Undocumented Objects in Historical Museums and can be found online at www.foundincollections.com . Tatyana D. Sizonenko
Remolding the Museum's Image through Branding: Benefits and Challenges Associated with Branding in San Francisco Bay Area Museums In today's competitive environment and the increasing pressures of the free market economy, museums have to adopt advanced marketing techniques that can bring people in the door, raise credibility in the eye of donors and the general public, and boost revenues. One such technique is branding, or positioning, commonly defined as a promise that exists in the public's mind about who one is and what one does. Branding still is a fledgling strategy for museum administrators. Museum professionals often misunderstand branding and perceive it as a commercial, expensive, and 'pigeon-holing' practice. Many do not recognize it as a core organizational strategy directly related to the museum's mission. This project argues that branding is a powerful marketing strategy that can help an organization not only to stand out among its competitors but also to articulate the motivation behind its work, mission, philosophy, artistic and intellectual values, and offerings. A major objective is to raise awareness among museum professionals about the best possible practices that can sustain the museum's core business into the future. The findings of this master's project are based on a literature review, a survey mailed to 37 marketing directors of San Francisco Bay Area museums, interviews with 25 senior museum administrators, and three case studies of Bay Area art museums which recently undertook branding campaigns. Overall, the data indicates a positive impact of branding on the case study institutions. The findings of this project shaped the recommendations, which describe how this strategy can be applied in the museum field. Jessica Strick
Paying Attention to Distraction: Science Museum Environments and Visitor Attention Filled with the buzz of hands-on exhibits and energized visitors, science museums can be compelling places to learn and experience phenomena. At the same time, the very qualities that distinguish science museums can also aggravate, over-stimulate and erode a visitor's ability to focus and contemplate. This project examines how the environment in science museums affects visitor attention. As a part of the research for this project, a comparative study was conducted at the Exploratorium using curtains around exhibits to test the affect of restricted visual access on visitor attention. Not only did this study present one possible strategy for reducing distraction, its results, combined with findings culled from the environmental and cognitive psychology fields, calls into question the value of 'holding power,' the museum field's primary method of evaluating visitor attention. Rather than assuming the simplified notion that attention is quantifiable by holding time, this project aims to present a qualitative, complex, and broadly informed understanding of attention and its significant relationship to the environment. Anna Marie Tutera
Pop Goes Museum Culture: A Case Study of 'Hip-hop Nation' and Its School and Youth Programs This master's project examines the impact of using hip-hop in American museums to engage young people from local communities in relevant learning experiences. To understand how hip-hop'defined in this project as a multidisciplinary art form, cultural expression, and emerging social movement'has successfully been deployed in museum education, I present an in-depth case study of the school and youth programs associated with Hip-Hop Nation, a multidisciplinary arts festival that was presented in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from May 19 through August 12, 2001. A comprehensive case study'based on findings from a literature review and extensive in-person interviews'of this festival's school and youth programs reveals that mutually reciprocal and sustainable partnerships with local communities are essential to creating accessible hip-hop programming. Given my findings, I make recommendations for future youth-specific programs on hip-hop culture. In particular, I emphasize that museums must partner with local non-profit youth organizations that focus on youth organizing and activism. Although this project is intended for museum educators nationwide, it is germane to numerous other constituencies, including museum exhibitors and curators, high school students, non-profit youth educators, youth organizers, youth development workers, schoolteachers, and foundation program officers. Kay Ziff
Adult Visitors and Children's Museum Exhibitions: What Are They Doing Here? More than ten million adults visit children's museums annually, comprising over one third of total visitation to these institutions. When adults participate in children's museum exhibitions they enrich their own experiences and their children's'but too often exhibits are not developed with adults in mind, leaving them to their own devices, to chat with friends, sit and stare into space, or otherwise disregard the exhibit. This disconnect is reflected in the museum professional literature, which reports on few studies of adult visitors to children's museums, and offers even fewer models of exhibit development practices that incorporate techniques for assessing and improving adult visitors' experiences. To test methods for reducing this gap, I observed adult visitors to four Bay Area children's museum exhibits and interviewed museum staff who had contributed to the development of them. I found that on average adults spent less than half of their time actively participating in exhibit activities (manipulating exhibits or talking about them), but that exhibit components that were designed with adults in mind were more likely to engage them. Formative evaluation'brief, structured observations of adults using prototype exhibits'emerged from this study as the optimal means to better plan for adults in exhibits. These visitors are already coming to museums'exhibit development teams owe it to them and their children to provide an engaging experience for all ages.
