FOSSIL LABORATORY EXHIBITIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS:
COMMUNICATING THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF FOSSIL RESEARCH WITH VISITORS
by
Annette Marie Gavigan
5 January 2007
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts in
Museum Studies
in the
School of Education and Liberal Arts at
John F. Kennedy University
Approved: Department Chair Date
To my parents
TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE 8 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES 10 METHODOLOGY 13 LIMITATIONS OF METHODOLOGY 20 LITERATURE REVIEW 23 Exhibiting Fossils in United States Natural History Museums 24 Working Laboratories as Exhibit Techniques 39 Early Studies of the Impact of Working Fossil Laboratories 46
and Related Exhibitions on Museum Visitors
FINDINGS 63 Defining Features of a Working Fossil Laboratory 65 Developing a Working Fossil Laboratory 70 Visitor Experience at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of 77
Natural Sciences in Philadelphia Challenges of Operating Working Fossil Laboratory 94 Exhibitions CONCLUSIONS 96 RECOMMENDATIONS 102
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 114 APPENDICES 128 Appendix A. Professional Interview Instrument Appendix B. Visitor Exit Survey Appendix C. Visitor Usage Data Collection Sheet Appendix D. Fossil Laboratory Images Appendix E. Timeline of Working Fossil Laboratory Openings and
Renovations Appendix F. Skills for Good Guides Engaged in Quality Unscripted
Interpretation Appendix G. Glossary PRODUCT 152 “Working Fossil Laboratories as Public Exhibitions” Submitted for publication on www.fossilprep.org
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank many people for their guidance and support
throughout this project.
Special thanks to Laura Kay, Christine Krajewski, and Marjorie
Schwarzer.
Many thanks to Melinda Adams, Kathleen Brown, Matt Brown, Joshua
Gutwill, Lisa Hubbell, Mary Kidwell, Lisa Noshay Petro, Andrew
Pekarik, Jason Poole, Susan Spero, John Taylor, and Maia Werner‐
Avidon. Many thanks to my interviewees: Gordon Amborosino, William
Akerston, Warren Allmon, Tony Fiorillo, Ph.D., John Flynn, Ph.D.,
Richard Greif, Eric D. Gyllenhaal, Ph.D., Hildegard Heine, Jim Holstein,
Steve Jabo, Frances Kruger, Wendy Lovelady, Margie Marino, Steve
Nash, Ph.D., Ken Newman, Don Pohlman, Vince Schneider, Bill Simpson,
Bryan Small, Christopher Shaw, John Terrell, Ph.D., Todd Tubutis, and
Ron Tykoski, Ph.D. Thanks to staff in the California Academy of Sciences
Library.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Ever since the first dinosaur skeleton was mounted for exhibition in 1868 [at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia], the public has had a fascination with these extinct animals…Today almost every country has at least one dinosaur skeleton on display… Many museums strapped financially have turned to dinosaurs to draw visitors (and their money). Robotic dinosaurs, in temporary exhibit halls, turn their pneumatic heads, swing their tails, and growl. Meanwhile, the museum gift shop offers stuffed dinosaurs, dinosaur erasers, wooden dinosaur skeleton kits, dinosaur cookie cutters, and anything else remotely dinosaurian to the public, as souvenirs.1
Visitor study after visitor study conducted in natural history museums
suggests, “everyone loves dinosaurs.”2 “Dinosaur fans,” as one 1995
study at the National Museum of Natural History shows, are mostly
comprised of adults visiting with children, but span all genders, age
groups, educational levels, and “visitor types.”3 According to
Smithsonian Program Analyst Stacey Bielick,
1 Ken Carpenter, “Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits,” in The Complete Dinosaur, eds. James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett‐Surman, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997): 150. 2 S. Bielick, A. J. Pekarik, and Z.D. Doering, Beyond the Elephant: A Report based on the 1994‐1995 National Museum of Natural History Visitor Survey, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1995): vi. 3 Ibid., 35.
1
Whether there was a special exhibition or not, more visitors stayed longer with the dinosaurs than with any other part of the museum…. Visitors who spent most of their time with Dinosaurs (one quarter of all visitors) were disproportionately impressed by seeing the real thing.4
Visitors are also interested in watching people work on real fossils in
laboratory exhibitions. such as the Academy of Natural Science’s Fossil
Prep Lab. Here, visitors can see the human dimension of fossil research.
They can look at fossils displayed on tables, on walls, or with signs.
Visitors can watch preparators or volunteers preparing fossils at window
workstations and also can talk with them about their work.
Working fossil laboratories have been a component of natural history
museum exhibitions in the United States since the 1970s and are a
growing exhibit trend, although they have not been comprehensively
studied as exhibition techniques or as visitor experiences. For my
master’s thesis project, I investigated how natural history museums can
develop and design working fossil laboratory exhibitions to communicate
4 S. Bielick, A. J. Pekarik, and Z.D. Doering, Beyond the Elephant: A Report based on the 1994‐1995 National Museum of Natural History Visitor Survey, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1995): vi‐vii.
2
their research and educational missions to visitors. My purpose was to
understand working fossil laboratories as exhibits within the context of
the history of fossil displays in natural history museums and the two
hundred‐year long debate in these museums over how to balance their
core functions of research and public education. I interviewed 21 museum
professionals involved in developing or working in fossil laboratories at
eight natural history museums in the United States.5 I also conducted an
in‐depth visitor study at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural
Sciences in Philadelphia, which utilized and expanded on a visitor
studies instrument developed by researchers at the Smithsonian.6 My
visitor study examined the relationships between the messages visitors
take away, the impact of talking with an expert, the experiences visitors
find satisfying, and visitors’ experience ratings. Based on the results from
interviews and visitor studies, I determined the opportunities and
5 Natural history museums in the United States with working fossil laboratories include the Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY; Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.; North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh; Dallas Museum of Natural History, TX; Field Museum, Chicago, IL; Denver Museum of Nature and Science, CO; and the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA. For this project, at least one natural history museum with a working fossil laboratory was selected from each geographic region in the United States (with the exception of the Northwest).
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addressed the challenges of operating working fossil laboratories as
public exhibitions.
The literature review, which is the first chapter of this project, covers
three main sections: fossil displays in natural history museums, working
laboratories as exhibit techniques, and studies of the impact of fossil
laboratories and related exhibitions on museum visitors. It reveals that
changes in the methods of displaying fossils like Hadrosaurus foulkii
occurred in tandem with changes in the function of natural history
museums. Since the first half of the nineteenth century, the core functions
of natural history museums oscillated between collecting, research, and
public education. As these museums increasingly became intent on
merging their collecting and research functions with the needs and
desires of their public, more dynamic exhibits such as working fossil
laboratories became popular.
In the 1950s, some natural history museums experimented with working
laboratories as presentation techniques, not on the exhibit floor but
6 Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, “Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 155‐156.
4
publicly on broadcast television. At that time, Dinosaur National
Monument in Utah displayed a working lab as an adjunct to the fossil
excavation located on the site. After the 1970s, natural history museums
that didn’t have in‐situ fossil excavations on their grounds began to
incorporate working laboratories into their exhibition menus as a way to
disseminate paleontological research to their public.
A synthesis of the visitor studies literature reveals that connecting the
museum’s research to visitors’ natural interests, both in the preparation of
specimens and in narratives of scientists’ lives, can stimulate visitors’
curiosity in behind‐the‐scenes research. By showing visitors the process
of fossil preparation and “scientists‐as‐people,” working fossil
laboratories fulfill the recommendations of early visitor studies and take
them one step further by introducing visitors not only to scientists’
narratives but to “scientists‐as‐themselves.”
The findings, which constitute the second major chapter of this project,
cover four main sections: the defining features of working fossil
laboratory exhibitions, developing working fossil laboratories, the visitor
5
experience at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia, and the challenges of operating working fossil laboratories
as public exhibitions. An examination of the Page Museum’s La Brea Tar
Pits, which opened one of the first working laboratory exhibitions,
revealed the impetus behind the original working laboratory concept. It
was visitors’ interest in touring a laboratory adjacent to the tar pit that
inspired the Page Museum to incorporate a working laboratory into their
exhibition plan in 1977. The findings discuss how working fossil
laboratories have evolved since the 1970s.
In the conclusions and recommendations chapters, I present the
opportunities and address the challenges of operating working fossil
laboratories as public exhibitions. Literally manifestations of the
philosophical merger of the museum’s research and educational
functions, working fossil laboratories exemplify the growing desire of
many natural history museums to create experiential exhibitions where
visitors have the opportunity to converse with “real museum experts”
while seeing “real things.“ Up‐to‐date, relevant, and customizable, the
interpersonal interaction provided at some working fossil laboratories is
6
both a social and cognitive experience. This interaction significantly
impacts how visitors rate their experience at the lab. It satisfies visitors
desire to gain information or knowledge at the lab. It does not impact
what messages visitors take away from their experience.
These educational opportunities present three primary challenges to
museum staff responsible for managing, working in, or planning the lab:
devising an interpretive framework without competing exhibit messages
and planning the design of the lab to support these messages; securing
staff for the lab to perform a variety of functions; and conducting
additional evaluations of the impact of working fossil laboratories on
visitors’ experience. Meeting these challenges will contribute to the
successful operation of working fossil laboratories as public exhibitions.
The final chapter of this project is an article entitled, “Working Fossil
Laboratories as Public Exhibitions” that will be published on
www.fossilprep.org.
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STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Natural history museums throughout the United States incorporate
working laboratory exhibitions—fossil laboratories in particular—into
their exhibition menus. Through working fossil laboratories, visitors can
observe paleontologists or volunteers preparing, cleaning, and
identifying real fossils in an authentic laboratory setting. At some fossil
laboratories, visitors can not only observe paleontologists engaged in
preparation work but also can converse with them about their work.
For this project, I investigated how natural history museums in the
United States can develop and design working fossil laboratory
exhibitions to communicate their missions to visitors. My purpose was to
understand working fossil laboratories as exhibits within the context of
the history of fossil displays in natural history museums and the two
hundred‐year long debate in these museums over how to balance their
core functions of research and public education. I interviewed 21 museum
professionals—namely fossil preparators, curators of paleontology,
exhibit developers, and directors—involved in developing or working in
8
fossil laboratories at eight natural history museums in the United States.7
To understand visitors’ experiences at fossil laboratories that provide
opportunities to talk with paleontologists, I conducted an in‐depth visitor
study at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia, which utilized and expanded on a visitor studies
instrument developed by researchers at the Smithsonian.8 My visitor
study examined the relationships between the messages visitors take
away, the impact of talking with an expert, the experiences visitors find
satisfying, and visitors’ experience ratings. Based on the results from
professional interviews and visitor studies, I determined the
opportunities and addressed the challenges of operating working fossil
laboratories as public exhibitions.
7 See footnote 5. 8 Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, “Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 155‐156.
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES
Literature Review Questions:
How and why have natural history museums in the United States developed and designed working fossil laboratory exhibitions to communicate their missions to visitors?
Objectives:
Review literature in the museum, visitor studies, and paleontology fields that pertains to how fossils have historically been exhibited in natural history museums, how paleontological research in natural history museums has evolved, why working laboratories have been used as exhibition techniques, and whether visitor evaluations have been conducted at fossil laboratories and related exhibits.
Findings Questions:
What are the defining characteristics of a working laboratory exhibition? What features contribute to their scope?
Why have natural history museums developed and designed working fossil laboratories as public exhibitions?
What is the visitor experience at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia?
What are the challenges of operating working fossil laboratories as public exhibitions?
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Objectives: Interview staff involved in developing or working in fossil laboratories at eight natural history museums in the United States; compile the history and location of fossil labs, the reasons fossil labs are developed as public exhibits, the main messages the labs intend to convey to visitors, the roles of staff working in the laboratories, and evaluations of visitors’ experiences at the labs.
Conduct a visitor exit survey, timing and tracking study, and visitor exit interviews at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Conclusions Questions:
What factors contribute to the popularity of working fossil laboratories as exhibit techniques? Why have natural history museums developed and designed working fossil laboratories?
What impact does the interpersonal interaction that is provided at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia have on visitor experience at the lab?
Objectives:
Develop a definition of a working fossil laboratory.
Compare interviews with staff involved in the development or design of fossil laboratories at eight natural history museums.
Analyze the results of the visitor exit survey, timing and tracking study, and visitor exit interviews conducted at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Recommendations Questions
How can natural history museums better develop and design working fossil laboratories to communicate their missions to visitors?
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Objectives: Develop a set of recommendations based on interviews and visitors’ experiences at the lab that inform natural history museums how to better develop and design working fossil laboratories.
Create a product that will communicate this information to the museum and paleontological fields.
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METHODOLOGY
In order to determine how and why natural history museums in the
United States have developed and designed working fossil laboratory
exhibitions and to identify the opportunities as well as the challenges of
their operation as public exhibitions, I performed a literature review and
interviewed professionals at eight natural history museums in the United
States with working fossil laboratories. I also conducted an in‐depth
visitor study at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia to understand visitors’ experiences at fossil laboratories that
provide visitors with opportunities to talk to paleontologists.
Professional Interviews
I conducted professional interviews with staff and volunteers who work
in or were involved in planning working fossil laboratories at the
following museums:
• Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY • Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA • National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. • North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh • Dallas Museum of Natural History, TX (now the Museum of
Nature and Science)
13
• Field Museum, Chicago, IL • Denver Museum of Nature and Science, CO • Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA.9
I selected 21 interviewees primarily from authors in my literature
review10 as well as from word‐of‐mouth suggestions. Interview questions
addressed the history and location of the fossil laboratory, working
laboratories as exhibition techniques, staffing issues, laboratory
development and design, and visitor evaluations.
Whenever possible, interviews were held in‐person and on‐site. On
occasion, I carried out interviews in the laboratory exhibition, having the
opportunity to see first hand what it was like to be part of the exhibit.11
When on‐site face‐to‐face meetings were not feasible, I conversed with
interviewees over the phone and tape recorded some of the
conversations.
9 At least one natural history museum with a working fossil laboratory from each geographic region in the United States (with the exception of the Northwest) is represented in this listing. Museums were not selected randomly but were derived from the literature review in addition to conversations with interviewees and other colleagues. 10 Ken Carpenter, Eric Gyllenhaal, Christopher Shaw, Margie Marino, Francis Kruger, and Andrew Pekarik, just to name a few. 11 See Appendix A for a copy of the professional interview instrument.
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Visitor and Staff Evaluations
During April 2006, I conducted a visitor evaluation at the Academy of
Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab to gain an understanding of visitors’
experiences at working fossil laboratories that provide visitors with
opportunities to talk with paleontologists in the act of preparing fossils. I
wanted to know whether visitors who talked with paleontologists at the
lab were satisfied with having a chance to talk to them. I hypothesized
that talking with paleontologists or volunteers at the lab would influence
the messages visitors take away from their experience and visitors’
experience ratings—for their overall experience, personal enjoyment, and
personal learning.12
To assess the types of experiences visitors find satisfying at the lab
(especially “having a chance to talk to experts”), the messages visitors
12 A human presence in a laboratory is likely to attract visitors to the exhibition and hold their attention. Results of a summative evaluation of visitor comprehension and usage of the Regenstein Laboratory, showcasing anthropological collections and research at the Field Museum, showed that when staff was present in the laboratory, visitors spent on average twice as much time (43 seconds) in the exhibition than when staff was absent (22 seconds). See Ann Goldman, and Matt Matcuk, “The Regenstein Laboratory, Summative Evaluation: Visitor Comprehension and Exhibition Usage,” Unpublished report, (Chicago: Exhibitions Department of Field Museum, 2005), 8.
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take away, and visitors’ experience ratings, I utilized an exit survey and
exit interviews. I distributed an exit survey13 composed of closed‐ended
statements and questions as well as open‐ended questions about visitors’
experiences with the laboratory, to a sample of fifty randomly selected
adult visitors exiting the Fossil Lab.14 In addition to general demographic
and membership information, respondents answered whether they talked
with a staff person in the lab and described what they talked about
(question 4). They described what they would tell a friend about the
purpose of the lab (question 5). On a five‐point scale from poor to
superior, respondents rated their overall experience (question 6), personal
enjoyment (question 8), and personal learning (question 9). Lastly,
respondents selected which, from a list of seven experiences, they found
satisfying at the lab (question 7). Questions 6 through 9 replicated an
evaluation instrument that was developed at the Smithsonian Institution
13 See Appendix B for a copy of the Fossil Prep Lab Visitor Exit Survey. 14 Because the entrance to the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab is the same as the exit, visitors were likely to notice me distributing surveys to other visitors exiting the lab underneath the exhibit’s title panel. See Appendix C for a layout of the Academy’s lab.
16
by Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering and David Karns.15 To their list of
six satisfying experiences—seeing the “real” thing; gaining information or
knowledge; enriching my understanding; imagining other times or
places; reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at; and spending
time with friends, family or other people (see Figure 6.1 in literature
review)—I added, “having a chance to talk to experts.” I was interested in
identifying whether visitors found this experience particularly satisfying
at the lab and with which other satisfying experiences and questions it
was strongly associated.
15 To understand the experiences visitors found satisfying at the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab, I asked four questions (items 6, 7, 8 and 9 on the exit survey) derived from an instrument developed by Pekarik, Doering and Karns that they tested with 2,828 visitors at nine Smithsonian Museums and published in 1999. From interviews with visitors, Pekarik and fellow researchers identified fourteen experiences visitors’ find satisfying at these museums. During an interview with Pekarik, I learned that, since 1999, he has modified the instrument but has yet to publish the changes. Pekarik helped me determine which satisfying experiences to include in my exit survey. He recommended I only include six or seven of his original list of fourteen. And to replace the original questions, “Which one of these experiences was most satisfying to you,” and “How strong was your sense of satisfaction with that experience” with “Overall, how would you rate your experience with the exhibition,” “Please rate the effect the exhibition had on your personal enjoyment,” and “Please rate the effect the exhibition had on your extent of personal learning.” Lastly, Pekarik recommended asking visitors to rate each of the latter three experiences as poor, fair, good, excellent, or superior. These modifications are reflected in my exit survey. Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, “Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 155-156; Andrew Pekarik, Policy Analyst, Office of Policy and Analysis, Smithsonian, interview by author, 1 March 2006.
17
I carefully considered the order of the items in the survey, asking
demographic questions such as gender, age, party size, education, and
membership status at the end. Prior to the evaluation period, ten
randomly selected visitors tested the visitor exit survey to ensure the
items were clear and relevant, the ordering of items was appropriate, and
the close‐ended items were mutually exclusive (unless more than one
answer was requested).
