museum education

The supposed audience to be served by the Yager Museum consists of Hartwick College and SUNY Oneonta students and professors, as well as Oneonta community members and even the occasional tourist. With such a wide range of ages and interests, it is hard to envision a concrete image of the Yager Museum’s possible education framework. Based upon the writings of Talboys, Hein, and Alexander, one may come to the conclusion that this may best be done through outlining specific relevant projects that incorporate the various elements of a museum educator’s role in the Yager Museum.

One Program the Yager Museum could install pertains to the development of a research library consisting of resources from the Stevens German Library regarding the items on display, the cultures of their origin, the topics of archaeology, anthropology, history, etc. The ever-changing library could be stocked with books, maps, periodicals, etc. pertaining to the exhibits on display. Even if it only consisted of one or two bookshelves, it would attract attention, especially to students like myself who are interested in or studying history / anthropology. I often go to the college library above the museum to look up information about exhibits if I cannot find the information I am curious about in the museum. At the Sainte Marie among the Iroquois Museum in Liverpool NY, part of my internship required me to create, catalog, and maintain an in-house library pertaining to the exhibits on display for community and employee use. The library contains 4 (6-shelf) bookcases of books, maps, etc. pertaining to relevant material to the exhibits with a table and chairs. The Yager Museum could see a significant amount of museum visitors utilizing the library, including students, educators, and guests who are just interested in it’s contents. Its location close to the exhibits would encourage people to search for further information they are curious about instead of putting it off until later and forgetting about it.

The library can be easily created and maintained by an unpaid museum intern seeking experience in archival research, library studies, museum studies, and even history, anthropology, or education. The library could be created by searching the college catalog for relevant resources, putting in an order to have the books set aside, picking up the books (which can be avoided if necessary by calling the library desk and having the books taken on a cart to the museum to avoid carrying them), moving them to the museum library area for their temporary display, and organizing them by subject for easy searching by museum visitors. A list of books checked out by the museum can be searched online and printed out so that museum guests can scan the list of books available to see if any pertain to a specific question they may have.

Because of the widely ranging audience of the museum, material for understanding by varying age groups and depths of study is crucial to the library’s success. For example, it would be pointless to completely shelve the library with books full of technical terminology targeting specialists in a single area of study, or to not include any of the aforementioned genre of books. The library could also contribute to the economic success of the museum (in some way; considering the Yager museum revenue cannot be very astounding as it currently stands. Any improvements can only help) by encouraging the return of visitors who make use of the library at a visit to the museum. Advertising the library within the museum could also contribute to museum guests who are usually patrons of the library to research the aforementioned subjects. The library could also increase museum patronage by enabling the library catalog website to show that books being searched are in the museum for public use. If a student needs to use a book for an assignment but the book is in the museum, their visit to the museum may peak their interest and encourage them to visit in the future. The library could employ the increasingly important aspect of museum education “computer literacy” though the methods by which it is advertised using the many facets of Web 2.0.