Collecting Cultural Property: Art Museums and Pre-Columbian Artwork Pre-Columbian Mayan artwork has been collected by many art museums in the United States. However, the fact that Mayan artwork is often looted from archeological sites has led many to question the origin of Mayan artwork in museums. This controversy is part of the larger discussion surrounding the collection of cultural property, a thing or things of historical, artistic, cultural or scientific value owned, or claimed to be owned, by a nation and its people. As cultural property is claimed to be owned by a nation and its people there can be questions raised as to whether it is alienable and whether any museum has the right to own such property. In this project I investigate the laws and treaties that surround the collection of Mayan artwork by museums in the United States to bring to light the ethical and legal dilemmas that museums face when collecting any type of cultural property. Through surveys of art museum professionals and museum collection management policies, I developed recommendations for museum professionals and boards of trustees on the crafting of museum policies to avoid acquiring illicit or looted cultural property. These recommendations are presented in the project's accompanying handbook, Collecting Cultural Property: Policy Solutions for Museums. By following the recommendations provided, a museum will be well on its way to avoiding any legal complications or controversies that could damage its reputation and endanger the future of its collection. Victoria Deardorff
Seeking Sustainability: Collaborations between Science Museums and Community-Based Organizations During the 1990s, museum organizations, including the American Association of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), supported community programmatic partnerships through national initiatives and publications. While helpful for the establishment of museum-community relationships, these professional association attempts at community inclusiveness did not adequately address aspects for sustaining these partnerships. As a result, numerous community relationships suffered from a lack of visionary long-term planning and failed to achieve a lasting link between museums and communities. Taking into account the perspectives of both museum professionals and community organizers, this master's project investigates the conditions necessary for the creation of sustainable partnerships, and in particular, relationships between science museums and community-based organizations. Sustainability is defined not only as a length of time, but also includes strategic planning, intentional relationship cultivation, and acknowledgement of community resources as a bridge between the museum and community. Utilizing data from two national surveys and two case studies of museums that participated in the ASTC YouthALIVE! initiative, seven recommendations are presented to museum educators as well as the museum field for creating sustainable museum-community relationships. Additionally, this project advocates for incorporating sustainability into the museum field's definition of collaboration. Naida L. Kendrick
Building Viable Museum Schools: Lessons Learned by School and Museum Administrators to Ensure their Success Museums and schools have both taken on new significance and have been put under new pressures, as the definition of education has expanded to include the lifelong process of developing knowledge, skills, and character that takes place not only in the classroom, but in a variety of formal and informal settings. Museum schools collaborative projects of large scope where at least one museum and one school or school district design and operate a public school with the benefits of a museum are one way that the new definition of education has manifested itself, offering the strengths of both the formal and informal learning environment. Building upon the existing knowledge base about the emerging field of museum schools, the purpose of this master's project was to uncover the administrative, organizational and funding issues faced by museum schools, and propose strategies of how to develop a viable museum school. This research provides a framework from which professionals in the museum, foundation, school district, city, or state government community can evaluate requirements for investment in time, funding, research, and resources when contemplating opening a museum school. It also offers insights into the complexity of creating and sustaining a museum school, especially for those who seek to develop or plan to support a school reform strategy leveraging the informal educational resources found in museums. Wendy Norris
Insuring the Weird and Wonderful: Towards a Group Insurance Program for United States Art Museums The purpose of my master?s project is to inform art museum administrators of an alternative method of purchasing their institutions? insurance, including (but not limited to) fine arts, property, and liability insurance. Through a case study of the Canadian Museum Associations group insurance program, I demonstrate how a group insurance program can reduce the cost of art museums ? insurance without compromising the amount and quality of their current insurance coverage. I also explain how art museum administrators have traditionally purchased their insurance and illustrate how, through a group insurance program, they can leverage their buying power, decrease institutional insurance expenses, and strengthen professional ties with other art museums in the United States. Anel Rodriguez
