Class of 2009 Master's Project Abstracts

Heather Bouchey

Archaeological Museums and the Storage Shortage Crisis

I sought to inform professional archaeological collection managers about the possible solutions to resolve and ease the storage shortage crisis. This crisis stems from federal regulations and overpopulated facilities with poor environmental controls. Currently, storage facilities for archaeological objects are understaffed, inadequately funded, operating with improper environmental standards, and are depleted of museum quality square footage for the storage area's present collections. This storage problem continues to escalate as archaeological excavations increase due to land development for real estate developers and research potential among professional archaeologists. Compounding the storage problem are federal laws that govern how these objects must be stored within professional facilities.

The goal of my research is to illustrate the effects of these issues and the immediate need for solutions. My research consisted of one case study museum and additional interviews with cultural resource management companies and a federal organization. Analyzing the issues surrounding the storage shortage crisis allowed me to make recommendations to enable the continuation of archaeological excavations and create solutions for sustainable and ethical storage conditions for archaeological museums and their collections.

Melissa Delgado

Saving The Live: Better Ways for Museums to Document, Preserve and Acquire Performance Art

A performance can last seven minutes or seven hours; it can be done in someone's living room or at a museum. A performing artist can perform in front of one person or thousands. A performance can be about a simple gesture like a smile or it can involve self-mutilation with whips and fire. A performance can use music, dance or even be theatrical. No matter how long, or how big the venue is, or how many people attend. No matter the concept, the importance of performance art is that it has to be live. This master's thesis discusses ways that contemporary art museums in the United States can better acquire, document and preserve performance art. By conducting a series of interviews and case studies my research proposes better practice guidelines to contemporary art museums that in turn, I believe, can help in the process of documentation and preservation of newly acquired performance art works these institutions add to their permanent collections.

Arlene Galindo

Developing Hispanic Youth Audiences for Northern San Joaquin Valley Museums through Spanish Language Media

As the Hispanic population continues to dramatically increase in the San Joaquin Valley, so does the number of Hispanic media outlets that serve these communities. The role of Hispanic media is critical as it provides young Latinos and their families with information on how to connect with their communities through culture, heritage, language, news, and special interest issues. It is critical that museums in the San Joaquin Valley recognize, research, and communicate with Hispanic media to incorporate successful outreach and marketing strategies to attract Hispanic youth audiences.

Joseph M. Govednik

A Round Trip Ticket: Museums Complete the Airport Experience

Museums located in airports present unique challenges to operating in this non-traditional venue. Airport museums possess great advantages in increasing visitors though the high volume of captive pedestrian traffic using the airport daily. This master's project provides insight into what these unique challenges present to the museum professional operating in this environment, and through illustrating these challenges, better give airport administrators who are considering incorporating a museum into their facility a perspective from a museum professional's viewpoint. The museums selected for study in this project included the San Francisco Airport Museums, Cannon Aviation Museum in Las Vegas, and the Phoenix Airport Museum.

Joni M. Hess

A Museum's Museum: Procedural Consistency in Data Management Systems and the Preservation of Institutional Memory

Museums are the keepers, and in many ways, the interpreters of collective knowledge. As such, they have the responsibility to maintain consistent, high quality methods of record keeping. However as the individuals that make up an organization are serving shorter terms in positions, it is necessary to rely on databases (both paper and digital) to preserve the processes though which core decisions and institutional values were formed. These values shape the mission of a museum and determine its function. When they are unclear, the museum's purpose and direction are vague, ultimately diminishing its relevance. This project includes an original case study conducted at the Oakland Museum of California to learn how museum professionals view the role of databases, what issues are present and how they effect the preservation of institutional memory.

Matthew Isble

Collaborative Constructivism: A Case for Interdepartmental Exhibition Development in Art Museums

This masters work seeks to examine how the collaborative approach to exhibition development affects the visitor experience in art museums through a synthesis of learning theory literature, interviews with leaders in the museum field and employees working in three case study museums, the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the San José Museum of Art, and an analysis of personal and published evaluations. These sources are examined to understand how collaboration is initiated and its relative advantages and disadvantages as an exhibition development approach. I am arguing for increased collaboration in order to develop constructivist exhibitions and have developed a set of techniques to initiate and maintain the process along with typical mistakes made when art museums embark on such collaborations.

Michelle Sarjeant Kaufman

Protecting Museum Collections With Complete Digital Access

Access to museum collections is limited by the condition and fragility of an object as well as knowledge that the object exists within a collection. Providing access to collections is possible through the use of 3D image movies of original artifacts. Through the use of several low cost, readily available technologies, museum collections can remain protected while 3D digital images provide online access for community members and researchers alike. This master's project reviews past collection access practices, examines several current technologies and recommends how 3D image movies can be integrated in any museum's policies and practices.

L. Autumn King

Changing the Face of Museums: Do African American Museum Professionals Impact African American Audiences?

