April 15, 2023

Education Collections

Education Collections

By Karin Hostetter

Education Collections sit in a unique place in museums. They have a unique role for both the museum and the visitors. By being unique, education collections can also pose philosophical challenges to traditional curators.

Traditional collections exist to preserve an item and to provide a variety of representatives of one item for research purposes. They are kept as much as possible away from light, in cabinets sealed from dust, and in environmentally controlled situations. Education collections have a totally different purpose. They are meant to be seen, used, and handled. They provide a tangible link between the visitor and the museum's formal collections. Humans learn about the world around them mostly through touch. Items behind glass do not relate to visitors as much as objects in hand. However, if every item was handled, they would be destroyed. It is because of this constant presentation to handling and the normal environment that many curators resist the concept of education collections.

By having a way visitors can interact with objects, they become more vested in the purpose of the museum. The objects can be works of art, archaeological specimens, taxidermy animals, or cultural history home objects. If it can be a formal collection, it can be an education collection.

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Karin Hostetter has over thirty years experience with museum education. With a career that includes natural history museums, cultural history museums (including first person interpretation), nature centers, and zoos, Ms. Hostetter is experienced in interpretive writing, program and curriculum development, and staff and volunteer training. Ms. Hostetter is owner of Interpret This, a consulting company specializing in interpretive writing, program and curriculum development, and volunteer program management. When she is not consulting with other museums, she likes to volunteer and contract teach at them with a special love for preschool and family programs.

To learn more about how to create an Education Collection for your Museum join Karin for the MS014 Education Collections short course starting May 22, 2023

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Photo: Edison Ford Museum

Early Bird Discounts Available for Full Length Courses

An Early Bird Discount is available for anyone who signs up for a full length course from museumclasses.org 30 days prior to the start of that course. 

Sign up for a full length course up to 30 days prior to its start and save $100.00!

For our course list or to sign up: http://www.collectioncare.org/course-list

To take advantage of this discount, you must enter coupon code EARLYBIRD at checkout at collectioncare.org

Earlybird Discount Deadline for July 2023 Courses is June 3, 2023

Featured Course: Exhibit Rehab - Breathing New Life into Old Exhibits

Do your exhibits need a bit of updating, but you don't have finds to build completely new ones? This course will give you some tips and tricks to update those old exhibits and help you make them more interesting and effective.

Creating or contracting for new exhibits is often hugely expensive. But if you have a small museum, visitor center or interpretive center you may not have the budget to create new exhibits. This course on exhibit rehab will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your current exhibits and provide a strategy for breathing new life into exhibits on life support – with a small budget but lots of creativity.

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Join John Veverka for MS272: Exhibit Rehab - Breathing New Life Into Old Exhibits starting May 1, 2023 to learn more about ways to improve your current exhibits.

May 2023 Courses

MS 014: Education Collections

May 22 to 26, 2023

Instructor: Karin Hostetter

Description:

What do you do with collection objects that no longer belong in the scientific collection but are too good to throw out? What do you do with the donations that just don't quite 'fit?' Use them in education collections. Their value as educational objects for the public is immeasurable.

MS 211: Preservation Environments

May 1 to June 10, 2023 

Instructor: Ernest Conrad

Description:

The museum's brick exterior wall is crumbling. The powder coated metal storage shelves have active rust under the foam padding. Objects in fur storage are covered in mold. It is raining in the exhibit hall. This is the damage that occurs to museum buildings or collection when staff do not understand preservation environments. Preservation Environments is essential knowledge for any collecting institution. Everyone should understand how humidity and temperature are controlled by a building and its mechanical system. For museum staff considering a new building - and any institution planning to expand or rebuild an existing one - Preservation Environments provide important information for calculating whether the proposed improvements will actually improve the environmental control of your protective enclosure. Participants learn the advantages and disadvantages of numerous methods of temperature and humidity control. Preservation Environments does not try to turn museum professionals into engineers. Rather, it arms them with the knowledge they need to work with engineers and maintenance professionals. And helps explain why damaged occurred and how to keep it from happening again.