The exit survey was combined with exit interviews and a tracking study
of visitors’ use of the laboratory and its accessory exhibits. To ascertain
why visitors found specific experiences satisfying at the lab (especially
“having a chance to talk to experts”), I asked ten randomly selected adult
visitors which experiences were satisfying to them at the lab (question 7
in exit survey) and why. In addition, with the Fossil Prep Lab Visitor
Usage Data Sheet16 in hand, I unobtrusively observed the way in which
twenty adult visitors used the laboratory exhibition, tracking their path
and behaviors (i.e., looking closely, talking, pointing, touching, etc.) as
well as timing their engagement with the lab and accessory exhibits. I also
16 See Appendix C for copy of the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab Visitor Usage Data Collection Sheet.
18
paid attention to whether visitors talked with a person in the lab and
whether the staff or visitor asked any questions. In addition, I noted the
presence or absence of staff in the laboratory and calculated a visitor‐to‐
staff ratio (both of which may correlate with visitors’ experience ratings).
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LIMITATIONS OF METHODOLOGY
This project focused exclusively on working fossil laboratories found in
private, non‐profit natural history museums in the United States. It didn’t
focus on laboratories found in other types of museums such as children’s
museums (the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, IN), science museums
(Oregon Museum of Industry and Science, Portland), and museums
outside the United States (Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, Alberta,
Canada; and the Natural History Museum, London). Working
laboratories highlight different types of collections in different types of
museums. For example, conservators work on objects such as the Star
Spangled Banner at the National Museum of American History in
Washington D.C., and entomologists care for living collections of insects
in the Insect Zoo at the National Museum of Natural History in
Washington D.C. I limited my research to working laboratories that
exhibited fossils because they appeared to be the most prevalent
discipline‐specific working laboratories in United States museums,
forming a solid foundation from which I could analyze working
laboratories as exhibition techniques. I also conducted in‐depth visitor
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studies at only one museum, the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia during April 2006. However, my research can be applied to
paleontological laboratories at other natural history museums and in
different types of museums as well as to working laboratories in general,
which exhibit different types of collections in different types of museums.
Three essential interactions occur at working fossil laboratories: those
between visitors, fossils, and museum staff working in the lab. Because I
was interested in the impact of facilitated exhibition experiences that are
available to visitors during regular museum hours (not as programs), and
that rely on authentic fossil specimens, I focused on museum staff’s
impact on visitors, not on staff’s impact on fossils while preparing them
on display. An exploration of the impact on the specimens (their
management, security, accessibility, likelihood of damage, etc.) would be
a potential topic of further investigation. And although my project
emphasized museum staff and fossils as integral to the functioning of
these labs, I chose to emphasize fossils as the “objects” on display, not the
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museum staff. In my literature review, I discuss how fossils have
historically been displayed in natural history museums but not how
people have been displayed in museum exhibitions.
The interpretation provided by paleontologists and volunteers at some
working fossil laboratories is accompanied, in many cases, by other forms
of interpretation—signage, media, and accessory exhibit cases. The range
of interpretive materials incorporated in these exhibitions is described in
my findings section, and although these materials can impact visitors’
experiences at fossil laboratories, I chose not to explore their impact in my
visitor study at the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab.
As I spoke to more museum professionals for this project, I further
refined my interview instrument, adding questions and rephrasing
others, and later tape recording the interviews. Consequently, I
conducted more detailed interviews later during the project period and
cited them more frequently in the findings and recommendations
sections.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Today, visitors to Dinosaur Hall at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia (Academy) are greeted by a roaring skeleton of
Tyrannosaurus rex mounted in an active, life‐like pose. The buzzing
sounds of mini‐jackhammers, which remove rock from fossils that are on
display in the Fossil Prep Lab, fill the hall. Visitors can observe casts of
several Hadrosaurus foulkii bones mounted in a life‐size silhouette of this
dinosaur. These dynamic techniques of displaying fossils were relatively
unknown to visitors before 1868. That year, H. foulkii was the first most
complete dinosaur to be mounted in a life‐size freestanding pose, a
dramatic sight that drew many Philadelphians to the Academy.17 H.
foulkii is a touchstone, not only for the way in which it was displayed to
the public at the Academy, but also for the history of paleontological
research at the Academy and in the United States.
17 Ken Carpenter, “Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits,” in The Complete Dinosaur, eds. James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett‐Surman (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 151‐152.
23
Changes in the methods of displaying fossils like H. foulkii occurred in
tandem with changes in the function of natural history museums. Since
the first half of the nineteenth century, the core functions of natural
history museums oscillated between collecting, research, and public
education. As these museums increasingly became intent on merging
their collecting and research functions with the needs and desires of their
public, more dynamic exhibits such as working fossil laboratories became
popular.
Exhibiting Fossils in United States Natural History Museums
During the first half of the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs and
members of natural history societies contributed to the development of
early museum fossil collections, but they originally had different goals.18
Charles Willson Peale, an entrepreneur interested in collecting fossils and
other natural curiosities for his popular museum in Philadelphia,
pioneered a new museum concept (especially in comparison to European
museums) that stressed public education. One of the exhibits that lured
18 Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, “Entrepreneurs and Intellectuals: Natural History in Early American Museums,” in Mermaids, Mummies, and Mastodons: The Emergence of the American Museum, ed. William Alderson, (Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1992), 24.
24
visitors to Peale’s museum was his skeleton of a mastodon, his “greatest
single accession…, [a] master exhibit of international renown...”19 With
the intention of displaying it at his museum, Peale coordinated the
excavation of the mastodon—the first scientific excavation—from a marl
pit in New York’s lower Hudson River Valley in 1802.20
Contrary to Peale’s interest in reaching a broad public, natural history
societies were private and primarily interested in researching and
disseminating information about their collections to their members and
other interested scholars. By the 1810s, members of natural history
societies—amateurs with a deep interest in the subject of natural
history—were pulling together their collections and intellectual assets.21
Natural history societies were common in metropolitan areas such as
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. One of the earliest of these societies
19 Edward P. Alexander, “Charles Willson Peale and His Philadelphia Museum: The Concept of a Popular Museum,” in Museum Masters, (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1983): 57. 20 Peter J. Whybrow, “A History of Fossil Collecting and Preparation Techniques,” Curator 28, no. 1 (1985): 11‐12. 21 Ibid, 23.
25
that still maintains natural history collections is the Academy of Natural
Sciences in Philadelphia, founded in 1812. Academy members produced
publications and shared or exchanged their collections, which they
maintained separately in individual cabinets. Through the 1830s, natural
history societies attracted younger scholars who sought expertise in the
sciences.22 But by the 1850s, societies still mostly served researchers and
had not invested energy in creating educational displays accessible to a
larger public.23
Towards the latter half of the nineteenth century, natural history
museums made a more concerted effort to merge Peale’s popular
museum concept with its emphasis on education (and under the direction
of Peale’s son Rubens, on amusements) and natural history societies with
their emphasis on research. Historian Sally Gregory Kohlstedt speaks to
this merger in philosophy: “A new philosophy about the importance of
museums for education created opportunities in which the skills of those
who had run popular museums could be combined with the expertise of
22 Ibid, 28‐29. 23 Ibid, 35‐36.
26
geologists, zoologists, and anthropologists.”24 Assistant Secretary of the
United States National Museum (Smithsonian, 1873‐1896) and learned
naturalist, George Brown Goode held a similar philosophy of the
importance of museums for education, as did his colleague, Secretary of
the Smithsonian (1887‐1906) Samuel Pierpont Langley. In the words of
historian Edward P. Alexander, “While Goode…thought scientific
research justification enough for a museum, he took a more liberal view
and insisted ‘that public institutions of this kind are not intended for the
few, but for the enlightenment and education of the masses.’”25
While this merger of philosophies increased visitors’ access to museum
collections, it did not increase their access to the researchers who study
those collections. Between the 1880s and 1890s, natural history museums
began to move their collections behind the scenes for study purposes (and
their researchers along with them), leaving a select group of collections
24 Ibid. 25 Edward P. Alexander, “George Brown Goode and the Smithsonian Museums: A National Museum of Cultural History,” in Museum Masters, (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1983): 288.
27
on public display. 26 Visitors could no longer mingle with curators
performing taxonomic research on the collections, most, if not all, of
which were on display, nor could they access the same collections as the
curators. This arrangement afforded curators domain over certain
collections and the public access to other collections.27
The practice of collecting fossils for research and display purposes grew
throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Natural history
museums, such as the Academy of Natural Sciences and Yale University’s
Peabody Museum led these efforts.28 With the expansion of the railroads
26 Edward P. Alexander, “George Brown Goode,” 292‐294. 27On this shift, Former Director of the Natural History Museum in London Sir Neil Chalmers pointed out, “Its long‐term consequence was that the practice of scientific research in natural history museums became divorced from public display. The design and production of exhibitions rightly became recognized as a specialized activity requiring different professional skills from those possessed by research curators. Moreover, the kind of science carried out by research curators remained focused on or close to the disciplines of systematic biology and geology, whereas public programs ranged over a wide array of biological and geological topics as their horizons expanded.” Sir Neil Chalmers, “Public Understanding of Research in a Natural History Museum: The Darwin Centre,” in Creating Connections: Museums and the Public Understanding of Current Research, eds., David Chittenden, Graham Farmelo, and Bruce V. Lewenstein (Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press, 2004), 280. 28 Elijah Mermin, “Putting It On: Negotiating Decisions in Development of Three Evolution Exhibitions at Natural History Museums” (Masters Thesis, John F. Kennedy University, 2002), 31.
28
into the Western United States, wealthy professors and society
members—among them, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Professor of Anatomy at the
University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School and President of the
Academy; and Edward Drinker Cope, Academy member and curator—
conducted many fossil expeditions between the 1860s and 1880s.29
Around the turn of the nineteenth century, natural history museums—
including the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), the United
States National Museum (Smithsonian), and the Carnegie Museum in
Pittsburgh—increasingly funded fossil expeditions.30
Concurrently, these museums began to pay researchers to carry out
paleontological research and create exhibitions and interpretive materials.
Founder of the Department of Paleontology at AMNH, Henry Fairfield
Osborn hired preparators to assist with research and exhibit fabrication.31
29 Edwin Colbert, “North American Dinosaur Hunters,” in The Complete Dinosaur, eds. James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett-Surman (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 25; Peter J. Whybrow, A History of Fossil Collecting, 15. 30 Colbert, North American Dinosaurs, 26; M.K. Brett-Surman, “Appendix: A Chronological History of Dinosaur Paleontology,” in The Complete Dinosaur, eds. James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett-Surman (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 713. 31 M.K. Brett‐Surman, Appendix.
29
According to Former Chair of Paleontology at AMNH Edwin Colbert,
“Osborn [too] recognized the importance of collecting dinosaur skeletons,
both for research and for exhibition.”32
In the 1930s, the role of curator as keeper of museum collections and as
public interpreter of collections began to shift with the rise of education
departments in natural history museums.33 At this time, educators and
exhibit specialists were hired to serve the needs and interests of the public
while curators primarily attended to collections and research. According
to museum educator, Lisa Roberts:
For the first time the organizational structure of museums reflected and reinforced the categorical differences between their various functions [research and public education or exhibition]. The result was the creation of two natural camps that almost by definition came to stand for the interests of the curators and scientists on one hand and the public on the other. It would not be fair however to lump all curators within a single‐issue scientific platform. But as had happened in the past, arguments about museums’ responsibility to visitors polarized the institutions’ public and scholarly roles, forcing curators to defend museums’ research arms against a position toward which many were in fact sympathetic.34
32 Colbert, North American Dinosaurs, 26. 33 At this time, the Field Museum of Natural History’s education department was founded.
30
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, curators continued to function, to a
degree, as public interpreters of their research, although the debates
about research versus public education continued. At the American
Museum of Natural History, Osborn’s successor, Edwin Colbert,
advocated for research, not exhibitions, as the museum’s primary
function: “as for the display of objects that are housed and studied in the
museum, this is a desirable but not a basic museum function, even
though a large segment of the public and a considerable portion of
professional museum people seem to think that such is a primary
museum aim.”35 Nevertheless, he renovated Osborn’s paleontological
exhibitions. Colbert’s colleague, Assistant Curator of Invertebrates at
AMNH Dorothy E. Bliss, shared Osborn’s and Colbert’s convictions and
stressed the need for scientists to help visitors appreciate the importance
of their research. She wrote in 1959,
A research scientist working in a natural history museum can play a unique role in contributing to the mutual understanding between scientists and layman that is so sorely needed, for a museum scientist sits on both sides of the fence…Museum and
34 Lisa Roberts, From Knowledge to Narrative: Educators and the Changing Museum (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), 35. 35 Edwin H. Colbert, “The Museum and Geological Research,” Curator 3, no. 4 (1960): 319.
31
museum scientist together can further public appreciation of basic research in these critical days.36
In 1963, Colbert’s and Bliss’s colleague, research scientist A.E. Parr, took
this argument a step further, claiming that the primary function of the
natural history museum is education through exhibition. He wrote:
But the current support of most museums, even those that began as pure treasure hoards, is unquestionably based upon the educational services they offer the public and the prestige their exhibits bring to their sponsors and to the community… The concept of research as a derivative rather than principal purpose may affect the nature of research conducted by museums, but it does not weaken the foundations for scholarly inquiry. Quite to the contrary, research as a requisite to good teaching is easily defended, while research as an essential for the maintenance of concealed collections may be extremely difficult to justify and may raise considerable doubts about the good sense of keeping such collections at all.37
As this debate over the primary function of natural history museums
raged, not surprisingly, the methods of displaying real and replicated
fossils in public galleries changed. Museums increasingly wooed their
museum visitors with more dramatic exhibition experiences and fossil
36 Dorothy E. Bliss, “A Museum Interprets Basic Research. Why?” Curator 2, no. 3 (1959): 218. 37 A.E. Parr, “The Functions of Museums: Research Centers or Show Places,” Curator 6, no. 1 (1963): 24.
32
displays evolved. Static glass cases filled with specimens have always
been a staple, but in time, more exhibition space was allotted to parades
of fossils in freestanding postures, to panel mounts, and to habitat
groups. Since the 1970s, exhibitions were increasingly organized around
themes and concepts. As techniques to support these themes and
concepts, immersive environments and other dynamic, participatory
exhibits such as working fossil laboratories, fossil digs, and hands‐on
habitat groups became popular.
Freestanding mounts and glass cases were the earliest techniques used to
display fossils. Although quite static in comparison to more
contemporary interactive exhibits, fossils displayed in freestanding
mounts were dramatic for their time. As early as 1806, freestanding
mounts were used as a technique to exhibit fossilized vertebrate
skeletons. One of the first mounted skeletons was the aforementioned
mastodon skeleton at Charles Willson Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia.38
38 Carpenter, Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits, 151. See Lithograph of Skeleton of the Mastodon by Alfred Jacob Miller on the Frontispiece in William T. Alderson, Mermaids, Mummies, and Mastodons: Emergence of the American Museum (Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1992).
33
The mount included a “scaffold, artificial sections, and a fabricated iron
support.”39 Glass cases—used both by Peale’s Museum and natural
history societies—exhibited natural specimens. For the most part, Peale
arranged his exhibits in scientific order. Information about each specimen
could be found in a framed catalogue above the glass cases. Into the
1830s, the Academy of Natural Sciences arranged their fossil collections
by donor, species name, or location. Peale also provided visitors with
guides that expanded on the framed catalogue. But it wasn’t until after
the 1850s that natural history societies mounted labels providing details
such as a specimen’s scientific name and habitat.
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, innovations in the types
of displays and mounting techniques diversified, as did the ways in
which these displays were arranged. Freestanding poses and glass cases
still abounded, while panel mounts and habitat groups premiered. In
1868, under the creative hand of English sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse
Hawkins and with guidance from Dr. Joseph Leidy, Professor of
Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School and
39 Kohlstedt, Entrepreneurs and Intellectuals, 26.
34
President of the Academy, the Academy of Natural Sciences presented a
display of Hadrosaurus foulkii mounted in a freestanding pose.40 This
recreated dinosaur was the first most complete skeleton mounted in a
freestanding pose. Hawkins persuaded Leidy that mounting the skeletons
in this pose, which required attaching the limb bones to armature,
stringing vertebrate along a steel rod, and replicating missing bones and
mounting them alongside ‘real’ ones, would lure visitors to the Academy.
As Hawkins predicted, visitor attendance increased after the exhibits
were unveiled to the public. Consequently, more vertebrate fossils were
mounted in freestanding poses and displayed against painted backdrops
at AMNH under Osborn’s direction. In 1897 at AMNH, dramatic murals
of prehistoric animals were painted by Charles Knight to add depth to
displays.41
In 1886, a panel mount of a complete Stegosaurus stenops skeleton that was
immersed in rock was displayed at the United States National Museum
40 Ken Carpenter, “Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits,” in The Complete Dinosaur, eds. James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett‐Surman (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 151‐152; Colbert, North American Dinosaurs, 25. 41 M.K. Brett‐Surman, Appendix, 713.
35
(Smithsonian, now the Arts and Industry Building).42 Also, the concept of
habitat groups emerged. In 1907, AMNH created an early habitat group
of an Allosaurus feeding upon the fossil skeleton of a Brontosaurus.43
Exhibit arrangements also changed during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. As museum educator Lisa Roberts wrote, “the
practice of displaying endless cases of specimens and hanging collections
from floor to ceiling was gradually replaced by exhibit practices that used
more focused displays combining related objects.“44 At the United States
National Museum, Goode arranged collections by their characteristics or
by representative groupings stating that: “the people’s museum should
be much more than a house full of specimens in glass cases. It should be a
house full of ideas, arranged with the strictest attention to system…”45
42 Carpenter, Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits. 43 See Figure 8 for an image of this habitat group. A.E. Parr, Skeletons in the Museum, 304‐305. 44 Roberts, From Knowledge to Narrative, 32. 45 George Brown Goode, quoted in Edward P. Alexander, “George Brown Goode and the Smithsonian Museums: A National Museum of Cultural History,” in
36
Between the 1930s and 1970s, as the American Museum of Natural
History was renovating and revising its paleontology halls, museum staff
discussed the effect on visitors of displaying fossils in specific poses and
arrangements.46 According to research scientist A.E. Parr, fossilized
specimens “poised for action,” such as AMNH’s Allosaurus feeding upon
the fossil skeleton of a Brontosaurus, “liberate specimens from their more
traditional parade‐ground postures.”47 However, to avoid complications
that could arise in the display of skeletons in recreations of their natural
habitats, Parr proposed employing the “rule of effective suggestion” not
“consistent realism.” Since the main focus of the habitat group—the
rearticulated skeleton—could only suggest reality, then the other
components of the habitat—the trees or plants for example—should not
look more realistic than the skeletons. About the success of utilizing
“effective suggestion” in the display of an aquatic reptile, Kronosaurus,
A.E. Parr wrote: “While the exhibit can not make us think we are seeing
an animal moving through water, it does make us feel very clearly that if
Museum Masters, (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1983): 290, 291‐292, 294. 46 Mermin, Putting It On, 44; A.E. Parr, Skeletons in the Museum, 296. 47 Ibid, 301.