This master's project explores the need for American museums to hire more African American professionals to management and senior management positions that afford them decision/policy-making abilities effecting programming, marketing, acquisition, and exhibitions. The weight of influence that such appointments can have on institutions is examined and I aim to determine if appointing more qualified African Americans to decision making positions within institutions has the potential for American museums of all disciplines to create more sustainable relationships with African American audiences. I explore the affect that active recruitment of black Americans to such positions as one viable strategy for further diversifying the field. Further, I offer that such action is advantageous to museum institutions in many ways and further fulfills the tenets of the American Association of Museums.

Emilie Rae Louie

Stuffed and Stored: Taxidermy Donations to Natural History Museums

The essence of taxidermy is the arrangement of animals' skin on a realistic armature that would represent its appearance in the wild. Natural history museums have traditionally used taxidermy animals to give museum goers the unique experience of visiting the time and place the animal existed. Donations of animal materials, taxidermy animals and money have always been important to the sustainability the museum's collection. Recently museums have become more selective with the donations they accession into their collections due to lack of storage, and shifts in educational programming and display, but ironically the scope of scientific research that utilize museum collections has broadened. Unfortunately, the hunting and taxidermy collecting community - a main source of taxidermy specimen donations, has little information about the types of research and uses conducted with museum collections and their specimens do not typically conform to natural history museum standards. "Stuffed and Stored" gives recommendations based on information from the hunting community, museums can employ to reach out to this community of donors and publicize the types of information and specimens that would enrich their collections and make private collections more scientifically valuable for future generations.

Michelle Angelina Maghari

Museums Rising: The Millennial Generation as Transformers

A study conducted in 2009 by the Center of the Future of Museums brought to light the exodus of the Baby Boomer Generation in museum staffing. What's the next step for art museums to ensure a trained core of museum professionals bent on charging into the future? The purpose of this master's project is to inform the art museum community of ways to engage members of the Millennial Generation—individuals born between 1980 and 1990—in order to cultivate the next wave of museum professionals. I assessed the ways art museums are currently recruiting and training members of the Millennial Generation through an in-depth case study of the Museum Experience Representative program at the San Jose Museum of Art as a model for the field. I interviewed nineteen past and current participants to find out how their involvement in the program impacted their careers. I also interviewed nine museum professionals to determine the importance of soliciting Millennials as the next wave of museum professionals. To provide more information on the impacts of MER program, I purpose that a longitudinal study be conducted of the program occurring 5-10 years out to assess the long-term effects.

Jocelyn Park

Art Museums, Do You Copy? Standards on the Care and Handling of Facsimiles Exhibited in Art Museums

This project aims to analyze the current practices of the care and handling of facsimiles in art museums in the United States. For the purpose of this project, I consider facsimiles to be replicas, modern reproductions, exhibition copies, and reconstructions of original art. Once exhibited in the museum, facsimiles becomes part of the history of the museum. However, my research reveals that facsimiles are often mistreated because they are categorized as facsimiles, unattributed, or are not part of the museum's collection. With my project, I present guidelines to the museum collections management and registration field on proper care and handling methods for facsimiles exhibited in the United States so that museums may avoid mistreating what was once exhibited in their galleries, and give the attention that facsimiles deserve as they serve a didactic purpose, and represent the artists' intention and integrity of the original.

My research included a survey to collections personnel to investigate the prevalence of facsimiles exhibited in America's art museums. I also interviewed professionals in the field from the San Francisco Bay Area and Tucson, Arizona to discover methods, if any, on the care and handling of facsimiles. The results showed that four out of five museums exhibit facsimiles. Results also confirmed the museums' need for professional protocol on the care and handling of them. Thus, I assembled guidelines that emphasized the following four elements: standards for acquisition, methods of disposing facsimiles, standardized numbering systems to track facsimiles, and methods of storage.

Julianne Prenoveau

The Diminishing School Field Trip: Creating Alternative Connections between History Museums and the Middle School Student

This project examines how the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), commonly referred to as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has impacted history museums. One impact is a de-emphasis on school field trips to history museums, and how this affects the middle school student.

In this project I explore how history museums use the school field trip as an as an access point for museum educators to begin a relationship with school audiences and how these school field trips benefit the students' education. Without these field trips, history museums need to find an alternative access point to introduce the museum to middle school students. Some of the recommendations include creating a compelling and interactive website that combines learning theory with online activities and history museum educators engaging in conversations with middle school students.

Jennifer Spotswood

Communication is the "Pointe": Exploring Museum and Dance Organization Collaborations

The goal of this study is to raise awareness that collaborations are occurring between museums and dance organizations in the United States, to provide a tool for museum educators and dance educators, and to promote the creation and sustainability of these collaborations. Successful collaborations between museums and dance organizations serve local communities by providing programming that creates opportunities for different forms of interpretation that can provide connections between the visitors and the content. These successful collaborations can also expand the possibilities of both the museum and dance organization by providing both institutions with new opportunities for exposure and increased audiences. Finally, successful collaborations promote an appreciation of the arts.