When Dolls Cry: Proper Storage Techniques for Plastic Artifacts in Historical Museum Collections The purpose of this project is to inform general collections personnel working with historical museums, historical society and historic house collections in the United States about proper storage procedures to promote the longevity of plastic artifacts as well as protect them from inevitable degradation. I have chosen to focus on cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and polyurethane foam because they are among the most fragile plastics in museum collections. Taking the form of jewelry, eyeglasses, dental plates, and other personal effects, plastic has become as ubiquitous to our popular cultural history as television. However, the museum community has only recently discovered the need for its care. Far from being "indestructible", artifacts made of early plastics in museum collections have not only begun to degrade but are also endangering other collection items through off-gassing. Many of the dangers have been researched in recent years, but only by and among conservators who have put forward a number of preventive conservation standards for plastics. Proper storage is noted throughout the literature as the number one method of care. Unfortunately, for collections personnel, storage of plastics not only involves knowing how to store the different types of plastics but also being able to distinguish one plastic from the other. Traditionally, conservators, who have an extensive knowledge of chemistry, are able to make such distinctions. This project makes this information easily accessible and discernible for collections staff who are the individuals ultimately responsible for storage. I accomplished my research through a review of the literature discussing plastic and American culture, preventive conservation standards, and specific scientific properties of cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and polyurethane foam. Combined with interviews and survey results from historical institutions throughout the United States, I was able to create a manual that teaches collections professionals how to identify cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate, and polyurethane foam and provides the appropriate storage recommendations for each plastic. Melinda Simms
'Found in Collections': Reconciling Undocumented Objects in Historical Museums My master's project examines the confusion that history museums and historical societies in the U.S. face when reconciling undocumented objects'what most institutions refer to as 'found in collections,' or FIC, objects. For the purposes of my study the term 'undocumented objects' is defined as those objects in a museum's physical possession or control that lack documentation and/or sufficient evidence to prove museum ownership. They are objects that 'turn up' within the museum absent of numbers, descriptions, or documentary paperwork. Undocumented objects can be anything and everything a museum collects'and sometimes things they do not collect. FIC objects are not unique to historical institutions; they can exist in other types of institutions as well. However, because of past collecting practices, historical institutions are particularly vulnerable to the problem. The aim of my project was to research how collecting practices in American historical institutions have contributed to the present problem of FIC objects; examine museums' current procedures for reconciling their objects; and discuss the challenges of reconciling FIC items. The outcome of my research is a reference guide with procedural recommendations and research appendices for historical institutions that find themselves challenged by the task of reconciling their FIC objects. The guide is titled 'Found in Collections': Reconciling Undocumented Objects in Historical Museums and can be found online at www.foundincollections.com . Tatyana D. Sizonenko
Remolding the Museum's Image through Branding: Benefits and Challenges Associated with Branding in San Francisco Bay Area Museums In today's competitive environment and the increasing pressures of the free market economy, museums have to adopt advanced marketing techniques that can bring people in the door, raise credibility in the eye of donors and the general public, and boost revenues. One such technique is branding, or positioning, commonly defined as a promise that exists in the public's mind about who one is and what one does. Branding still is a fledgling strategy for museum administrators. Museum professionals often misunderstand branding and perceive it as a commercial, expensive, and 'pigeon-holing' practice. Many do not recognize it as a core organizational strategy directly related to the museum's mission. This project argues that branding