37
this is not what we are looking at, it certainly ought to be. And so
suggestion succeeds where illusion would fail.”48
After the 1970s, fossil displays were increasingly organized around
exhibition themes and concepts. Two pioneering paleontological
exhibitions organized around themes were the Hall of Earth History at
AMNH and Ice Age Mammals at NMNH. 49 In thematic exhibitions such as
these, natural history museums have experimented with the types of
displays and experiences that best support their intended concepts.
Habitat groups, for example, were incorporated with greater frequency
and intention into thematic exhibitions to immerse the visitor. A case in
point is the habitat group at the State Museum at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln that featured rearticulated fossil vertebrate skeletons in
lifelike poses positioned next to a full‐scale restoration of an Allosaur. A
panoramic landscape served as a backdrop; even the carpet installed was
48 Ibid, 305‐309. 49 George S. Gardner, “The Shape of Things to Come,” Curator 22, no. 1 (1979), 6, 8; Mermin, Putting It On, 45.
38
earthy in tone.50 In the 1990s, displays became more realistic and
participatory with, for example, replicated fossils that visitors could
touch. Likewise, the topic of this master’s project, working fossil
laboratories too began to grow in popularity.51
Working Laboratories as Exhibit Techniques
Working laboratories as presentation techniques debuted on public
television in the 1950s. At the same time, Dinosaur National Monument
in Utah displayed a working lab as an adjunct to the fossil excavation
located on the site. After the 1970s, natural history museums that didn’t
have in‐situ fossil excavations on their grounds began to incorporate
working laboratories into their exhibition menus as a way to disseminate
paleontological research to their public.
50 Allan D. Griesemer and Roger A. Vandiver, “Believable Dinosaurs,” Curator 21, no. 3 (1978), 198. 51 Margie Marino, “The Best Intentions: Six Different Approaches to Prehistoric Life Exhibitions,” (American Association of Museums Conference Proceedings, 1996); Judy Diamond and Judy Scotchmoor, “Exhibiting Evolution,” Museums and Social Issues: A Journal of Reflective Discourse 1, no. 1 (2006): 21-48.
39
As early as the 1950s, natural history museums experimented with
working laboratories as presentation techniques, not on the exhibit floor
but publicly on television. Former Television Coordinator at the
Milwaukee Public Museum Robert E. Dierbeck wrote, “By nature, it
[television] parallels the visual methods of museum technique.”52 The
American Museum of Natural History and the Milwaukee Public
Museum, Wisconsin took advantage of the new medium of broadcast
television as a means to extend the museum experience into the homes of
their visitors, and those of future visitors. Each week Let’s Experiment
showcased a “real” scientist working in museum laboratory. According
to Dierbeck, the purpose of the program was to “encourage an interest in
science and assert the scientist’s importance in everyday life. Laboratory
demonstrations of basic principles in physics and chemistry were related
to everything from bicycles and ice cream to jet planes and fireboats.”53
As public exhibitions, early fossil laboratories were associated with in‐
situ paleontological “exhibitions” in the process of excavation. One of the
52 Robert E. Dierbeck, “Television and the Museum,” Curator 1, no. 2 (Spring 1958): 36. 53 Ibid, 37.
40
earliest in the United States opened in 1958 at Dinosaur National
Monument, Utah, a visitor center that enclosed a dinosaur quarry
exposed in relief as an in situ exhibit.54 Between 1953 and 1956, a team of
paleontologists, including Gilbert F. Stucker of the American Museum of
Natural History, investigated whether sufficient fossils remained in the
quarry to justify turning it into a public exhibition. During this time, the
team gathered visitors’ reactions to their work at the quarry and visitors’
general understandings of paleontology, which they hoped would inform
the development of the exhibitions. He described visitor responses to the
site as ranging from incomprehensible and biblical in nature to “those
who needed no convincing” and “on‐the‐spot conversions.”55 On the
significance of the quarry as a tool for interpretation, Stucker wrote:
The quarry has the answer. That which gives it its particular effectiveness as an exhibit stems from the fact that it is a ‘live demonstration,’ open to public scrutiny and interrogation, which has the effect of making the visitor a participant. As he watches the work, seeing new bone brought to light before his eyes, as he talks, perhaps argues, with the excavators, he loses his detachment. He becomes involved. He enters the paleontological experience and shares in the discovery and the excavating…It is
54 Gilbert F Stucker, “Dinosaur Monument and the People: A Study of Interpretation,” Curator 6, no. 2 (1965): 131‐142. 55 Ibid, 137.
41
not coming to him second hand, as something told, something shown; he is living it. 56
The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles capitalized on
the use of their in‐situ quarry as an interpretive tool. It opened to the
public in 1977.57
As early as the 1980s, natural history museums were interested in
understanding their visitors’ perceptions of the museum’s research
function. At this time, natural history museums discovered that many of
their visitors were unaware that research goes on behind the scenes,
despite their efforts to communicate otherwise through exhibitions,
programs, newsletters, and news media. A 1983 article by former Director
of the Field Museum, Lorin Nevling, Jr. reported on a survey of members’
perceptions of the museum. To his dismay, members did not think of the
56 Ibid, 142. 57 John M. Harris, and George T. Jefferson (eds.), Rancho La Brea: Treasures of the Tar Pits, (Los Angeles, CA: Natural History Museum Foundation, 1985), Appendix. However, in an article published in 1982, four years after the George C. Page Museum opened, Collections Manager Christopher Shaw writes about laboratory techniques employed at the museum but does not reference the laboratory as a facility on view to the public. See Christopher Shaw, “Techniques Used in Excavation, Preparation, and Curation of Fossils from Rancho La Brea,”
42
Field as a research institution. Nevling wrote, “it is time that research
museums integrate research into their public programs, too, and that they
make themselves known to their local publics as research institutions.”58
One method he proposed was the development of an orientation center to
which visitors would be directed upon entering the museum and in
which visitors would be introduced to the stories of behind‐the‐scenes
collections and their role in research.
In 1997, thirteen years after Nevling Jr., another Field Museum Director
Peter Crane, wrote about the museum’s intent to foster public awareness
of behind‐the‐scenes research and collections.59 The Field aimed to
“leverage the museum’s behind‐the‐scenes resources into truly unique,
Curator 25, no. 1 (1982): 73‐74. 58 Lorin Nevling, “No Longer the Hidden Agenda: Research Goes Public,” Museum News 62 (October 1983): 42. 59 Echoing Nevling and Crane, Director of the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, NY, Warren Allmon wrote, “Most visitors to large natural history museums have no idea that only a tiny fraction of the collections are on display; what they know of the museum is only what they see in the exhibition halls, if they ever discover, or are told, about the enormity of collections not generally available to the public, their reaction may be one of puzzlement, sometimes bordering on skepticism or even hostility.” See Warren D. Allmon, “The Value of Natural History Collections,” Curator 37, no.2 (1994): 83.
43
qualitatively different, public programs that could not be duplicated by
institutions that lacked in‐house researchers and major collections.”60
In the 1990s, working laboratories appeared in natural history museums
with the goal of disseminating paleontological research to their public,
but without the draw of powerful fossil excavations on their grounds. In
1990, the Denver Post announced the opening of the Denver Museum of
Nature and Science’s Schlessman Family Earth Sciences Laboratory. 61 In
1999, the Chicago Sun Times publicized the Field Museum’s McDonald’s
Fossil Prep Lab.
Despite labs’ popular appeal, it wasn’t until the publication of Creating
Connections: Museums and the Public Understanding of Current Research, a
collection of articles stemming from a conference organized by the
Science Museum of Minnesota, that working laboratories were described
as an interpretive approach natural history museums utilized to
60 Ellsworth Brown, Ellen V. Futter, Jay Apt, Peter R. Crane, Karen L. Goldstein, and Michael W. Hager, “Toward a Natural History Museum for the Twenty First Century,” Museum News (November/December, 1997). 61 J. Davidson, “Dinner seemed like old times,” (Rockies Edition), Denver Post, 26 October 1999.
44
communicate the research process to visitors.62 Executive Director of the
Institute for Professional Development at the University of Alberta,
Canada, Albert Einsiedel and co‐author Edna Einsiedel categorized fossil
laboratories (such as the one at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology,
Alberta, Canada) as one type of passive approach—in which a visitor is
regarded as a “recipient of knowledge”—used by museums to convey
their intended messages.63
Since the 1990s, more natural history museums have incorporated
working laboratories into their exhibition menus while at the same time,
have recognized the need for their visitors to understand the museums’
research. But what, if any, impact do working fossil laboratories have on
visitors to natural history museums? And do museum visitors feel they
need to know about or understand the research process?
62 Other approaches mentioned were lectures, televised programs, and expeditions, just to name a few. 63 Albert Einsiedel Jr., and Edna F. Einsiedel, “Museums as Agora: Diversifying Approaches to Engaging Publics in Research,” in Creating Connections: Museums and the Public Understanding of Current Research, eds., David Chittenden, Graham Farmelo, and Bruce V. Lewenstein (Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press, 2004), 73‐ 86.
45
Early Studies of the Impact of Working Fossil Laboratories and Related Exhibitions on Museum Visitors
Museum visitors have misconceptions about what goes on behind‐the‐
scenes at natural history museums, according to visitor studies conducted
by the Field Museum and the National Museum of Natural History. Peter
Crane’s analysis was likely based on the results of visitor studies
conducted by developer Eric Gyllenhaal and evaluators Deborah Perry
and Emily Forland in 1995 and 1996. In preparation for Exploration Zone, a
permanent exhibition planned (but never built) to feature the work of
researchers behind the scenes at the Field Museum, Gyllenhaal, Perry,
and Forland determined what visitors already know and think about the
research and collections behind‐the‐scenes.64 One finding revealed that
visitors, in general, were still unaware of the research component of the
museum’s mission, a finding that echoed the results of Nevling’s member
survey suggesting that visitors’ perceptions of museum research had not
changed significantly in thirteen years. Visitors were unaware of the roles
of scientists and scope of collections at the museum. In particular, they
didn’t understand that the museum employs full time scientists who
46
conduct original scientific research. They also didn’t understand that
collections play a role in scientific research. Thus, Gyllenhaal concluded,
“communicating with visitors about research will be difficult because
these ideas contradict what some visitors think they already know about
behind‐the‐scenes at the museum.”65
A more encouraging finding from the Exploration Zone study, however,
was that when visitors were asked the interview questions, they became
interested in learning more about behind‐the‐scenes activities. They
expressed an interest in the preparation of specimens and in research
scientists’ lives. Because visitors were more interested in the preparation
of specimens than in the science underlying the research, Perry and
Forland suggested for example, “we might show visitors…how dinosaur
fossils are picked from rock.”66 To further stimulate visitors’ curiosity in
64 Eric Gyllenhaal, Deborah Perry and Emily Forland, “Visitor Understandings about Research, Collections, and Behinds the Scenes at the Field Museum,” Current Trends in Audience Research and Evaluation 10 (1996): 22‐31. 65 Ibid., 22. 66 Deborah Perry, and Emily Forland, “The Exploration Zone at the Field Museum: Front End Evaluation,” Unpublished manuscript (Chicago: The Field Museum, 1995), 42.
47
behind‐the‐scenes research, Perry and Forland recommended stressing
“the scientists‐as‐people approach” because speaking to the “passion in
scientist’s lives” might better assist visitors in making personal
connections to scientists’ research.67
Results of visitor studies of two exhibitions at the Field Museum, Building
Collections for Snail Research (Snails) and “Curator’s Office” in Spiders,
confirmed Perry and Forland’s recommendation to connect visitors to
“scientists‐as‐people.” Concurrent with the Exploration Zone front‐end
study, Gyllenhaal evaluated these exhibitions to determine if some
exhibition techniques more effectively conveyed behind‐the‐scenes
research and collection activities to visitors.68 A small scale exhibition
with four cases set in a visitor lounge, Snails told the stories of different
types of individuals—an amateur, a volunteer, a book collector, and a
67 Perry and Forland, Exploration Zone, 43. 68 In late 1997 and early 1998, Gyllenhaal compared the findings of evaluations of three different exhibitions, “Curator’s office” in Spiders, Snails, and Fossil Lab. During our interview, he said the studies on Spiders and Snails were published in his 1998 article “Communicating Behind the Scenes Research to Museum Visitors: Evaluations of Temporary Exhibitions at the Field Museum” but the Fossil Lab study was not included. Eric Gyllenhaal, interview with author, 14 November 2005.
48
philanthropist—who contributed to the Field’s research collections. In the
“Curator’s Office” adjunct to the Spiders traveling exhibition, life‐size
photo cutouts of a spider scientist at the Field “guided” visitors through
the various stages of her research, with each stage displayed in a
reconstructed environment such as spider prep and research labs.69
Findings revealed that even though few visitors stopped at the Snails
exhibition, half of those who did appeared to personally connect with the
stories of the individuals. Similarly, most visitors to the “Curator’s
Office” understood that the guide depicted was a scientist who
researched spiders.70 These results suggest that the scientists‐as‐people
approach recommended by Perry and Forland was effective in reaching
visitors.
Researchers at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) came
to similar conclusions regarding visitors’ interest in the preparation of
69 These laboratories contained live and preserved specimens. The spider scientist Petra Sierwald was not working in the lab. See Eric Gyllenhaal, “Communicating Behind the Scenes Research to Museum Visitors: Evaluations of Temporary Exhibitions at the Field Museum,” Current Trends in Audience Research and Evaluation 11 (1998): 16; Eric Gyllenhaal, email correspondence with author, 7 July 2006. 70 Gyllenhaal, Evaluations of Temporary Exhibitions, 19‐20.
49
specimens and scientists‐as‐people approach. In order for museums to
create exhibitions that build on visitors’ prior knowledge and interests,
Perry and Forland recommended conducting further evaluation that
focused on visitors’ questions about museum research collections.
Developer Linda Deck at NMNH and evaluators John Falk and Dana
Holland were already well on their way to understanding the questions
visitors ask specifically about fossils. As part of a remedial evaluation of
Introduction to Fossils: The History of Life on Earth in 1995, visitors asked
questions about and touched fossils that were positioned on a modular
fossil cart staffed by researchers.71 Deck and her fellow researchers
concluded that one way to reach visitors interested in fossils was through
exhibits that allow them to make a social connection such as through a
demonstration of paleontologists doing their work.72 As a result of their
findings, NMNH added a Fossil Primer to the exhibition’s introduction.
Among other components, they added an interactive video of visitors’
top ten most pressing questions about the fundamentals of paleontology,
71 The first phase of Fossils: The History of Life on Earth opened in the 1970s. 72 Linda T. Deck, John Falk, and Dana Holland, “Planning Paleontology Exhibits that Communicate to the Visitor,” Current Trends in Audience Research and Evaluation 9 (1995): 9.
50
such as, “How do paleontologists put together a skeleton in a museum?”
Including this type of question emphasized both the “social connection”
approach advocated by at NMNH and the “scientists‐as‐people”
approach used successfully at the Field.
By showing visitors the process of fossil preparation and “scientists‐as‐
people,” working fossil laboratories fulfill the recommendations of the
Field’s and NMNH’s researchers. In fact, fossil labs can connect visitors
not only to scientists’ narratives but to the “scientists‐as‐themselves.” At
least three visitor studies were conducted at working fossil laboratories in
the mid 1990s. One study determined visitors’ preferences for working
fossil laboratories. In 1996 the California Academy of Sciences was
interested in ascertaining their visitors’ preferences for types of exhibits
they might include in an exhibition of robotic dinosaurs (with the
working title Dinoquest). Adult visitors were asked to rate on a five point
scale their interest in watching live scientists clean dinosaur fossils,
watching live scientists clean fossils of other extinct animals, and talking
51
to live scientists about their work, among other items.73 Results indicated
that talking to live scientists about their work was more popular than
watching live scientists clean fossils of other extinct animals followed
closely by watching live scientists clean dinosaur fossils.
The other two studies gathered visitors’ questions about working fossil
laboratories. In 1997 74 and 1998 75 the Field evaluation team studied the
temporary fossil lab in order to shed light on visitors’ interest in labs as
well as their most pressing questions.76 Questions included: “What is the
person behind the glass doing?”; “How does the person (preparator)
know what is fossil and what is dirt?”; and “What skills or training do
73 Lisa MacKinney, “Findings from Dinoquest 1997 Front End Questionnaire,” Memo on file in the Exhibits Department at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA. 74 Eric Gyllenhaal, Associate Selinda Research Associates, interview with author, 14 November 2005, Chicago, IL. Eric said the 1997 report was mainly used internally at Selinda as a trial run with the Nudist Program. He also said “We didn’t supervise the data collection, so we’re not sure how well this sample really represents the questions that visitors really asked, or would ask under different circumstances.” 75 Deborah Perry, “Visitor Thoughts at Sue Uncrated and the Fossil Prep Lab: Preliminary Evaluation Results,” Unpublished manuscript, (Chicago, IL: Selinda Research Associates), 1998. 76Formerly located in Stanley Field Hall, this lab was dismantled after the McDonald’s Fossil Lab opened in June 1998 (see Appendix E).
52
preparators have?” These studies suggested that visitors noticed the
person behind the glass and that this person was the central subject of
their questions.
Visitors to the Smithsonian Institution, the nation’s most visited museum,
value object and social experiences, a finding that supports earlier studies
of visitors’ interests in fossils, preparation work, and scientists‐as‐people.
Researchers at the Smithsonian have taken the lead in understanding the
experiences visitors value and find satisfying in a range of museum types,
from art and history to natural history and zoos.77 Andrew Pekarik,
Zahava Doering and David Karns interviewed several thousand visitors
to nine Smithsonian Museums, including the National Museum of
Natural History, and created a list of fourteen experiences visitors find
satisfying, recreated below in Figure 6.1. They classified these visitor
experiences into four clusters: object, cognitive, introspective, and social.78
77 As defined by Pekarik and his fellow researchers, satisfaction “…primarily draws on short term memory and a judgment of value, and is more firmly and directly rooted in experience.” Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, “Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 169. 78 Figure 6.1 is adapted from Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums, 152‐162, 172. The researchers
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Figure 6.1. Satisfying Museum Experiences Object experiences: The visitor’s focus is on an object or the “real thing”
Seeing “the real thing” Seeing rare/uncommon/valuable things Being moved by beauty Thinking what it would be like to own such things Continuing my professional development
Cognitive experiences: The focus is on interpretive or intellectual aspects
Gaining information or knowledge Enriching my understanding
Introspective experiences: The focus is on internal feelings often prompted by an object or environment
Imagining other times or places Reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at Recalling my travels/childhood experiences/other memories Feeling a spiritual connection Feeling a sense of belonging or connectedness
Social experiences: The focus is on an interaction with another person
Spending time with friends/family/other people Seeing my children learning new things
conclude, “we hope that others will join us where possible, either by using this same instrument…We invite suggestions and comments on our work.”