MS 212: Care of Textiles

May 1 to 26, 2023

Instructor: Ann Coppinger

Description:

Caring for textiles demands an understanding of how and why they deteriorate. This course offers a simplified explanation of the origin and structure of textile fibers as well as the finished textile object; be it either a piece of whole cloth or a finished garment. Care of Textiles teaches students to identify fibers, fabric structures and finishes, write condition reports, and understand the agents of deterioration that are harmful to various fabrics both in storage on exhibit. Topics include preparing textiles for storage and exhibit, the use of archival materials with textiles, and three dimensional supports.

MS 272: Exhibit Rehab - Breathing New Life Into Old Exhibits

May 1 to 26, 2023  

Instructor: John Veverka

Description:

Creating or contracting for new exhibits is often hugely expensive. But if you have a small museum, visitor center or interpretive center you may not have the budget to create new exhibits. This course on exhibit rehab will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your current exhibits and provide a strategy for breathing new life into exhibits on life support – with a small budget but lots of creativity.

July 2023 Courses

MS 207: Cataloging Your Collection

July 3 to 31, 2023  

Instructor: Peggy Schaller

Description:

Cataloging may not be the most exciting museum task, but it is among the most important. Without a clear knowledge of your holdings, you can't protect, care for, research or exhibit them. Without knowledge of an item's history, you can't properly appreciate its value to your museum. Cataloging Your Collection covers all details needed to catalog a collection. Procedures for handling, measuring and describing all types of objects and materials are discussed in detail. Participants receive sample forms and learn the best practices for numbering artifacts, performing inventory and assessing the condition of objects. Participants practice describing everyday objects and cataloging items from their own collections or households.

MS 210: Integrated Pest Management for Museums, Libraries and Archives

July 3 to August 11, 2023  

Instructor: Stefani Pendergast

Description:

The only thing worse than mice or cockroaches in your kitchen, is finding them in your museum collection. Participants in Integrated Pest Management for Museums, Libraries and Archives learn low-toxicity methods of controlling infestations. IPM is the standard method for treating incoming items and monitoring holdings. Integrated Pest Management for Museums, Libraries and Archives discusses how infestations occur, helps identify risks, provides feasible mitigation strategies, discusses the different techniques of treating infested materials, and helps you complete an IPM plan and monitoring schedule for your institution. The course covers pest identification, insects, rodent, birds, bats, other mammals and mold infestations, as well as other problems raised by participants.

MS 235: Scripting the Exhibition

July 3 to 31, 2023  

Instructor: Karin Hostetter

Description:

So much to say and so little space in which to say it. That is the dilemma when scripting an exhibition. How do you say what needs to be said in the space available? How do you even figure out how to limit the information in the first place? Discover the value of themes, tangibles, intangibles, and universals in writing exhibit text that visitors really want to read -- and remember. Additional resources provided on font size and colors as well as label layout.

MS 267: Museum Ethics

July 3 to 31, 2023   

Instructor: Peggy Schaller

Description:

This course will examine the role of ethics in museums and related institutions. Topics addressed will include the differences in ethics, laws, and morals; what ethics are and where they come from; the ethical codes that museum professionals follow; how ethics affect professional practices; why ethics are important; and how ethical standards can help museums and related institutions better serve society. Participants in the course will gain an understanding of the importance of ethics in professional museum practice, how codes of ethics are written and why they are important, and will develop an understanding of the most significant codes of ethics subscribed to by museum professionals.

MS 271: Training for Interpretive Trainers

July 3 to 31, 2023  

Instructor: John Veverka

Description:

It’s often difficult to teach interpretive techniques and principles to others when you may have not had any formal training in interpretation yourself. The course provides ways to develop and deliver interpretive training courses and workshops for cultural sites and staff charged with developing interpretive training for their docents, volunteers, seasonal interpretive staff, or full time interpretive staff.

This course includes a copy of our new e-textbook, the Interpretive Trainers Handbook.

Course Goals: Upon completion of this course participants will:

- Have interpretive training program lesson plans and schedule of instructions drafted out.

- Have a working knowledge of key interpretive elements they should be teaching.

Conferences and Meetings

Double check each organization's website for more information.

Your copy should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)

Create a great offer by adding words like "free" "personalized" "complimentary" or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take an action, so think about inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining"!