is a powerful marketing strategy that can help an organization not only to stand out among its competitors but also to articulate the motivation behind its work, mission, philosophy, artistic and intellectual values, and offerings. A major objective is to raise awareness among museum professionals about the best possible practices that can sustain the museum's core business into the future. The findings of this master's project are based on a literature review, a survey mailed to 37 marketing directors of San Francisco Bay Area museums, interviews with 25 senior museum administrators, and three case studies of Bay Area art museums which recently undertook branding campaigns. Overall, the data indicates a positive impact of branding on the case study institutions. The findings of this project shaped the recommendations, which describe how this strategy can be applied in the museum field. Jessica Strick
Paying Attention to Distraction: Science Museum Environments and Visitor Attention Filled with the buzz of hands-on exhibits and energized visitors, science museums can be compelling places to learn and experience phenomena. At the same time, the very qualities that distinguish science museums can also aggravate, over-stimulate and erode a visitor's ability to focus and contemplate. This project examines how the environment in science museums affects visitor attention. As a part of the research for this project, a comparative study was conducted at the Exploratorium using curtains around exhibits to test the affect of restricted visual access on visitor attention. Not only did this study present one possible strategy for reducing distraction, its results, combined with findings culled from the environmental and cognitive psychology fields, calls into question the value of 'holding power,' the museum field's primary method of evaluating visitor attention. Rather than assuming the simplified notion that attention is quantifiable by holding time, this project aims to present a qualitative, complex, and broadly informed understanding of attention and its significant relationship to the environment. Anna Marie Tutera
Pop Goes Museum Culture: A Case Study of 'Hip-hop Nation' and Its School and Youth Programs This master's project examines the impact of using hip-hop in American museums to engage young people from local communities in relevant learning experiences. To understand how hip-hop'defined in this project as a multidisciplinary art form, cultural expression, and emerging social movement'has successfully been deployed in museum education, I present an in-depth case study of the school and youth programs associated with Hip-Hop Nation, a multidisciplinary arts festival that was presented in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from May 19 through August 12, 2001. A comprehensive case study'based on findings from a literature review and extensive in-person interviews'of this festival's school and youth programs reveals that mutually reciprocal and sustainable partnerships with local communities are essential to creating accessible hip-hop programming. Given my findings, I make recommendations for future youth-specific programs on hip-hop culture. In particular, I emphasize that museums must partner with local non-profit youth organizations that focus on youth organizing and activism. Although this project is intended for museum educators nationwide, it is germane to numerous other constituencies, including museum exhibitors and curators, high school students, non-profit youth educators, youth organizers, youth development workers, schoolteachers, and foundation program officers. Kay Ziff
Adult Visitors and Children's Museum Exhibitions: What Are They Doing Here? More than ten million adults visit children's museums annually, comprising over one third of total visitation to these institutions. When adults participate in children's museum exhibitions they enrich their own experiences and their children's'but too often exhibits are not developed with adults in mind, leaving them to their own devices, to chat with friends, sit and stare into space, or otherwise disregard the exhibit. This disconnect is reflected in the museum professional literature, which reports on few studies of adult visitors to children's museums, and offers even fewer models of exhibit development practices that incorporate techniques for assessing and improving adult visitors' experiences. To test methods for reducing this gap, I observed adult visitors to four Bay Area children's museum exhibits and interviewed museum staff who had contributed to the development of them. I found that on average adults spent less than half of their time actively participating in exhibit activities (manipulating exhibits or talking about them), but that exhibit components that were designed with adults in mind were more likely to engage them. Formative evaluation'brief, structured observations of adults using prototype exhibits'emerged from this study as the optimal means to better plan for adults in exhibits. These visitors are already coming to museums'exhibit development teams owe it to them and their children to provide an engaging experience for all ages.