54
The researchers also compared these satisfying experiences to
characteristics of the museums (i.e., object experiences were the most
frequent type of satisfying experience at NMNH), exhibitions (i.e., the
types of most satisfying experiences differed between different
exhibitions within the same museum) and visitors (i.e., age, gender, and
first time visitation were significantly associated with selected most
satisfying experiences). Moreover, at NMNH, two exhibitions—the
Dinosaur halls and Geology, Gems, and Minerals—had the most impact on
visitors’ satisfaction. Twenty three percent of visitors cited the Dinosaur
halls as the location of their most satisfying experience.79 The Smithsonian
study served as a tool for my master’s project and helped me devise a
visitor study measuring the experiences visitors to the Academy of
Natural Sciences value at its Fossil Prep Lab.
In the Amazonia Center at the National Zoo, Smithsonian researchers
conducted a visitor satisfaction and timing and tracking study of an
exhibition with working laboratories. For this study, David Karns and his
fellow researchers compared three different types of visitors’
79 Ibid., 168.
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understanding of rainforests and biomedical research; conceptions of
scientists who work behind‐the‐scenes; as well as satisfying experiences.
One of the exhibitions studied, The Science Gallery, contained four
working laboratory exhibitions in the areas of biodiversity, genetics,
behavior, and nutrition, but not fossils. Relevant findings included: first,
visitors noticed people working in the exhibitions; second, visitors paid
attention to people and observed them; and third, visitors had a sense
that scientists are methodical.
Survey results showed that 82 percent of visitors noticed a scientist in the
Science Gallery on the days scientists were scheduled to work in the labs.80
Those who noticed a scientist were more likely than other visitors to
describe scientists as “methodical.”81 In general, visitors to the Science
Gallery were more likely to state that zoo scientists’ work on
environmental research (in addition to daily animal care, the most
80 David Karns, Steven Smith, Stacey Bielick, Andrew Pekarik, and Gary Shank, “Exploring Amazonia: Three Studies of Visitors at the National Zoological Park,” (Washington, D.C.: Institutional Studies Office, 1998), 25. http://www.si.edu/opanda/Reports/Earlier/98‐9‐Amazonia.pdf 81 Ibid, 32
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common response for all visitor types). Significantly, these visitors had
more varied types of satisfying experiences.82
Whether people were working in the laboratories made a significant
difference in visitors’ interest in the labs. During a timing and tracking
study in the Science Gallery, few visitors stopped at the laboratories when
no one was working in them.83 Researchers at the Field Museum reached
a similar conclusion in a timing and tracking study of the “Regenstein
Laboratory,” a working laboratory exhibition showcasing anthropological
collections and research. When staff were not in the laboratory, visitors
spent, on average, half as much time in the exhibition.84 In 1988, another
exhibition with a working laboratory exhibition, Rainforest: Exploring Life
on Earth, opened at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Results from the
exhibition’s summative evaluation revealed that out of a total of seventy
exhibits, nine attracted more than fifty percent of the roughly eleven
82 Ibid, 34, 37 83 Ibid, 18 84 Ann Goldman, and Matt Matcuk, “The Regenstein Laboratory, Summative Evaluation: Visitor Comprehension and Exhibition Usage,” Unpublished report, (Chicago: Exhibitions Department of Field Museum, 2005), 8.
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thousand visitors sampled. Four of these exhibits featured scientists
working in the laboratories.85 These timing and tracking studies
underscore the power of a person working in an exhibition in attracting
and holding visitors’ interest.
Whether people were working in the laboratory and available to answer
visitors’ questions also affected visitors’ interest in the lab. In 1996, the
Denver Museum of Nature and Science conducted a summative
evaluation of Prehistoric Journey in which the Schlessman Family Earth
Sciences Laboratory is displayed. For this evaluation, a timing and tracking
study, exit surveys, visitor interviews, studies on key exhibits, and
appraisals by three visitor studies professionals were completed. This
evaluation shed light on visitor interest and behavior at the lab. Findings
from the timing and tracking study (n=76) showed that most visitors
stopped to observe a person in the lab, spending a mean time of 88
seconds and a maximum of 8.6 minutes at the fossil lab. Exhibit Evaluator
Margie Marino concluded, “The exhibit development team had guessed
at the outset that the fossil lab would probably not get as much attention
85 Mary Korenic, and Allen Young, “The Rain Forest in Milwaukee: An Evaluation,” Curator 34, no.2 (June 1991): 146.
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after the rest of the exhibition opened. It’s nice to know that the fossil lab
is still an attraction for a majority of visitors and they still appreciate the
opportunity to talk to ‘scientists’ about their work—even after seeing
17,000 square feet of exhibits.”86 Lastly, Marino encouraged further study
of Prehistoric Journey specifically citing the fossil lab as an area deserving
exploration.
Facilitated exhibition experiences—comparable to the one provided at
Denver’s Schlessman Family Earth Sciences Laboratory—have won awards
for visitor experience. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science
(DMNS) received a Leading Edge for Visitor Experience award at the
2005 Association of Science‐Technology Centers’ Annual Conference, in
part for the use of trained Museum Galaxy Guides in Space Odyssey.
Among other tasks, the Galaxy Guides facilitate interactive exhibits and
offer science demonstrations. A majority of visitors—seventy percent—
interact with the Galaxy Guides.87 Since the exhibition opened in 2002,
86 Margie Marino, “Prehistoric Journey: Summative Evaluation Report,” unpublished manuscript, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 1996, 45. 87 Francis Kruger, “Space Odyssey at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: Nomination Application for ASTC Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience,”
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DMNS has seen a sharp rise in its annual attendance, a figure that they
infer is related to their visitors’ satisfaction with Space Odyssey.88
Conversations between visitors and museum staff have an impact on
visitors’ experiences. Likewise, conversations among visitors in groups
influence whether and what visitors learn. An in‐depth study of visitors’
conversations about fossils was undertaken at the Pittsburgh Children’s
Museum in 2002. Researchers Kevin Crowley and Melanie Jacobs found a
correlation between the ways in which parents talk to their children (ages
4 to 12 years old) about fossils and the number of fossils their children
could identify. Parents who specifically mentioned information from
labels or offered explanations connecting the experience to their family’s
shared prior knowledge affected the number of fossils their children
could recall. Although this study was not conducted at a fossil lab
exhibition in a natural history museum, it implies that staff working in a
fossil laboratory can function similar to a parent in mediating what
Unpublished manuscript (Denver, Colorado: Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2005). 88 Zahava D. Doering, “Strangers, Guests, or Clients? Visitor Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no.2 (April 1999): 74‐87.
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children and perhaps visitors of all ages to natural history museums can
learn about fossils.89
These visitor studies present promising methodologies for studying
visitor experience at fossil laboratory exhibitions. To stimulate visitors’
curiosity in behind‐the‐scenes research, visitor studies conducted by the
Field Museum and the National Museum of Natural History recommend
connecting museum research to visitors’ natural interests in the
preparation of specimens and to scientists’ lives. By showing visitors the
process of fossil preparation and “scientists‐as‐people,” working fossil
laboratories fulfill these studies’ recommendations. Not only do fossil
laboratories connect visitors to scientists’ narratives, they connect them to
the scientists, as themselves. As American Museum of Natural History’s
Gilbert Stucker wrote about the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument
in 1965, giving visitors the chance to become involved, to engage with
scientists, is the answer to effective interpretation. “He [the visitor]
becomes involved. He enters the paleontological experience and shares in
89 Kevin Crowley and Melanie Jacobs, “Building Islands of Expertise in Everyday Family Activity,” in Learning Conversations in Museums, eds., G. Leinhardt, K. Crowley, and K. Knudston (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002).
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the discovery and the excavating [and in the case of the fossil lab, I would
add, in the act of preparation]…It is not coming to him second hand, as
something told, something shown; he is living it.”90
Scientists working in exhibitions have the potential to satisfy visitors’
curiosity and enliven their experience. This was confirmed by studies of
the experiences visitors find satisfying at the National Museum of
Natural History, in Dinosaur Hall in particular, and at the National Zoo’s
Amazonia Center in the Science Gallery. These studies can serve as a tool
for measuring the experiences visitors value at the Academy of Natural
Sciences’ Dinosaur Hall in the Fossil Prep Lab. Furthermore, tracking and
timing studies of working laboratory exhibitions at the Amazonia Center,
the Field Museum, and the Milwaukee Public Museum prove that the
presence of a scientist in an exhibition attracts and holds visitors’ interest.
But how do working fossil laboratories that both show paleontologists at
work and also provide opportunities for visitors to talk to them, impact
visitors’ experiences?
90 Gilbert F. Stucker, “Dinosaur Monument and the People: A Study of Interpretation,” Curator 6, no. 2 (1965): 142.
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FINDINGS
An examination of the Page Museum’s La Brea Tar Pits, which opened
one of the first working laboratory exhibitions, revealed the impetus
behind the original working laboratory concept. It was visitors’ interest in
touring a laboratory adjacent to the tar pit that inspired the Page Museum
to incorporate a working laboratory into their exhibition plan in 1977. The
La Brea Tar Pits is a unique cultural attraction in which visitors have the
opportunity during the summer to watch paleontologists uncover fossils
from a tar pit. The Page Museum’s Collections Manager Christopher
Shaw remarked, “[we have]…a pretty unique situation… We are in the
middle of a major metropolitan city, we have a hole in the ground with
sabertooth cats, all kinds of exotic extinct animals….”91 Between 1969 and
1977, visitors to the pit were curious, not only about the exotic extinct
animals uncovered by paleontologists in the pit, but also about the work
going on in the lab adjacent to the pit. As Shaw stated,
We have a laboratory right next to it [the pit in Hancock Park] and everybody is going wow, it’s really cool to be able to see this. We don’t have to travel to the Mojave Desert, even the Gobi Desert, to see paleontologists at work and plus, we can actually go through
91 Christopher Shaw, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
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the laboratory and see what they do with the stuff once they dig it out of the dirt. People are really interested in that.92
Former Curator at the Page Museum and conceptual designer for its lab
William Akerston recalled “…whenever there was ongoing work on an
exhibit where the public could see it, it drew most of the visitors.” At the
time the Page Museum opened its laboratory exhibit concept to the public
in 1977, “it was an innovation to have this kind of inside outside theme. It
was exciting to a lot of people,” including visitors.
My interviews with museum professionals revealed that working fossil
laboratories have evolved since the 1970s. (Details of my interviews are
outlined in the Methodology section). Today, working fossil labs are
defined by several features that engage visitors with fossils and
paleontology in dynamic ways. They are also used to inspire visitation to
natural history museums.93
92 Ibid. 93 All fossil labs in my study are featured on their museums’ websites. Several natural history museums capitalized on their lab’s public appeal to donors and to volunteers. For instance, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s Schlessman Family Earth Science Laboratory was used to raise money for the development of Prehistoric Journey.
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Defining Features of a Working Fossil Laboratory
Several features define visitors’ experience at a working fossil laboratory
(See Appendix D for images of fossil laboratories). First, at a lab, visitors
can see fossils displayed on tables, on walls, or with signs. Second, they
can see preparators or volunteers preparing fossils at window
workstations. Third, they can see the human dimension of fossil research
firsthand. Fourth, visitors can see this research take place in a functioning
laboratory that was designed with attention to the museum’s unique
collection of fossils. Lastly, visitors can see a fossil lab as a component of a
larger thematic exhibition about prehistory or fossil vertebrates.
Visitors can see fossils on display in a fossil lab. Warren Allmon, Director
of the Museum of the Earth explained of the museum’s Preparation
Laboratory:
It’s not big enough to display many fossils. This was by design…. We have a huge invertebrate collection but not a big vertebrate collection. We do use the lab to show off big dinosaur bones, which you wouldn’t see elsewhere [in the museum]. 94
Bill Simpson of the Field Museum stated:
94 Warren Allmon, Director, Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY, interview by author, 17 April 2006.
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…We have a big sand box in the fossil prep lab which was designed to be big enough to take the biggest elements of Sue’s skeleton, the hip bone or skull. In the large sandbox, you can place fossils that are not being directly worked on, in that way, it is more of a traditional display. 95
Visitors can observe the people who work in the lab: primarily
preparators, paleontologists, or volunteers. The Academy of Natural
Science’s Paleo Lab Supervisor Jason Poole regards volunteers as integral
to the lab’s success in serving a diverse audience. Volunteers range in age
from 14 to 80 years old. Because volunteers are diverse in terms of
ethnicity, social aspects, and even in their interest in science (some are
more interested in teaching, others in public speaking), they are bound to
relate to a visitor in different ways.96
Visitors can see the human dimension of fossil research. The lab’s
primary purpose is to show visitors the interaction between the people
and fossils on display. The display of fossils is a secondary purpose.
Christopher Shaw, Collections Manager at the La Brea Tar Pits stated:
95 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 96 Jason Poole, Paleo Lab Coordinator, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, interview by author, 21 December 2005, Academy of Natural Sciences.
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…We do have fossils that sit out on a counter around where people are working. We do have signs that accompany them that say, this is an elephant toe, but I think more, it is an exhibit displaying how we prepare, clean, and catalog …fossils. As far as a display of various kinds of fossils, it is a minor component of what we are trying to convey to the public.97
Bill Simpson of the Field Museum echoed Shaw’s remarks:
[The lab]…displays more than just a fossil itself, obviously. It displays something nothing else can, that is how a fossil comes to be the way it is when it is seen by the public in the museum…I think most people are interested in watching people. That is something I’ve noticed. I think a lot of them don’t even know what is going on in the lab but they see there are people in the lab and they want to see what they are doing. I think it is the interaction between people and fossils that is unique to this laboratory. The process is something the public doesn’t normally get to see.98
Visitors can see this research process occur in a functioning laboratory
that was designed with attention to the museum’s unique collection of
fossils. Visitors can observe the lab’s design features—evacuation systems
for mini jackhammering, sandblasting, and flammable cabinets;
pressurized air, electrical or lighting capabilities; water/sinks; window
97 Christopher Shaw, Collections Manager, La Brea Tar Pits, Page Museum, Los Angeles, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 98 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
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workstations and other furniture to hold tools, equipment, storage, and
people; and access and security. These design features are arranged in a
functional yet aesthetically pleasing manner with an eye toward visitors’
sightlines and access.
One example is the McDonald’s Prep Lab at the Field Museum. In
designing the lab, Fossil Vertebrates Collections Manager Bill Simpson
recalled:
What we did is look at the fossils we were designing the lab for. And of course they were a T‐rex [named Sue]…. The first stage [in the preparation process] was the removal of most of the matrix with a miniature jackhammer sometimes called an air scribe. They are air driven impact tools and they have a carbide tip that is extremely hard, not that much softer than diamond. Using that we took off most of the matrix. But because the tip is so hard, if we used it to take off all the matrix to get right to the bone, we would leave dents in the bone surface. To avoid that, we left a thin veneer of matrix covering the bone and then that last veneer of matrix was removed with a miniature sandblaster. But instead of sand as an abrasive, which would be too abrasive and harm the bone itself, we used … sodium bicarbonate, which is softer … it’s the same as baking soda….
So the lab had to be designed with these two different functions in
mind. The first function, the mini jackhammering, would spew little pieces of matrix all over the room and produce a fairly messy environment. We chose a ventilation system with flexible ducts to remove much of this detritus. The air abrasion used and produced dust, which would get into the air if it were not part of a well‐designed evacuation system. This room also used the ‘extractor
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arms’ but they were coupled to a high‐efficiency filtration system to capture the fine dust. So the two functions were separated.99
Lastly, visitors can see a fossil lab as a component of a larger thematic
exhibition, typically about prehistory or fossil vertebrates. The Fossil Lab
at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a component of
Prehistoric North Carolina. The Schlessman Family Earth Science Laboratory at
Denver Museum of Nature and Science is positioned at the end of
Prehistoric Journey, an exhibition that highlights major events in the
history of life on earth. Likewise, the McDonald’s Prep Lab at the Field
Museum has been the hub for a series of changing prehistoric exhibitions.
Since its opening in 1998 in front of the entrance to Life Over Time, the
prep lab has seen Sue (2000) installed and Life Over Time replaced by
Evolving Planet in March 2006. Field’s Director John McCarter notes that
the importance of these exhibitions is to use the inherent appeal of
dinosaurs to “…improve scientific literacy…. We want visitors to see the
broader story of evolution, with dinosaurs in that evolutionary
context.”100
99 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
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Developing a Working Fossil Laboratory
Natural history museums develop working fossil laboratories for various
reasons from fulfilling their need for preparation laboratories, to
engaging their visitors in conversation with paleontologists‐at‐work, to
engaging their visitors with interpretive materials and through exhibit
design. Natural history museums committed to paleontological research
need preparation laboratories, whether or not the laboratories are on
exhibit, to prepare fossils for study and display. Several museums’
decisions to have prep labs on exhibit was driven, in part, by their
visitors’ interests; museums could merge their research mission with their
public mandate while supporting their visitors’ interests in fossils,
preparation, and scientists‐at‐work.
The Field Museum had to prepare for Sue, the Denver Museum of Nature
and Science for Prehistoric Journey. According to Fossil Vertebrates
Collection Manager at the Field Museum Bill Simpson, “preparation is
100 Kathy A. Svitil, “The Head of Chicago’s Field Museum Lends a Powerful New Voice to the Evolution Debate,” Discover: Science, Technology and the Future (May 2006): 55.
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really the labor intensive bottleneck that supports any research program
in paleontology… The core to any vital vertebrate paleontological
research program is preparation and a really skilled and active
preparation lab…”101 Simpson added that,
The idea was to add preparators and laboratory space so that we could continue with our research mission at the same time that Sue was prepared… We were basically expanding the research and laboratory component [in order to] not replace one with Sue.102
Denver Museum of Nature and Science shared a similar story; it couldn’t
create Prehistoric Journey without a lab.
For both museums, a driving force behind the lab’s development was
exposing the public to a process formerly hidden in the basement. As Bill
Simpson summarized, “Why not do it in the public eye?”103 As Denver’s
Bryan Small put it, “Whether it was going to be in the basement hidden
from people, or on display, we needed a lab…So why don’t we kill two
birds with one stone and incorporate the lab into the exhibit, instead of
101 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 102 Ibid 103 Ibid
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hiding it in the basement somewhere…At least people could see people
working on fossils, see the process.”
Most natural history museums developed their fossil labs to engage
visitors in conversation with paleontologists or volunteers. For example,
the Museum of the Earth’s mission drove the development of its
Preparation Laboratory: “…science is a human endeavor and
paleontologists are people...” According to Museum of the Earth’s
Director Warren Allmon, the museum “…wanted a place where people
could be talking to people. We wanted exhibits that could do that…”104
Vince Schneider, Curator of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum
of Natural Sciences said, “the advantage of a fossil lab is that visitors have
a chance to talk to a live person. Some visitors spend 20‐30 minutes at the
lab because they get an exchange. They may leave the lab and walk by
everything else, say ‘oh awe’, but at least they learned something at the
lab. But it took a one‐on‐one interaction to do it.”105
104 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006. 105 Vince Schneider, interview by author, 14 March 2006.
