Feedback, Budgets, and Brainstorming

How to best describe our fourth (fifth, really) week of exhibit planning? We seem to be in that quasi-purgatory between planning and doing. This week’s theme really seemed to be visitor’s studies, and all the fun and frustration that comes with it. Even a great idea is just that, an idea, and without public interest it won’t get any further. This is where evaluations come in.

In our exhibits class this week we discussed front-end, formative, and summative evaluations (for more information on evaluations and visitor's studies, check out our other blog). We started developing survey questions to get feedback from our perspective audiences on what they would like to see in our exhibit. This helps us learn what the public already knows about the subject and what they would be interested in seeing. The list of questions still needs revising so we can get as much useful, unbiased information as possible. This whole process should be done within the next couple of weeks, so expect to hear more very soon!

Our different committees are also really starting to get the ball rolling. Design, education, and social media have been busy brainstorming these past few weeks. Already there’s several good ideas on how to market our exhibit and make it more interactive for visitors. We even have some early design for posters and other visual media! The curators and registrars have been busy looking for content, as well as contacting the different organizations about potential artifacts. (Extra kudos to Cayla and Amanda for being persistent in contacting some of the more persnickety institutions!)

This is a screenshot of our current preliminary objects list, along with the corresponding exhibit case each item will be in.

We have also been thinking about the budget for the project (when are we not, really?), and have a few new avenues to pursue. This week, our professors resubmitted for a grant which will hopefully get us lots of money for printing costs. There are also a few local grants and funding opportunities through the university, ranging from $300 to $500. This year several of these grants have been opened up from only STEM students to the humanities students, and the odds of getting one are pretty high! Hopefully this means that more of our ideas can come to fruition.

Each week we are getting one step closer to opening a fantastic exhibit!