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Volunteers are critical to the lab’s public dimension. Most fossil
laboratories (at least six of eight labs) train volunteers in the methods of
preparation, but fewer train them to interact with visitors. Through
courses, lectures, manuals and internship programs, volunteers at the
Academy of Natural Sciences, Denver Museum of Nature and Science,
and the Museum of the Earth are trained to interact with the public or are
encouraged to do so. At the Academy, volunteers are encouraged to
initiate conversations with visitors by using the lab’s tools to their
advantage. In the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab’s training manual, the brief
section on working with the public states:
Visitors are never to be ignored. The Dinosaur Hall Fossil Preparation Lab has two reasons for being: To educate the public about why we do what we do, and to prepare fossils for study and display. It is often not enough to ask ‘If you have any questions please ask.’ The visitor often has no place to start. It is our responsibility to begin by explaining a bit about what we are doing, hence giving the visitor a starting point. The lab is full of tools and touchable fossils. Use these things to help you explain complex things like what a fossil is, how we get the fossils out of the rock, or even how we can tell fossil from rock… Please spend some time observing your manager’s interactions with the public.106
106 Jason Poole, Academy of Natural Sciences Dinosaur Hall Prep Laboratory Manual, unpublished manuscript, on file at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA.
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In addition to engaging visitors through conversation with
paleontologists and volunteers, labs engage visitors through interpretive
tools—signage, video cameras, preparation videos, and accessory
exhibits—positioned inside or outside the laboratory. Inside the lab,
flexible signage, such as handwritten erasable placards, bulletin boards,
or chalkboards, is common. Video cameras connected to the Internet (a
virtual visitor can watch from home) and attached to microscopes are
installed in several labs. Video cameras attached to microscopes and
monitors give visitors a closer glimpse of what scientists see under the
microscope. Preparator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Bryan Small said, “Lots of times what we are working on may not be
things anybody would see or recognize. I work a lot with small things
under the microscope.”107 At the National Museum of Natural History
(NMNH), visitors had the opportunity to maneuver an overhead video
camera to get a personal peek at the preparators working in the middle of
the lab. But as Steve Jabo, museum specialist at NMNH, remembered
fondly, visitors (usually teenage boys) mostly zoomed in on his bald spot;
one of the reasons why the camera was dismantled by 1998.
107 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
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Outside most labs, permanent signage or interpretive media, preparation
videos, and/or accessory exhibit cases are included. To complement work
going on in the lab or to offer information when no one is in the lab,
NMNH installed interpretive signage and media around the lab’s
perimeter in 1999 or 2000.108 Outside the lab, interpretive signage poses
and answers questions, such as what is a fossil, why study fossils, what
happens at FossiLab, and how to find specific fossils. Preparation videos
supplement the human interaction at labs that typically can only be fully
staffed one to three days a week (e.g., the North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences and the Museum of the Earth). At North Carolina’s
Fossil Lab, content of the video includes what happens in the field, how
plaster jackets in the field are made, and how fossils are molded.109
Outside most labs, accessory exhibit cases are popular. In front of the lab
at the Museum of the Earth is a case with permanent signage explaining
what goes on at the prep lab. Every six months the museum changes the
108 See “Paleo Prep Lab Upgrade” [memo dated 12/5/1994]. 109 Vince Schneider, interview by author, 14 March 2006.
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specimens—for example, two trilobites are exhibited, one prepped and
one non‐prepped—and the associated labels.
Lastly, design of the labs’ interfaces, which are dictated by the role of staff
in the labs, are critical to visitors’ engagement with fossil labs. Key design
features of the labs’ interfaces are the location and height of workstations
and ledges, in addition to the window systems providing protection for
fossils and visitors. Although all labs have window systems separating
the public from the labs, static windows are found at labs where visitors
primarily watch preparators work (La Brea Tar Pits and Field Museum),
while sliding windows or static half windows with holes are
commonplace at labs where preparators talk with visitors while
preparing fossils (Denver Museum of Nature and Science, North Carolina
Museum of Natural Sciences, Museum of the Earth, and Academy of
Natural Sciences). As Bryan Small said,
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Here in the lab [at Denver], we have counter space in the front. People who work there will interact. People who work on the back tables can’t necessarily talk to anybody but visitors can still look in the window and see them at work… There will be times when people can look in and see us working in there but there is no one at the front counter.110
Visitor Experience at the Academy of Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab
There is a growing interest in visitor evaluation studies of fossil
laboratory exhibitions. As a result of fossil laboratories’ long history as
public exhibitions, natural history museums have had the opportunity to
learn from their staffs’ experience working in labs and visitors’ experience
at the labs.111 Natural history museums that are interested in expanding
their existing fossil labs or incorporating their labs into their new
museum building projects have attempted to learn from their own
mistakes and those of their colleagues.112 Beyond looking to other
museums for advice about how to develop and design fossil labs, natural
history museums have conducted informal observations of the questions
110 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 111 Vince Schneider, interview by author, 14 March 2006. 112 See Timeline of Fossil Lab Openings and Renovations in Appendix E
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visitors ask and their behavior at working labs. Natural history museums
have also conducted formative visitor studies to inform lab development
and design, as outlined in my literature review.
In the Academy of Natural Science’s (Academy) initial formative
evaluation of its Fossil Prep Lab, they discovered visitors of all ages are
drawn to fossil laboratory exhibitions. In 1996, the Academys’ Paleo Lab
Coordinator Jason Poole, Dinosaur Hall Supervisor/ Educator Anthony
Paino, and exhibit developers participated in Project Dinosaur, a formative
evaluation to ascertain visitor interest in various exhibition techniques
planned for Dinosaur Hall.113 These exhibits included a fossil lab, a
dinosaur artist studio in which visitors could make fossil rubbings, a
comparative biology studio in which visitors could compare living
animals to their extinct relatives, and a dinosaur exhibit workshop where
visitors could create casts of bones. Exhibit developers measured the
attracting power of each of the exhibits, measured the amount of time
visitors stopped at each exhibit, and then asked visitors to complete a
questionnaire. Results of the evaluation showed that visitors were most
113 The results of Project Dinosaur were never published.
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drawn to the fossil dig and fossil prep lab. Poole recalled, “The prep lab
had a strong response. Visitors liked talking to paleontologists. That was
probably the best thing we learned…. It was also great for all audiences
and the adults really liked it because people were here to answer their
questions.”
Ten years later, I expanded on this study by examining the experiences
visitors value at the completed Fossil Prep Lab. To determine the
relationships between the messages visitors take away at the lab, the
impact of talking with an expert, the types of experiences visitors find
satisfying, and visitors’ experience ratings, I distributed a survey to
visitors exiting the lab over three days (two weekend days and one
weekday) during the first week of April 2006. I was interested in
identifying whether visitors found having a chance to talk to experts
particularly satisfying at the lab and with which other satisfying
experiences and questions it was strongly associated. The findings of my
investigation follow.
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Description of Dinosaur Hall and Current Fossil Prep Lab
At the Academy, the Fossil Prep Lab opened as part of the reinstallation of
Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Creatures, also referred to as Dinosaur Hall.
The Hall had been redone once before in 1984, but at that time, the hall
was “just a showroom, with no interactives or lab,” according to Jason
Poole.114 At the time of my study, visitors to Dinosaur Hall were greeted
by a title panel that reads “Welcome to the Fossil Prep Lab.” They read on
the exhibit’s introductory label, “Once they’re out of the ground, fossils
need a good cleaning. Watch us prepare fossils for study and display.” To
the right of the entrance, visitors saw a wall case containing several
objects—a bag of plaster of Paris, a can in which to mix plaster,
Reynolds’s wrap, tools, burlap, and fossils in a jacket. In the case, visitors
read the label:
It can be a rough road to the lab. Once removed from the ground, these delicate remains of ancient creatures need special protection so they can tell their stories. First, a fossil is wrapped in tin foil, and then encased in burlap bandages soaked in plaster. The foil keeps the wet plaster from sticking to the fossil. Once the plaster dries it forms a hard shell that protects fossilized bone. This ‘field jacket’ containing the fossil, is safely shipped to the Academy fossil prep lab where it is removed from the jacket. Technicians then begin the painstaking work of carefully removing the fossil from the surrounding rock and preparing it for study and display.
114 Jason Poole, interview by author, 21 December 2005.
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If visitors crossed the threshold under the title panel and entered into the
working lab area, they saw the laboratory on the left, a wall case to the
right showcasing current paleontology research conducted at the
Academy, and a case on the back wall containing three fossils.115 At the
lab, visitors interacted with preparators sitting at workstations working
on fossils. Visitors talked to them through holes in half‐windows set in
front of the workstations. They saw fossil vertebrates hanging from the
ceiling above a butcher‐block worktable as well as a blackboard on the
back wall replete with drawings of a rearticulated dinosaur and notes
from staff discussions with visitors. They were invited to touch fossils
placed on a ledge of the lab’s half doorway, through which staff accessed
the lab.
115 One label in this wall case read, “Did you know that the Academy of Natural Sciences is still actively involved in the science of paleontology and that you are watching real science happen?” Examples of projects featured included: the Western Interior Project in Montana, and Bahariya Dinosaur project in Egypt. The label in the case on the back wall read, “These are finished fossils from this summer’s field season to Eastern Montana. They are 65 million years old and come from the Hell Creek Formation…These fossils were dug up by the Curator of Paleontology at Garfield County Museum, staff and volunteers from the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab, students from universities around the country and people like you.”
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Integrated throughout the exhibit experience—in the lab interpretation, in
the specimen cases, and in the laboratory setting where staff talk and
interact with visitors—is the lab’s goal “to foster visitor understanding of
the process of discovery in paleontology through interaction between
visitors and staff who are involved in the process of fossil preparation
themselves.”116 There are four main messages the lab intends to
communicate to visitors:
• To show the human element in the process of preparation • To serve visitors and answer their questions • To see what goes on behind the scenes; bring museum collections
and science out to the public • To make science more accessible and to have visitors walk away
feeling like “I can do this”117
Characteristics of Sample
Seventy visitors were approached to complete the exit survey (See
Appendix B). Fifty respondents completed it, although not all
respondents answered all fourteen questions.118 Six of the fourteen
116 Jason Poole, Dinosaur Hall Prep Laboratory Manual, Academy of Natural Sciences. 117 Ibid; Andy, Volunteer Preparator, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, interview by author, 1 April 2006, Academy of Natural Sciences. 118 For a full copy of my raw data, contact me via email at [email protected].
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questions focused on demographics (Questions 1, 2, 11‐14). Eighty‐six
percent of the fifty respondents were first time visitors to the Academy,
less than ten percent were members. Two thirds of respondents were
female, a third male. Over 90 percent of respondents were visiting in
groups; 14 were in adult‐only groups and 31 were in groups with adult(s)
and children. The remaining four respondents were visiting by
themselves. Seventy percent of respondents had a college or postgraduate
degree.
Messages Visitors Took Away from Lab (Question 5)
In order to determine whether the Academy’s intended messages were
taken away from the lab, respondents were asked what they would tell a
friend was the purpose of the lab (question 5). Two of the Academy’s
intended messages—to show the human element in the process of
preparation and to serve visitors and answer their questions—were
evident in visitors’ responses; the other two intended messages—to see
what goes on behind the scenes and to make science more accessible—
were less evident. Of 34 respondents, two thirds thought the purpose of
the lab was to educate them about paleontology, allow them to see
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paleontologists at work, or talk to a paleontologist. About 40 percent
indicated the lab’s purpose was intrinsic to the operation of a working
laboratory—preparing or cleaning fossils. To prepare and/or clean fossils
for a specified purpose—study, display, museums, or universities (12)—
was the most common response followed by to clean fossils (11). Both of
these responses were mentioned in the introductory label to the lab (see
Figure 7.1.) Additional responses—to be educated about paleontology; to
see paleontologists at work; to see how fossils are found, handled,
assembled, or preserved; and to have a chance to talk and ask questions
to a paleontologist—supported some, but not all of the lab’s intended
messages. Respondents recognized the lab gave them the opportunity to
see paleontologists work on fossils, but didn’t specify that the lab gave
them a glimpse of what paleontologists would otherwise work on behind
the scenes, the Academy’s third intended message. Finally, no
respondents indicated that the lab makes science more accessible to them.
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Figure 7.1. Purpose of Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab
Response Frequency
Visitor Responses (34 respondents)
12 Prepare or clean fossils for either study, display, museums or universities
11 Clean fossils, see people clean fossils 7 Educate about paleontology 6 Prepare fossils 6 See paleontologists work 6 See how fossils are found or acquired 4 See how fossils are handled or intricate work they
require 4 See how fossils are assembled 3 See how fossils are preserved 3 Chance to talk and ask questions to paleontologist
Talking with a Person in the Lab (Question 4), Visitor Experience Ratings (Questions 6, 8, 9) and Types of Satisfying Experiences (Question 7)
In order to determine whether talking with a person at the lab impacted
visitor experience ratings, respondents were asked whether they talked
with a person in the lab (question 4) and were asked to rate their overall
experience (question 6), the lab’s effect on their personal enjoyment
(question 8), and the lab’s effect on their extent of personal learning
(question 9) on a five‐point scale from poor to superior.
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To assess the types of experiences visitors found satisfying at the lab,
especially “having a chance to talk to experts,” respondents were to select
which, from a list of seven experiences, they found satisfying at the lab
(question 7). Questions 6 through 9 were modeled after an evaluation
instrument developed at the Smithsonian Institution. 119 To its list of six
satisfying experiences—seeing the “real” thing, gaining information or
knowledge, enriching my understanding, imagining other times or
places, reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at, and spending
time with friends, family or other people (see Figure 6.1 in Literature
Review section)—I added, “having a chance to talk to experts.”
Of 49 respondents, 59 percent talked with a person in the lab. In Figure
7.2, visitor experience ratings for overall experience, personal learning
and personal enjoyment are tabulated.
119 See footnote 15; Andrew Pekarik, Policy Analyst, Office of Policy and Analysis, Smithsonian, interview by author, 1 March 2006.
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Figure 7.2. Visitor Experience Ratings at Fossil Prep Lab
Rating
Overall Experience (%) (n=47 )
Personal Learning (%) (n= 48)
Personal Enjoyment (%) (n= 47)
Superior 26 25 23 Excellent 36 29 30 Good 32 40 38
Fair 6 6 9 Poor ‐ ‐ ‐
Figure 7.3. Frequencies of the Types of Satisfying Experiences at Fossil Prep Lab
Percent of Visitors
Types of Satisfying Experiences (Visitors could check more than one response)
90 Seeing the “real” thing (n=44) 69 Gaining information or knowledge (n=34) 59 Having a chance to talk to experts (n=29) 51 Enriching my understanding (n=25) 43 Spending time with friends/family/other people (n=21) 33 Reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at (n=16) 25 Imagining other times or places (n=12)
Ninety percent of respondents were satisfied with “seeing the real thing,”
(visitors could check more than one experience). Although, it is unclear
whether visitors regarded the “real thing” as the real lab, real scientist,
real fossil, or a combination thereof. In Figure 7.3 is a list of the four
frequency groupings for the experiences visitors found satisfying (n=49).
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Analysis of the relationships between “talking with a person at the lab,”
“visitor experience ratings,” and “types of satisfying experiences”
revealed that respondents who talked with a person at the lab were more
likely to have higher experience ratings. It showed that respondents who
were satisfied by having a chance to talk to experts were also satisfied
with social experiences such as spending time with their companions or
with cognitive experiences such as enriching their understanding.120 It
demonstrated that talking with a person in the lab significantly correlated
with having a chance to talk to experts. It revealed that respondents who
were satisfied with gaining information or knowledge or with having a
chance to talk to experts at the lab had higher ratings for overall
experience.
Correlations between “Talking with a Person at Lab” and “Visitor Experience Ratings”
Results showed a significant correlation between talking with a person in
the lab and each of the visitor experience ratings in Figure 7.4.
Respondents who talked to a person in the lab were more likely to have
higher satisfaction ratings—for overall experience, for personal
120 See Visitor Exit Survey in Appendix B
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enjoyment, and for personal learning—than respondents who didn’t talk
to a person.121 For each rating, respondents who talked to a person in the
lab were the only ones to rate their experience as “superior,” whereas
respondents who did not talk to a person were the only ones to have a
“fair” experience. Although no respondents rated their experience as
“poor,” those who talked with a person rated their experience as “good”
or better. Furthermore, correlations among the three visitor experience
ratings revealed that respondents who have higher personal enjoyment
and personal learning ratings also have higher overall experience ratings,
although the direction of causality is unclear (see Figure 7.5).122
121 For correlations between respondents who talked to a person at the lab and respondents’ ratings each for overall experience, personal enjoyment, or personal learning, Chi square values exceeded the critical value of 7.82 for 3 degrees of freedom at α=0.05 significance 122 Correlations among the three visitor experience ratings were calculated using Spearman’s correlation coefficient on ranked data (rs) as a means to measure the linear relationship between each of the ranked ratings.
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Figure 7.4. Relationship between “Talking with a Person at the Lab” and “Visitor Experience Ratings”
Overall Experience (%) N=47
Personal Enjoyment (%)
N=48
Personal Learning (%) N=47
Rating Talk Yes Talk No Talk Yes Talk No Talk Yes Talk No
Superior 26 ‐ 25 ‐ 23 ‐
Excellent 21 15 15 15 19 11 Good 13 19 21 19 19 19 Fair ‐ 6 ‐ 6 ‐ 9 Poor ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐
Figure 7.5. Correlations among “Visitor Experience Ratings” Overall Experience Personal Learning Overall Experience Personal Learning .936
(n=46)
Personal Enjoyment .769 (n=46)
.835 (n=47)
All correlations were significant at 0.01 level
Correlations between “Types of Satisfying Experiences”
The only significant relationships between the types of satisfying
experiences were between “having a chance to talk to experts” and the
social experience “spending time with friends, family, other people”123
and “having a chance to talk to experts” and the cognitive experience
123 α=0.036
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“enriching my understanding.”124 In other words, visitors who were
satisfied with talking to experts were also satisfied with spending time
with their companions or enriching their understanding. All other
significant correlations were between experiences that were not satisfying
to visitors. For example, respondents who were not satisfied with “having
a chance to talk to experts” were also not satisfied with “reflecting on the
meaning of what I was looking at.”125
Correlations between “Types of Satisfying Experiences” and “Visitor Experience Ratings”
Two types of satisfying experiences each correlated with high ratings of
overall satisfaction. Forty four percent of the 34 respondents who were
satisfied with gaining information or knowledge126 and 72 percent of the
29 respondents who were satisfied with having a chance to talk to
124 α=0.014 125 α=0.004. “Imagining other times or places” is significantly associated with “enriching my understanding” (α=0.010), “reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at” (α=0.029), and “spending time with friends/family/other people” (α=0.055). “Enriching my understanding” is significantly associated with “reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at” (α=0.003). 126 For cross tabs between the satisfying experience “gaining information or knowledge” and overall experience, Chi square value (9.733) exceeded the critical value of 7.82 for 3 degrees of freedom at α=0.05 significance.
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experts127 all rated their overall experience in the top two categories,
“superior” or “excellent.” These same two experiences were significantly
correlated with high ratings of personal enjoyment and learning. A
greater percentage of respondents (62 percent) who reported gaining
information or knowledge rated their personal enjoyment and personal
learning in the top two categories.
Correlations between “Talking with a Person in the Lab” and “Types of Satisfying Experiences”
Of 49 respondents, 60 percent talked with a person in the lab during their
visit. There was a significant relationship between respondents who
talked with a person in the lab and respondents who were satisfied with
having a chance to talk to experts (see Figure 7.6).128
127 For cross tabs between the satisfying experience “having a chance to talk to experts” and overall experience, Chi square value (9.897) exceeded the critical value of 7.82 for 3 degrees of freedom at α=0.05 significance. 128 Cross tabs of these two variables yield chi square value (16.347), which exceeds the critical value of 3.84 for 1 degree of freedom at α=0.05 significance. This means that if our null hypothesis were true (that there is no difference between the probability of talking with a person in the lab and being satisfied with ‘having a chance to talk to experts’), only 5 percent of the time would we obtain a chi square value greater than 3.84.
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Figure 7.6. Correlations between “Talking with a Person in the Lab” and “Types of Satisfying Experiences”
Talk to a Person at Lab
Types of Satisfying Experience
Talked and Satisfied
(% of n=29)
No Talk and Satisfied
(% of n=20)
Seeing the “real” thing (n=44)
83% 24
100%20
Gaining information or knowledge (n=34)
86% 25
45%9
Having a chance to talk to experts (n=29)
83% 24
25%5
Enriching my understanding (n=25)
55% 16
45%9
Spending time with friends/family/other people (n=21)
41% 12
45%9
Reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at (n=16)
48% 14
10%2
Imagining other times or places (n=12)
28% 8
20%4
Number of People in Party and Satisfaction with Spending time with friends, family or other people
Surprisingly, there was no significant relationship between respondents
visiting in groups and their satisfaction with “spending time with friends,
family or other people” at the Fossil Prep Lab. Of the 44 respondents
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visiting in groups, only half of the respondents reported satisfaction with
spending time with their group. Respondents who were satisfied with
“spending time with friends, family and other people” were also satisfied
with “having a chance to talk to experts.”
Challenges of Operating Working Fossil Laboratory Exhibitions
The Academy of Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab provided visitors with a
range of satisfying opportunities from seeing “real” fossils, gaining
information or knowledge to having a chance to talk to experts and
enriching their understanding. However, the educational experiences
afforded to visitors at fossil labs present challenges to museum staff
responsible for managing, working in, or planning the labs. The three
primary challenges to a lab’s successful operation are concept and design
planning, staffing, and evaluating the visitor experience. Many labs plan
to show the human dimension of fossil preparation to visitors and to
answer their questions. Yet, preparators working in the lab are often
overwhelmed by the number of visitors asking questions at the same time
or are required to meet deadlines imposed by exhibits or curatorial staff
and therefore, don’t have time to answer visitors’ questions. The second
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challenge is having sufficient staff to work in the lab during regular
museum hours, to coordinate lab personnel and preparation activities,
and to train volunteers to prepare fossils, and if appropriate, to interact
with visitors. The third challenge is regularly evaluating the lab.
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CONCLUSIONS
Working fossil laboratories are a popular exhibit trend in natural history
museums. In fact, many natural history museums have renovated their
fossil labs over the years (see Appendix E). Many too have planned to
expand their existing labs or to incorporate their labs into their new
museum building projects. Director of the Museum of the Earth Warren
Allmon remarked that fossil labs were “on the top” of their list of exhibit
techniques when the museum incorporated one into their new museum
in 2003. Allmon said, “Fossils are popular…. I don’t debate for a second
or have any reservations that we did the right thing putting it in…129
The appeal of fossils and dinosaurs aside, working fossil laboratories are
popular for several reasons. The first is that a vast majority of visitors
have a natural curiosity in watching people work in authentic, culturally
significant settings and in museum exhibitions. Visitors’ interest in the
work of paleontologists, both in the excavation and in the lab was the
inspiration for the development of the earliest fossil labs. Not unlike
129 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006.
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visitors’ reactions to the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument in
Vernal, Utah that Gilbert Stucker of the American Museum of Natural
History observed in the 1950s, visitors to the La Brea Tar Pits in the 1970s
were in awe of the sight of paleontologists working in the pit (see
Literature Review section, Working Laboratories as Exhibit Techniques).
At La Brea, visitors were curious not only about the excavation in
progress but also about work going on in the adjacent lab. Visitors’ desire
to tour this lab was the impetus for incorporating a lab into the Page
Museum. In the 1980s and 1990s, more working fossil laboratory
exhibitions debuted in natural history museums committed to
paleontological research.
The second reason for the popularity of fossil labs is the “exhibit
replication effect.” As fossil labs have become more popular, museums
have looked to their museum colleagues with labs for advice, essentially
molding themselves after original labs; much the way paleontologists
create molds of original fossils. Museums interested in developing labs
with other emphases such as anthropological objects, living plants or
animals, have also looked at fossil labs as models. Two examples are the
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Field Museum’s McDonald’s Fossil Prep Lab and the North Carolina
Museum of Natural Science’s Fossil Lab. Since the opening of the
McDonald’s Fossil Prep Lab in 1998, the Field Museum has improved the
lab’s design. The Field’s Fossil Vertebrate Preparator Jim Holstein said to
enhance both the physical and psychological comfort of staff working in
the lab, the museum added a railing around the exterior of the lab and
installed double paned window glass. The museum also positioned
volunteers, when available, outside the lab to serve as buffers between
the lab and youthful visitors who have a penchant for pounding on the
glass. The lab’s design influenced the design of the Regenstein Laboratory,
an exhibit showcasing anthropological research and collections that
opened in August 2004. Fossil preparators advised designers of the
Regenstein Laboratory. The second example is the Fossil Lab at the North
Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, which served as model for the
development of the museum’s Naturalist Center scheduled to open in
2009. North Carolina’s Curator of Paleontology Vince Schneider explains,
“fossil labs have led the way for other fields interested in developing
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working laboratory exhibitions, which have spent less time interfacing
their research with the public.”130
Finally, fossil labs are popular because they exemplify the growing desire
of many natural history museums to create experiential exhibitions where
visitors have the opportunity to converse with “real museum experts,”
while seeing “real things.“ Up‐to‐date, relevant, and customizable, the
interpersonal interaction provided at some working fossil laboratories
significantly impacts how visitors rate their experience at the lab. Results
of my study of the interpersonal interaction between museum experts
and visitors at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia revealed that visitors who talked with a person in the lab
were more likely to have higher visitor experience ratings for their overall
experience, effect on their personal enjoyment, and effect on their
personal learning than visitors who did not engage with a person in the
lab. Visitors who were satisfied with having a chance to talk experts had
higher ratings for their overall experience than visitors who did not talk
to an expert.
130 Vince Schneider, interview by author, 14 March 2006.
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Results indicated that having a chance to talk to experts is significantly
correlated with other types of satisfying experiences that are either social
(the visitor is focused on an interaction with another person, i.e.,
“Spending time with friends, family, other people”) or cognitive (the
visitor is focused on interpretive or intellectual aspects, i.e., “Enriching
my understanding”) experiences. In other words, visitors who were
satisfied with social or cognitive experiences were also satisfied with
having a chance to talk to experts. In addition, this finding might suggest
that talking with experts is both a social and cognitive experience.
Visitors to the lab understood the lab’s purpose regardless of whether
they talked to a person in the lab. A majority of visitors understood that
the purpose of the lab was to educate them about paleontology, allow
them to see paleontologists at work, or offer them a chance to talk to a
paleontologist. The messages visitors took away aligned with several of
the lab’s intended messages—to show the human element in the process
of preparation as well as to serve visitors and answer their questions.
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Visitors who talked with a person were satisfied with gaining
information or knowledge at the lab. Visitors who reported gaining
information or knowledge at the lab also had higher ratings for overall
experience. Even more visitors who reported gaining information or
knowledge rated their personal enjoyment and personal learning in the
top two categories: superior or excellent.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
The Academy of Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab provided visitors with a
range of satisfying opportunities from seeing “real” fossils, gaining
information or knowledge to having a chance to talk to experts and
enriching their understanding (see Figure 7.3 in Findings section). Yet, the
educational opportunities afforded to visitors at fossil labs present
challenges to museum staff responsible for managing, working in, or
planning the labs. The three primary challenges to a fossil lab’s successful
operation are concept and design planning, staffing, and evaluating the
visitor experience. Addressing these challenges will contribute to their
successful operation.
During concept and design development phases, devise an interpretive framework for the lab without competing exhibit messages and plan the lab’s design to support these messages.
All the museum professionals interviewed who either developed the labs’
concepts or who worked in the labs voiced their commitment to showing
their visitors the human element in the process of fossil preparation.
Many indicated their labs are also committed to answering visitors’
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questions. These goals may, however, place conflicting demands on
preparators’ time. Preparators often are overwhelmed by the number of
visitors asking questions at the same time or are required to meet
deadlines imposed by exhibits or curatorial staff and therefore, don’t
have time to talk to visitors. For instance, when the Page Museum’s lab
opened, preparators intended to talk to visitors through an intercom
system but discovered that answering visitors’ questions disrupted their
ability to concentrate on fossil preparation. According to the Page
Museum’s Collections Manager Christopher Shaw,
When we first opened, in the first year we had over two million people, I believe. It was wall‐to‐wall people in the first week…Our staff members were spending their whole time answering the same questions, like what are you doing, where do I find a sabertooth tiger, are you building skeletons in there? …You get halfway through the explanation and look up and they would be walking off to look at something else. It was really irritating so we disconnected that [the intercom system].131
Furthermore, when preparators working in the lab have to meet
deadlines, they don’t always have time to talk to visitors. This is the case
at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Field Museum, and the
Dallas Museum of Natural History. In the words of Denver’s Preparator
Bryan Small:
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Unfortunately, we get focused on a project. I work a lot with small fossils under the microscope. I’m doing that for a curator and I have to meet a deadline. Or we go to meetings. We can’t always be upfront [at the window talking to visitors]…Sometimes if you have an important project that is the last place you want to be because you cannot work two minutes without having to stop and talk to somebody.132
While in the concept development phase, at least one natural history
museum, the Field Museum, recognized the demands placed on
preparators’ time while working in the lab. As a result, the Field planned
not to have their preparators talk to visitors, and instead to have docents,
on occasion, positioned outside the lab to answer visitors’ questions. The
Field’s McDonald’s Prep Lab was, at least originally, developed and
designed to prepare Sue for exhibition. The lab’s development team
realized talking with visitors would have competed with the time
required to quickly prepare Sue for exhibition. The Field’s Collections
Manager Bill Simpson explained,
From our point of view, the lab had to allow us to get the rock off of Sue in time to open. Very early on exhibits set a deadline, May 17th 2000…We had to finish well before then, because not only did we have our job of taking the matrix off the bone, but then the bones had to go to various other people, a photographer, …a
131 Christopher Shaw, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 132 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
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paleontologist…to study Sue, and a [mount maker, Phil Fraley Productions in New Jersey]… It was an incredibly tight schedule and…to do the job right, we had to really focus on using all of our preparation time effectively.133
As at the Field’s McDonald’s Prep Lab, staff and volunteers working in the
Dallas Museum of Natural History’s Paleontology Lab generally do not talk
to visitors. As Dallas’s Preparator Ron Tykoski explained, “If staff
interacted with visitors, productivity would be cut in half.”
Other labs accept that fossil preparation work takes longer if preparators
talk to visitors and thus, have devised strategies to address imposing
deadlines. According to North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s
Curator of Paleontology Vince Schneider, staff and volunteers working in
the Fossil Lab initiate interactions with visitors. Staff shares with visitors
the name of the fossil they are working on, the appearance of the animal
from which the fossil came, the fossil’s age, and the reasons they study
fossils. Schneider acknowledges that under these conditions, staff and
volunteers generally don’t prepare a lot of fossils.134 One solution
133 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 134 Vince Schneider, Curator of Paleontology, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, interview by author, 14 March 2006.
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proposed by the Academy of Natural Science’s Paleo Lab Coordinator
Jason Poole is to recruit more preparators to explain what other
preparators are working on.
The other challenge to planning for working fossil labs is effective
collaboration between exhibit developers and preparators during design
of the lab’s interface. Design of the interface between the lab’s interior
and exterior is important, as it is the location where the educational
exchange between staff and visitors occurs. However, my research
showed that in general, the lab’s design became a “division of labor
between preparation and collections management staff on the inside, and
exhibits on the outside.”135 As Preparator Bryan Small at the Denver
Museum of Nature and Science recalled, “We had the lab up to the
window and then Exhibits were responsible for talking with us on the
other side of the window. There is a sloper [interpretive panel] with the
tools we use, what is the fossil lab, why it is here. Exhibits developed this
concept on the other side of the glass.” Frances Kruger, Exhibit Developer
and Interpretive Writer, was responsible for writing labels that tied the
135 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
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lab concepts to the overall exhibition.136 A similar division of labor
occurred at the Museum of the Earth. Director Warren Allmon said, “Our
collections manager designed the details of the vents, lights, ‘the inside of
the box.’ Our exhibit staff, at the time, worked out some of the details
‘outside of the box,’ such as the case out in front of the prep lab… There
was not a lot of discussion during the design process… The exhibit
people should have been more involved in designing the interior of the
space and they weren’t.”137 Allmon added:
I guess what I’ve learned mostly out of this…is, it really isn’t trivial how to design a lab. It isn’t just park a dinosaur bone on a table. You need to think more about the whole human architecture…For example, the window ledge detracts from these sliding doors so there is no place or no little shelf on the window ledge for you to put a specimen or for you to lean on.138
136 Francis Kruger, Exhibit Developer, Denver Museum of Nature and Science. interview by author, 22 February 2006. 137 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006. 138 Ibid.
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Secure staff responsible for working in the lab during regular museum hours, for coordinating lab personnel and preparation activities, and for training volunteers in preparation activities, and if appropriate, in interacting with visitors.
The second challenge of operating working fossil labs as public
exhibitions is staffing—having sufficient staff to work in the lab during
regular museum hours, to coordinate lab personnel and preparation
activities, and to train volunteers. Having sufficient staff to keep the lab
open during regular museum hours has been a problem for several labs,
including the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian and the
Museum of the Earth. Only a few labs–for example, at the Field Museum,
the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Academy of Natural
Sciences—have staff or volunteers present in the lab during regular
museum hours. Even these labs, which have a commitment to providing
staff whenever the museum is open, sometimes find it challenging to staff
it, especially if someone calls in sick or is on vacation. For this reason,
having staff to coordinate lab personnel as well as preparation activities is
crucial. Several natural history museums do not have even one employee
whose full time responsibility is to perform these duties because their
museums simply do not have the financial resources to support this
position. This has proven to be challenging for the National Museum of
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Natural History, which for years has attempted, but has not succeeded, in
securing funds to pay a FossiLab Coordinator’s salary. Particularly at labs
without a lab coordinator, collaborations between collections
management staff running the operations inside the lab and volunteer
coordinators managing retention and recruitment of volunteers, is critical.
At the Museum of the Earth, Allmon learned that staffing should be a
serious consideration in planning a working fossil lab. To this end, he
admitted,
We have had mixed success with our volunteer program since we have opened the museum [in 2003]. Overall, it is remarkably successful. But the museum added a whole new level to our volunteer needs…the collections staff and the volunteer coordinator have to be coordinating, talking all the time. We knew it was a problem. I just laid down the law and said, ‘We are going to staff it every single Saturday.’ [Even if it meant staffing the lab himself].139
Another challenging aspect of staffing the lab is having volunteers who
are comfortable talking to visitors or who have sufficient training to
answer the range of visitors’ questions. Volunteers are drawn to working
in fossil laboratories for different reasons. As Allmon put it,
139 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006.
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What we learned is that there are two kinds of people who like to work in the prep lab, those who want to work in the lab because they don’t want to talk and then others. We have people sit in the lab with the window closed and that is okay, I guess. And [we have] people who don’t prep anything, who spend all of Saturday talking to people. Because it is all run by volunteers, we have to live with this. We would prefer to have people who are prepping and talking…140
One solution is to leverage volunteers’ strengths, catering the lab’s
projects to their interests. Preparator Bryan Small at Denver explained,
We encourage volunteers to work at the window. But we don’t force them. Some volunteers don’t want to talk to anybody; they just want to work on their fossil. You don’t want them up front. Others have the gift of gab. They thrive on being up there and talking to the public…we try to give them projects that are fun to talk about.141
Another solution is to pair up volunteers who enjoy talking with those
who enjoy prepping fossils.
An additional concern with using volunteers is that those who have
minimal paleontological training might offer inaccurate or incomplete
answers to visitors’ questions. Volunteers do not always know the
answers to visitors’ myriad questions. Often volunteers only know the
140 Ibid 141 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
110
details of the fossil they are working on. Museum Specialist at the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Steve Jabo instructs
volunteers to tell visitors when they don’t know rather than to guess the
answers to visitors’ questions. Should lab volunteers at the Academy of
Natural Sciences not know the answer to a visitor’s question, they are
instructed to consult the Paleo Lab Coordinator. As articulated in the
Academy’s Laboratory Manual, Jason Poole recommends to his staff, “It
is okay if you do not know the answer to a question. Don’t make it up;
ask for help and stick around to hear the answer. It is also okay to look
things up for people, or to tell them where they can get the answers for
themselves.”142
Conduct additional evaluations of the impact of working fossil laboratories on visitors’ experience
The third challenge to operating working fossil laboratories is evaluation.
Though there is a growing interest in evaluation studies of working labs,
several museums are just beginning to improve their labs through
evaluation. Results of my visitor study conducted at the Academy of
142 Jason Poole, Dinosaur Hall Prep Laboratory Manual, Academy of Natural Sciences.
111
Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab demonstrated that the interpersonal
interaction provided at some fossil labs significantly impacts how visitors
rate their experience. In order to improve this interaction, the next step is
to evaluate the quality of the interaction between staff, volunteers, and
visitors. For instance, the Museum of the Earth has learned they should
have done more formative evaluation before they built their fossil lab and
consequently, would like to undertake some remedial work, particularly
of the human interaction they offer. As Allmon said,
…We designed this lab because we said we wanted to have a human interaction, but we haven’t evaluated the human interaction, [yet]…I’ve actually worked in there myself, just to try it. So they [visitors] are fascinated to have someone who looks like a scientist talk to them. But if I wasn’t who I was and I didn’t know all the fun things to tell them and initiate some questions, it is not clear whether that experience would be the same. I haven’t watched one of our 16‐year‐old volunteers for example; I bet it would be different…I’d like to know of all the different kinds of volunteers, different kinds of people, how does that change the experience?143
Staff working in fossil labs should participate in determining criteria by
which to be evaluated. Then these criteria should be evaluated with
visitors to identify whether they, in fact, contribute to quality
143 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006
112
interpretation. Evaluator Chris Parsons developed the list in Appendix F
of skills for “good guides” engaged in quality unscripted interpretation
for the docent program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. This
guide could be adapted to fossil laboratory exhibitions at natural history
museums.
Literally manifestations of the philosophical merger of the museum’s
research and educational functions, working fossil laboratories connect
museum research to visitors’ natural interests in the preparation of
specimens and to scientists’ lives. Not only do fossil laboratories connect
visitors to scientists’ narratives, they connect them to the scientists, as
themselves. As American Museum of Natural History’s Gilbert Stucker
wrote about the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument in 1965, giving
visitors the chance to become involved, to engage with scientists, is the
answer to effective interpretation. “He [the visitor] becomes involved. He
enters the paleontological experience and shares in the discovery and the
excavating [and in the case of the fossil lab, I would add, in the act of
preparation]…It is not coming to him second hand, as something told,
something shown; he is living it.”
113
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Interviews
Akerston, William, formerly Curator of Paleontology, La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA. Interview by author, 17 May 2006.
Allmon, Warren, Director, Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY. Interview by
author, 17 April 2006. Andy, Volunteer Preparator, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia,
PA. Interview by author, 1 April 2006, Academy of Natural Sciences. Fiorillo, Tony, Ph.D., Curator of Earth Sciences, Dallas Museum of
Natural History, TX. Interview by author, 17 March 2006. Flynn, John, Ph.D., formerly Chair of Department of Geology, Field
Museum, Chicago, IL. Interview by author, 15 May 2006. Greif, Richard, Project Director, Opinion Dynamics Corporation,
Cambridge, MA. Interview by author, 8 December 2005. Gyllenhaal, Eric D., Ph.D., Evaluator, Selinda Research Associates,
Chicago, IL. Interview by author, 14 November 2005, Chicago. Holstein, Jim, Preparator, Fossil Vertebrates, Department of Geology,
Field Museum, Chicago, IL. Interview by author, 16 November 2005, Field Museum, Chicago.
Jabo, Steve, Museum Specialist Department of Paleobiology, National
Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian. Interview by author, 3 January 2006, National Museum of Natural History.
Kruger, Frances, Exhibit Developer, Denver Museum of Nature and
Science, CO. Interview by author, 22 February 2006. Lovelady, Wendy, Exhibit Developer, North Carolina Museum of Natural
Sciences, Raleigh. Interview by author, 17 March 2006.
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Marino, Margie, formerly Manager of Evaluation and Exhibit Development, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, CO. Interview by author, 20 December 2005, North Museum of Natural History, Lancaster, PA.
Newman, Ken, Assistant Paleo Lab Coordinator, Academy of Natural
Sciences, Philadelphia, PA. Interview by author, 1 April 2006, Academy of Natural Sciences.
Pekarik, Andrew, Office of Policy and Analysis, Smithsonian. Interview
by author, 1 March 2006. Pohlman, Don, Exhibit Developer, Gyroscope, Inc., San Francisco, CA.
Interview by author. Poole, Jason, Paleo Lab Coordinator, Academy of Natural Sciences,
Philadelphia, PA. Interview by author, 21 December 2005, Academy of Natural Sciences.
Schneider, Vince, Curator of Paleontology, North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences, Raleigh. Interview by author, 14 March 2006. Simpson, Bill, Collections Manager, Department of Geology, Field
Museum, Chicago, IL. Interview by author, 26 April 2006. Small, Bryan, Preparator, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, CO.
Interview by author, 26 April 2006. Shaw, Christopher, Collections Manager, La Brea Tar Pits, Page Museum,
Los Angeles, CA. Interview by author, 26 April 2006. Tykoski, Ron, Ph.D., Fossil Preparator, Dallas Museum of Natural
History, TX. Interview by author, 17 March 2006.
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APPENDIX A. Professional Interview Instrument
History and Location of Fossil Laboratory
When did the fossil laboratory open to visitors at the museum?
Where is it located in the museum and why? o Is the laboratory one ‘exhibit’ in a larger thematic
exhibition or is the laboratory considered its own ‘exhibition’?
o If it is part of a thematic exhibition, what is the exhibition called? Where is it in this exhibition, and why? Was the laboratory constructed as part of this exhibition or was the exhibition built around it?
What is the name of your laboratory?
Fossil Laboratories as Exhibition Techniques
Do you consider your fossil laboratory as a method of displaying fossils (similar to methods of display like cases, pedestals, dioramas, free standing poses, etc.)?
What is (are) the main message(s) (a.k.a., purpose, big idea, exhibition goals, etc.) the laboratory intends to communicate to visitors?
If the laboratory is part of a larger thematic exhibition, are the messages the same as those for the entire exhibition and/or does the laboratory have its own messages?
Why did you choose the laboratory as an exhibition technique (to communicate this message)?
Do you think the laboratory technique is effective in communicating your intended messages to visitors? (optional)
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Staffing the Laboratory
Who works in the laboratory? o Staff (names of positions) o Volunteers o Who is responsible for its management?
What is the role of staff and/or volunteers working in the laboratory?
o Do they interact with visitors? yes or no o If so, who initiates the interactions, staff or visitors?
Are staff or volunteers present in the laboratory during regular museum hours?
o If not, approximately how many hours each day is the laboratory staffed?
How many staff works in the laboratory at the same time?
Laboratory Exhibition Development and Design
Who was responsible (I’m curious about job title, or position) for the conceptual design of the laboratory? In other words, whose idea was it?
Who were other key players involved in planning the laboratory?
o Briefly, what were their roles?
Did you look to other museums for models? o If so, which museums? o What did you glean from their input (i.e., phone calls, off‐
site studies)?
What are the main operating expenses in running this laboratory?
What changes, if any, have occurred in the development or design of the laboratory since it first opened?
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Visitor Evaluation
Has the museum evaluated visitors’ experiences with the laboratory?
o Yes or no o If yes, when? o If yes, did you measure
what messages visitors are taking away, visitor’s level of satisfaction, personal enjoyment,
etc
What questions, if any, would you like to ask visitors about their experience with the laboratory and why?
Is there anything else you wish to tell me about the laboratory?
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APPENDIX B. Visitor Exit Survey
We are looking for ways to improve your experience with the Fossil Lab and your opinions are very important to us. Please take a moment to complete this survey. Your responses are anonymous. Today’s Date _________ Time __________
1. Have you visited the Academy of Natural Sciences before today? ___ Yes ___ No, this is my first visit
2. Have you visited the Fossil Lab before today?
___ Yes ___ No, this is my first time
If “Yes”, how many times since March 2005 have you visited the Fossil Lab? Please check one. ___ 1 ___ 2 ___ 3 ___ 4 ___ 5 or more
3. Did you stop to look inside the Fossil Lab today?
___ Yes ___ No If “No” please skip to Q.10 4. Did you talk with a person in the lab?
___ Yes ___ No
If “Yes,” what did you talk about?
5. If you were going to tell a friend about the purpose of this lab, what would you tell them?
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6. Overall, how would you rate your experience with the Fossil Lab today? Please check one rating.
___ Poor ___ Fair ___ Good ___ Excellent ___ Superior
7. Which of these experiences were satisfying to you in the Fossil Lab? Please check all that apply.
___ Seeing the “real” thing ___ Gaining information or knowledge ___ Imagining other times or places ___ Spending time with friends/family/other people ___ Enriching my understanding ___ Having a chance to talk to experts ___ Reflecting on the meaning of what I was looking at ___ None, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the above ___ Anything else? (please specify)
8. Please rate the affect the Fossil Lab had on your personal enjoyment. Please check one rating.
___ Poor ___ Fair ___ Good ___ Excellent ___ Superior
9. Please rate the affect the Fossil Lab had on your extent of personal learning. Please check one rating.
___ Poor ___ Fair ___ Good ___ Excellent ___ Superior
10. What time did you enter the Academy today?
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11. Are you a member of the Academy? ___ Yes ___ No 12. Please indicate your gender: ___ Female ___ Male 13. How many persons are in your immediate party?
Number of adults (18 years and older) Ages ____, ____, ____, ____ Number of children (17 years and younger) Ages ____, ____, ____, ____
14. Which of the following categories best describes the highest educational level you achieved?
___ Some high school ___ High school graduate ___ Some college ___ College degree ___ Postgraduate degree
Thank you for taking the time to share your opinions with us.
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APPENDIX C. Academy of Natural Sciences Fossil Prep Lab Visitor Usage Data Collection Sheet Date Day of Week Time
Enter Exit Total
Gender: F M No. Persons in Party
No. Adults No. Children
No. Persons in Lab
If Party Stopped at Laboratory: Did they talk with person in lab?
___Yes ___ No Notes
Did they ask questions of person in lab?
___Yes ___ No
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APPENDIX D. Fossil Laboratory Images Page Museum La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA “Fish Bowl” Laboratory
View of lab from gallery. Courtesy of The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Foundation.
Panoramic view of lab interior. Courtesy of The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles CountyFoundation.
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Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver CO Schlessman Family Earth Sciences Lab
View of lab interior from sliding window. Photo by Bryan Small. Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
136
View of lab interior. Photo by Bryan Small. Courtesy of the Denver Museum ofNature and Science
Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas, TX Paleontology Lab
Courtesy of the Museum of Nature and Science
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC Fossil Lab
137 View of preparator conversing with visitors. Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL McDonald’s Fossil Preparation Laboratory
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Above. View of Preparation Laboratory from entrance to Evolving Planet exhibition. Below. View of interpretive panel on the lab’s exterior, and of window workstations on its interior. Note the message on the window reads: “Please do not tap on the glass‐ fossil preparators at work.” Photos by author.
Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY Preparation Laboratory
View of visitors observing volunteers preparing fossils in the lab. Note the sliding window system. Photo by Emily Butler. Courtesy of the Museum of the Earth.
139
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian FossiLab
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Above. View of interpretive panels along the lab’s perimeter. Note the workstation in the middle of the lab. Left. View of lab from interior. Photos by author.
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA Fossil Prep Lab
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Above. View of entrance to the Fossil Prep Lab from Dinosaur Hall. Introductory wall case is located to the right; an introductory label to the left; the lab on the left in the background; and a wall case on the back wall. Below. Close up of introductory wall case. Photos by author.
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA Fossil Prep Lab
View of workstations in the lab. Photo by author.
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View of Assistant Paleo Lab Coordinator Ken Newman preparing fossils. Note the half‐windows with holes that can facilitate conversation between visitors and preparators. Photo by author.
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA Fossil Prep Lab
143
View of visitors observing Paleo Lab Coordinator Jason Poole preparing fossils. Photo by Reid Cummins. Courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
View of the wall case showcasing current paleontology research conducted by the Academy. The wall case is located directly across from the prep lab. Photo by author.
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA Fossil Prep Lab
View of the wall case containing three fossils excavated from Eastern Montana. Wall case is located along the back wall of the exhibition. Photo by author.
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APPENDIX E. Timeline of Working Fossil Laboratory Openings and Renovations 1977 Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles opens 1985 FossiLab opens at National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian 1990 Schlessman Family Earth Sciences Laboratory opens at Denver
Museum of Nature and Science 1991 Paleontology Lab opens at Dallas Museum of Natural
History 1992 Fossil Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural
Sciences opens 1994 Phase I Renovation of FossiLab begins at National Museum
of Natural History, Smithsonian 1995 Prehistoric Journey opens at Denver Museum of Nature and
Science, in which the Schlessman Family Earth Sciences Laboratory is incorporated. After the exhibition opens, more research and collections work than exhibit preparation is accomplished in the lab
1997 At the Field Museum, a temporary fossil lab opens in
Stanley Field Hall. In December, Field preparators prepare Sue, in part, in two research labs behind the scenes and also in the temporary exhibit cases in Stanley Field Hall. These temporary exhibits cases are transformed into a rudimentary lab, which is open until the current McDonald’s Prep Lab opens in June or July 1998
Phase II Renovation of FossiLab begins at National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian
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Fossil Prep Lab in Dinosaur Hall opens at Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
1998 At the Field Museum, the McDonalds Prep Lab opens on
museum’s second floor outside the entrance to Life Over Time
2000 North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences opens in its
current location on Jones Street, along with its improved Fossil Lab
Phase II Renovation of FossiLab at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian is completed
2003 The Museum of the Earth and its Preparation Laboratory
open to the public 2005 Renovation of Schlessman Family Earth Sciences Laboratory at
Denver Museum of Nature and Science is completed Future Plans for Fossil Lab Improvements, Renovations, or Installations 2006 The Museum of the Earth plans to improve its lab’s
signage by explaining the details of current lab projects. 2008 – 2010
Dallas Museum of Natural History plans to move into a new building that will contain a public prep lab.
2009 North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences too plans to
expand into a new building. Curator of Paleontology Vince Schneider said, “The fossil section of the future Nature Research Center has had the easiest time planning interpretive content to accompany the working lab. Paleontology is ripe for this type of exhibition. Fossil labs have led the way for other fields interested in developing
146
working laboratory exhibitions, which have spent less time interfacing their research with the public.”
tbd The Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences
hopes to expand the lab’s footprint and accessory interpretive exhibits to include a collections space.
tbd The Field Museum hopes to expand the McDonald’s Prep
Lab in order to provide more storage spaces and privacy for staff.
147
APPENDIX F. Skills for “Good Guides” Engaged in Quality Unscripted Interpretation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium 144
Was appropriately dressed Looked receptive, ready to talk Was friendly and positive Faced audience while talking Stood so audience could see exhibit(s) Had a theme or focus Spoke loud enough Spoke clearly Used hands to direct attention Modeled appropriate behavior Used props appropriately Gave accurate information Used suitable vocabulary Used appropriate anecdotes Related information to visitors’ lives Encouraged participation with open ended questions Listened to questions and remarks Credited questions Encouraged the use of 2 or more senses Solved problems gently and effectively Closed talk by directing audience to exhibit(s) of interest
144 Adapted from Chris Parsons, “Evaluating Unscripted Live Interpretation Programs,” 169‐175.
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APPENDIX F. Glossary Exhibition As defined by Exhibit Consultant Beverly Serrell, an exhibition is “a defined room or space, with a given title, containing elements that together make up a coherent entity that is conceptually recognizable as a display of objects, animals, interactives, and phenomena.” And I would add, a display with people. 145 Exhibit or Exhibit Technique As defined by Exhibit Consultant Beverly Serrell, exhibits are “discrete, conceptual units, experiences, or components within the exhibition layout, planned…as separate experiences for visitors. They may vary in size and type, such as, a panel, a case, a diorama, a set of artifacts, a video theater, a computer, and an interactive device.” 146 Or a working fossil laboratory. Fossil A fossil is “a remnant, impression, or trace of an organism of past geologic ages that has been preserved in the earthʹs crust.”147 Fossil vertebrates As defined by Bill Simpson, Collections Manager in the Department of Geology at the Field Museum, “Fossil vertebrates refer to extinct vertebrates, and vertebrates refer to fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds, all animals of the backbone.”148
145 Beverly Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, (Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press, 1996): 238. 146 Ibid. 147 Merriam‐Webster Online Dictionary, accessed on 12 June 2006, http://www.mw.com/cgi‐bin/dictionary. 148 Bill Simpson, Collections Manager, Department of Geology, Field Museum, Chicago, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
149
Habitat dioramas or Habitat groups For my purposes, these terms are used interchangeably. As discussed by Karen Wonders in her doctoral dissertation “Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History,” habitat dioramas or groups refer to “…natural history scenarios which typically contain mounted zoological [or paleontological] specimens arranged in a foreground that replicates their native surroundings in the wild.”149 Impact As defined by Exhibit Consultant Beverly Serrell, impact is “a change in visitors’ beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, skills, or understanding that occurs as a result of experiencing the museum exhibit…”150 Paleontology Paleontology is a “science dealing with the life of past geological periods as known from fossil remains.”151 Preparator As defined by Bill Simpson, Collections Manager in the Department of Geology at the Field Museum, a preparator is “a laboratory person who basically takes the rock or matrix, as it is called, off fossil.”152 Research This term refers both to taxonomic and theoretical research. As discussed by Wilcomb Washburn in his 1967 article entitled “Joseph Henry’s Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian Institution,” taxonomic research “…involves the careful accumulation of large collections of specimens in various fields of human inquiry, their detailed description, and their classification into a system of organization…The other
149 Karen Wonders, “Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History,” (Figura Nova Series 25. Acta Universitalis Upsaliensis, 1993): 9. 150 Beverly Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, 239. 151 Merriam‐Webster Online Dictionary, accessed on 12 June 2006, http://www.m‐w.com/dictionary/paleontology 152 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
150
type…involves the imaginative formulation and testing of hypotheses, integrative conceptualizations, and explanatory laws.”153 Satisfaction As defined by Policy Analyst at the Smithsonian Institution Andrew Pekarik and his fellow researchers, satisfaction “…primarily draws on short term memory and a judgment of value, and is more firmly and directly rooted in experience.”154
153 Wilcomb E. Washburn, “Joseph Henry’s Conception of the Purpose of the Smithsonian Institution,” in Cabinet of Curiosities: Five Episodes in the Evolution of American Museums, ed. Walter Muir Whitehall, (Charlottesville: The University of Press of Virginia, 1967): 147. 154 Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, “Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 169.
151
PRODUCT
Working Fossil Laboratories as Public Exhibitions
Submitted to Matt Brown, Webmaster for www.fossilprep.org, for review and comment
Today, visitors to Dinosaur Hall at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia (Academy) are greeted by a roaring skeleton of
Tyrannosaurus rex mounted in a life‐like pose. The sounds of mini‐
jackhammers, which remove rock from fossils that are on display in the
Fossil Prep Lab, fill the hall. Visitors can observe casts of several
Hadrosaurus foulkii bones mounted in a life‐size silhouette of this
dinosaur. These dynamic techniques of displaying fossils were relatively
unknown to visitors before 1868. That year, H. foulkii was the first most
complete dinosaur to be mounted in a life‐size freestanding pose, a
dramatic sight that drew many Philadelphians to the Academy.155 More
than 100 years later, dinosaur displays continue to fascinate museum
visitors.
155 Ken Carpenter, “Dinosaurs as Museum Exhibits,” in The Complete Dinosaur, eds. James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett‐Surman (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 151‐152.
152
Visitor study after visitor study conducted in natural history museums
confirm that “everyone loves dinosaurs.”156 “Dinosaur fans,” as one 1995
study shows, are mostly comprised of adults visiting with children, but
span all genders, age groups, educational levels, and “visitor types.”157
According to Smithsonian Program Analyst Stacey Bielick,
Whether there was a special exhibition or not, more visitors stayed longer with the dinosaurs than with any other part of the museum…. Visitors who spent most of their time with Dinosaurs (one quarter of all visitors) were disproportionately impressed by seeing the real thing.158
Visitors are also interested in watching people work on real fossils in
laboratory exhibitions. such as the Academy’s Fossil Prep Lab. Here,
visitors can see the human dimension of fossil research. They can look at
fossils displayed on tables, on walls, or with signs. Visitors can watch
preparators or volunteers preparing fossils at window workstations and
also can talk with them about their work.
156 S. Bielick, A. J. Pekarik, and Z.D. Doering, Beyond the Elephant: A Report based on the 1994‐1995 National Museum of Natural History Visitor Survey, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1995): vi. 157 Ibid, 35. 158 Ibid, vi‐vii.
153
Working fossil laboratories have been a component of natural history
museum exhibitions in the United States since the 1970s and are a
growing exhibit trend. For my master’s thesis project, I investigated how
natural history museums can develop and design working fossil
laboratory exhibitions to communicate their research and educational
missions to visitors. My purpose was to understand working fossil
laboratories as exhibits within the context of the history of fossil displays
in natural history museums and the two hundred‐year long debate in
these museums over how to balance their core functions of research and
public education. I interviewed 21 museum professionals involved in
developing or working in fossil laboratories at eight natural history
museums in the United States.159 I also conducted an in‐depth visitor
study at the Fossil Prep Lab at the Academy, which utilized and expanded
on a visitor studies instrument developed by researchers at the
159 Natural history museums in the United States with working fossil laboratories include the Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY; Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.; North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh; Dallas Museum of Natural History, TX; Field Museum, Chicago, IL; Denver Museum of Nature and Science, CO; and the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA. For this project, at least one natural history museum with a working fossil laboratory was selected from each geographic region in the United States (with the exception of the Northwest).
154
Smithsonian. My visitor study examined the relationships between the
messages visitors take away, the impact of talking with an expert, the
experiences visitors find satisfying, and visitors’ experience ratings.160
Based on the results from interviews and visitor studies, I determined the
opportunities and addressed the challenges of operating working fossil
laboratories as public exhibitions.
Background
Changes in the methods of displaying fossils like H. foulkii occurred in
tandem with changes in the function of natural history museums. Since
the first half of the nineteenth century, the core functions of natural
history museums have oscillated between collecting, research, and public
education. As these museums increasingly became intent on merging
their collecting and research functions with the needs and desires of their
public, more dynamic exhibits such as working fossil laboratories
debuted.
160 As defined by Pekarik et al., satisfaction “…primarily draws on short term memory and a judgment of value, and is more firmly and directly rooted in experience.” Andrew Pekarik, Zahava Doering, and David Karns, “Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums,” Curator 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 169.
155
In the 1950s, Dinosaur National Monument in Utah displayed a working
lab as an adjunct to the fossil excavation located on the site. After the
1970s, natural history museums that didn’t have in‐situ fossil excavations
on their grounds began to incorporate working laboratories into their
exhibition menus as a way to disseminate paleontological research to
their public.
A synthesis of the visitor studies literature reveals that connecting the
museum’s research to visitors’ natural interests, both in the preparation of
specimens and in narratives of scientists’ lives, can stimulate visitors’
curiosity in behind‐the‐scenes research. By showing visitors the process
of fossil preparation and “scientists‐as‐people,” working fossil
laboratories fulfill the recommendations of early visitor studies and take
them one step further by introducing visitors not only to scientists’
narratives but to “scientists‐as‐themselves.”
156
Conclusions of Project
The appeal of fossils and dinosaurs aside, working fossil laboratories are
a popular exhibit trend for several reasons. The first is that a majority of
visitors have a natural curiosity about watching people work in authentic,
culturally significant settings and in museum exhibitions. Visitors’
interest in the work of paleontologists, both in the excavation and in the
lab was, indeed, the inspiration for the development of the earliest fossil
labs. Not unlike visitors’ reactions to the quarry at Dinosaur National
Monument in Vernal, Utah, visitors to the La Brea Tar Pits in the 1970s
were in awe of the sight of paleontologists working in the pit. At La Brea,
visitors were curious not only about the excavation in progress but also
about work going on in the adjacent lab. Visitors’ desire to tour this lab
was the impetus for incorporating a lab into the Page Museum. In the
1980s and 1990s, more working fossil laboratory exhibitions debuted in
natural history museums committed to paleontological research.
The second reason for the popularity of fossil labs is the “exhibit
replication effect.” As fossil labs have become more popular, museums
have looked to their museum colleagues with labs for advice, essentially
157
molding themselves after original labs; much the way paleontologists
create molds of original fossils. Museums interested in developing labs
with other emphases such as anthropological objects, living plants or
animals, have also looked at fossil labs as models. Two examples are the
Field Museum’s McDonald’s Fossil Prep Lab and the North Carolina
Museum of Natural Science’s Fossil Lab. Since the opening of the
McDonald’s Fossil Prep Lab in 1998, the Field Museum has improved the
lab’s design. The Field’s Fossil Vertebrate Preparator Jim Holstein said to
enhance both the physical and psychological comfort of staff working in
the lab, the museum added a railing around the exterior of the lab and
installed double paned window glass. The museum also positioned
volunteers, when available, outside the lab to serve as buffers between
the lab and youthful visitors who have a penchant for pounding on the
glass. The lab’s design influenced the design of the Regenstein Laboratory,
an exhibit showcasing anthropological research and collections that
opened in August 2004. Fossil preparators advised designers of the
Regenstein Laboratory. The second example is the Fossil Lab at the North
Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, which served as a model for the
development of the museum’s Naturalist Center scheduled to open in
158
2009. North Carolina’s Curator of Paleontology Vince Schneider explains,
“fossil labs have led the way for other fields interested in developing
working laboratory exhibitions, which have spent less time interfacing
their research with the public.”161
Finally, fossil labs are popular because they exemplify the growing desire
of many natural history museums to create experiential exhibitions where
visitors have the opportunity to converse with “real museum experts,”
while seeing “real things.“ Up‐to‐date, relevant, and customizable, the
interpersonal interaction provided at some working fossil laboratories is
both a social and cognitive experience and significantly impacts how
visitors rate their experience at the lab. I studied interpersonal interaction
between museum experts and visitors at the Fossil Prep Lab at the
Academy of Natural Sciences during May 2006. I found that visitors who
talked with a person in the lab were more likely to have higher visitor
experience ratings for their overall experience, effect on their personal
enjoyment, and effect on their personal learning than visitors who did not
engage with a person in a lab. I found that visitors who were satisfied
161 Vince Schneider, interview by author, 14 March 2006.
159
with having a chance to talk experts had higher ratings for their overall
experience than visitors who did not talk to an expert.
Results indicated that having a chance to talk to experts is significantly
correlated with other types of satisfying experiences that are either social
(the visitor is focused on an interaction with another person, i.e.,
“Spending time with friends, family, other people”) or cognitive (the
visitor is focused on interpretive or intellectual aspects, i.e., “Enriching
my understanding”). In other words, visitors who were satisfied with
social or cognitive experiences were also satisfied with having a chance to
talk to experts.
Visitors to the lab understood the lab’s purpose regardless of whether
they talked to a person in the lab. A majority of visitors understood that
the purpose of the lab was to educate them about paleontology, allow
them to see paleontologists at work, or offer them a chance to talk to a
paleontologist. The messages visitors took away aligned with several of
the lab’s intended messages—to show the human element in the process
of preparation as well as to serve visitors and answer their questions.
160
Visitors who talked with a person were satisfied with gaining
information or knowledge at the lab. Visitors who reported gaining
information or knowledge at the lab also had higher ratings for overall
experience. Even more visitors who reported gaining information or
knowledge rated their personal enjoyment and personal learning in the
top two categories—superior or excellent.
Challenges of Operating a Working Fossil Laboratory in a Natural History Museum
The Academy of Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab provided visitors with a
range of satisfying opportunities from seeing “real” fossils, gaining
information or knowledge to having a chance to talk to experts and
enriching their understanding. Yet, the educational opportunities
afforded to visitors at fossil labs present challenges to museum staff
responsible for managing, working in, or planning the lab. The three
primary challenges to a fossil lab’s successful operation that I discovered
in my research are: 1) concept and design planning, 2) staffing, and 3)
evaluating the visitor experience. Addressing these challenges will
contribute to their successful operation.
161
During concept and design development phases, devise an interpretive framework for the lab without competing exhibit messages and plan the lab’s design to support these messages.
All the museum professionals interviewed who either developed the labs’
concepts or who worked in the labs voiced their commitment to showing
their visitors the human element in the process of fossil preparation.
Many indicated their labs are also committed to answering visitors’
questions. These goals may, however, place conflicting demands on
preparators’ time. Preparators often are overwhelmed by the number of
visitors asking questions at the same time or are required to meet
deadlines imposed by exhibits or curatorial staff and therefore, don’t
have time to talk to visitors. For instance, when the Page Museum’s lab
opened, preparators had intended to talk with visitors through an
intercom system but discovered that answering visitors’ questions
disrupted their ability to concentrate on fossil preparation. According to
the Page Museum’s Collections Manager Christopher Shaw,
162
When we first opened, in the first year we had over two million people, I believe. It was wall‐to‐wall people in the first week…Our staff members were spending their whole time answering the same questions, like what are you doing, where do I find a sabertooth tiger, are you building skeletons in there? …You get halfway through the explanation and look up and they would be walking off to look at something else. It was really irritating so we disconnected that [the intercom system].162
While in the concept development phase, at least one natural history
museum, the Field Museum, recognized the demands placed on
preparators’ time while working in the lab; as a result, they planned not
to have preparators talk to visitors and instead to have docents, on
occasion, positioned outside the lab to answer visitors’ questions. The
Field’s McDonald’s Prep Lab was, at least originally, developed and
designed to prepare Sue for exhibition. The lab’s development team
realized talking with visitors would have competed with the time
required to quickly prepare Sue for exhibition. The Field’s Collections
Manager Bill explained, “it was an incredibly tight schedule and…to do
the job right, we had to really focus on using all of our preparation time
effectively.”163
162 Christopher Shaw, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 163 Bill Simpson, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
163
As at the Field’s McDonald’s Prep Lab, staff and volunteers working in the
Dallas Museum of Natural History’s Paleontology Lab generally do not talk
to visitors. As Preparator Ron Tykoski explained, “If staff interacted with
visitors, productivity would be cut in half.”
Other labs accept that fossil preparation work takes longer if preparators
talk to visitors and thus, have devised strategies to address imposing
deadlines. According to North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s
Curator of Paleontology Vince Schneider, staff and volunteers working in
the Fossil Lab initiate interactions with visitors. Staff shares with visitors
the name of the fossil they are working on, the appearance of the animal
from which the fossil came, the fossil’s age, and the reasons they study
fossils. Schneider acknowledges that under these conditions, staff and
volunteers generally don’t prepare a lot of fossils.164 One solution
proposed by the Academy of Natural Science’s Paleo Lab Coordinator
Jason Poole is to recruit more preparators to explain what other
preparators are working on.
164 Vince Schneider, Curator of Paleontology, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, interview by author, 14 March 2006.
164
The other challenge to planning for working fossil labs is effective
collaboration between exhibit developers and preparators during the
design of the lab’s interface. Design of the interface between the lab’s
interior and exterior is important, as it is the location where the
educational exchange between staff and visitors occurs. However, my
research showed that, in general, the lab’s design became a “division of
labor between preparation and collections management staff on the
inside, and exhibits on the outside.”165 As Preparator Bryan Small at the
Denver Museum of Nature and Science recalled, “We had the lab up to
the window and then Exhibits were responsible for talking with us on the
other side of the window. There is a sloper [interpretive panel] with the
tools we use, what is the fossil lab, why it is here. Exhibits developed this
concept on the other side of the glass.” Frances Kruger, Exhibit Developer
and Interpretive Writer, was responsible for writing labels that tied the
lab concepts to the overall exhibition.166 A similar division of labor
occurred at the Museum of the Earth. Director Warren Allmon said, “Our
165 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006. 166 Francis Kruger, Exhibit Developer, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, interview by author, 22 February 2006.
165
collections manager designed the details of the vents, lights, ‘the inside of
the box.’ Our exhibit staff, at the time, worked out some of the details
‘outside of the box,’ such as the case out in front of the prep lab… There
was not a lot of discussion during the design process… The exhibit
people should have been more involved in designing the interior of the
space.”167 Allmon added:
I guess what I’ve learned mostly out of this…is, it really isn’t trivial how to design a lab. It isn’t just park a dinosaur bone on a table. You need to think more about the whole human architecture….168
Secure staff responsible for working in the lab during regular museum hours, for coordinating lab personnel and preparation activities, and for training volunteers in preparation activities, and if appropriate, in interacting with visitors.
The second challenge of operating working fossil labs as public
exhibitions is staffing—having sufficient staff to work in the lab during
regular museum hours, to coordinate lab personnel and preparation
activities, and to train volunteers. Having sufficient staff to keep the lab
open during regular museum hours has been a problem for several labs,
including the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian and the
167 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006. 168Ibid.
166
Museum of the Earth. Only a few labs–for example, at the Field Museum,
the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Academy of Natural
Sciences—have staff or volunteers present in the lab during regular
museum hours. Even these labs, which have a commitment to providing
staff whenever the museum is open, sometimes find it challenging to staff
the lab, especially if a preparator calls in sick or is on vacation. For this
reason, having staff to coordinate lab personnel as well as preparation
activities is crucial. Several natural history museums do not have even
one employee whose full time responsibility is to perform these duties
because their museums simply do not have the financial resources to
support this position. This has proven to be challenging for the National
Museum of Natural History, which for years has attempted, but has not
succeeded, in securing funds to pay a FossiLab Coordinator’s salary.
Particularly at labs without a lab coordinator, collaborations between
collections management staff running the operations inside the lab and
volunteer coordinators managing retention and recruitment of
volunteers, is critical. At the Museum of the Earth, Allmon learned that
167
staffing should be a serious consideration in planning a working fossil
lab. To this end, he admitted,
We have had mixed success with our volunteer program since we have opened the museum [in 2003]. Overall, it is remarkably successful. But the museum added a whole new level to our volunteer needs…the collections staff and the volunteer coordinator have to be coordinating, talking all the time. We knew it was a problem. I just laid down the law and said, ‘We are going to staff it every single Saturday.’ [Even if it meant staffing the lab himself].169
Another challenging aspect of staffing the lab is having volunteers who
are comfortable talking to visitors or who have sufficient training to
answer the range of visitors’ questions. Volunteers are drawn to working
in fossil laboratories for different reasons. As Allmon put it,
What we learned is that there are two kinds of people who like to work in the prep lab, those who want to work in the lab because they don’t want to talk and then others. We have people sit in the lab with the window closed and that is okay, I guess. And [we have] people who don’t prep anything, who spend all of Saturday talking to people. Because it is all run by volunteers, we have to live with this. We would prefer to have people who are prepping and talking…170
169 Warren Allmon, interview by author, 17 April 2006. 170 Ibid
168
One solution is to leverage volunteers’ strengths, catering the lab’s
projects to their interests. Preparator Bryan Small at Denver explained,
We encourage volunteers to work at the window. But we don’t force them. Some volunteers don’t want to talk to anybody; they just want to work on their fossil. You don’t want them up front. Others have the gift of gab. They thrive on being up there and talking to the public…we try to give them projects that are fun to talk about.171
Another solution is to pair up volunteers who enjoy talking with those
who enjoy prepping fossils.
An additional concern with using volunteers is that those who have
minimal paleontological training might offer inaccurate or incomplete
answers to visitors’ questions. Volunteers do not always know the
answers to visitors’ myriad questions. Often volunteers only know the
details of the fossil they are working on. Museum Specialist at the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Steve Jabo instructs
volunteers to tell visitors when they don’t know rather than to guess the
answers to visitors’ questions. Should lab volunteers at the Academy of
Natural Sciences not know the answer to a visitors’ question, they are
171 Bryan Small, interview by author, 26 April 2006.
169
instructed to consult the Paleo Lab Coordinator. As articulated in the
Academy’s Laboratory Manual, Jason Poole recommends to his staff, “It
is okay if you do not know the answer to a question. Don’t make it up;
ask for help and stick around to hear the answer. It is also okay to look
things up for people, or to tell them where they can get the answers for
themselves.”172
Conduct additional evaluations of the impact of working fossil laboratories on visitors’ experience
The third challenge to operating working fossil laboratories is evaluation.
Though there is a growing interest in evaluation studies of working labs,
several museums are just beginning to improve their labs through
evaluation. Results of my visitor study conducted at the Academy of
Natural Science’s Fossil Prep Lab demonstrated that the interpersonal
interaction provided at some fossil labs significantly impacts how visitors
rate their experience. In order to improve this interaction, the next step is
to evaluate the quality of the interaction between staff, volunteers, and
visitors. For instance, the Museum of the Earth has learned they should
172 Jason Poole, Dinosaur Hall Prep Laboratory Manual, Academy of Natural Sciences.
170
have done more formative evaluation before they built their fossil lab and
consequently, would like to undertake some remedial work, particularly
of the human interaction they offer.
Staff working in fossil labs should participate in determining criteria by
which to be evaluated. Then these criteria should be evaluated with
visitors to identify whether they, in fact, contribute to quality
interpretation. Evaluator Chris Parsons developed a list of skills for
“good guides” engaged in quality unscripted interpretation for the
docent program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.173 This
guide could be adapted to fossil laboratory exhibitions at natural history
museums.
Conclusion
Literally manifestations of the philosophical merger of the museum’s
research and educational functions, working fossil laboratories connect
museum research to visitors’ natural interests in the preparation of
specimens and to scientists’ lives. Not only do fossil laboratories connect
173 Chris Parsons, “Evaluating Unscripted Live Interpretation Programs,” 169‐175.
171
visitors to scientists’ narratives, they connect them to the scientists, as
themselves. As American Museum of Natural History’s Gilbert Stucker
wrote about the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument in 1965, giving
visitors the chance to become involved, to engage with scientists, is the
answer to effective interpretation. “He [the visitor] becomes involved. He
enters the paleontological experience and shares in the discovery and the
excavating [and in the case of the fossil lab, I would add, in the act of
preparation]…It is not coming to him second hand, as something told,
something shown; he is living it.”174
This article was distilled from my masterʹs project for the Department of Museum Studies at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, California, completed in January 2007. For more information and a complete copy of my project, contact me at [email protected] or log onto the John F. Kennedy University Museum Studies webpage at www.jfku.edu.
174 Gilbert F Stucker, “Dinosaur Monument and the People: A Study of Interpretation,” Curator 6, no. 2 (1965): 142.
172