I would like to thank all the Museum Studies Club members for helping with the International Women’s Air & Space Museum’s temporary exhibit 100 Ohio Women in Air & Space. Currently IWASM is in the process of taking down the exhibit and is working to upgrade many of its permanent exhibits.

That being said, the Museum Studies Club is moving to a new site www.museumgawk.wordpress.com. The club will operate as a virtual club as oppose to meeting at scheduled times.

Each Spring semester we are going to participate in a club project to network with museum professionals and build up our resumes. This year we have been generously welcomed by the International Women’s Air & Space Museum to curate their newest special exhibition “100 Ohio Women in Air & Space.” To commemorate the 100th anniversary of American women in flight, the museum will be focusing on the contributions made by Ohio women within that 100 years.

Museum Club members will be divided into two teams; Research/Collections and Design/Installation.

Research/Collections: will work from a list of Ohio women compiled by IWASM staff to create one page bios on each woman/women’s group and find appropriate items in the Museum’s collection for display.

Design/Installation: will work from a list of Ohio women compiled by IWASM staff to create categories for display cases; once categories have been designated the team will work with the Research/Collections team to appropriately set up the display cases.  Also, the team will need to create an interactive exhibit panel geared towards children 8-11 years old (see Michelle for details).

For your reference, below you will find pdfs of IWASM’s grant proposal for the exhibit and a map of the exhibit space.

Exhibit Grant

IWASM Map

The exhibit 100 Ohio Women in Air & Space will remain up until January 13th 2011! It is not clear if it will be extended but was curious as to whether we should throw “taking down” or “exhibit closing” party. Could be fun, post your thoughts.

Next weeks meeting will be held at IWASM. We will open up by discussing the below article. I know everybody usually has a TON of reading material to go through during the week, so even if you just read the first paragraph it will give you an idea of the topic. We really just want to talk about the issue in the article not necessarily the article itself. And, since the article is too big to upload to the server I or Matt will be emailing it out.

Those who attend can also use this time to start their portion of the project.

Deadlines for the Group Project.

Installation/Design:

By March 22nd half of the women on the list should have one photograph chosen to accompany the bios.

By April 16th all the bios should have a photo chosen and ready for printing.

April 19th-23 artifacts should be chosen for the exhibit and the printed material will be in and ready for installation.

April 23rd is the exhibit opening party.

Research/Collections:

By March 22nd half of the biographies should be written; 1-2 paragraphs each.

By April 16th all the bios should be completed and ready for printing .

April 19th-23 the printed material will be in and ready for installation.

April 23rd is the exhibit opening party.

Please be aware that the deadlines may change to accommodate changes in progress and projected printing dates.

I was thinking about the space we have to work with at IWASM and how it is currently utilized. While I believe that the material and artifacts available can “make” an exhibit space, I feel that the edifice in which the museum is located as well as the lack of guidance and flow are what need to be countered-acted. To deal with the issue of flow, I thought we could make replicas of the pylons used during air races. One foot square by five foot high, they could be made of very affordable PVC pipe and we could have 4 banner made up to cover each side. Make a few of these pylons and use arrows or the little red dashes used in Indiana Jones to display his planes route and visitors could follow them as we guide them. The red dashes could be made of  those thick floor stickers; I’m not sure what they are called but I think they should hold up fairly well against the light foot traffic. I know that floor space is a point of frustration for IWASM but the pylons would take up only a few square feet depending on how many we made. Give me some feedback both positive or negative.

The next Museum Studies Club meeting will take place at IWASM on February 22nd at 6pm. We will be meeting with Executive Director Toni Mullee and Collections Manager Cris Takacs. The Museum is located on North Marginal Road in the Burke Lakefront Airport Terminal. To get to the Museum take East 9th to the corner the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum sits on and turn left down North Marginal driving away from the Rock Hall. The highway should be on your right. Pull into the driveway that has the two airplanes on pedestals and drive past the parking booth and continue to drive close to the building. You can park along the curb past the blue USPS mail box. If you have any questions or need further directions contact Michelle Epps or Matt Seaman.

Check out this interesting article by Kathleen Cerveny (Director of Evaluation and Institutional Learning at the Cleveland Foundation) in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.   Ms. Cerveny discusses the relationship between the cultural sector and Cleveland’s future success. 

 Cleveland’s Cultural Sector must Change with City

The Association of Midwest Museums is collaborating with the Ohio Museum Association to hold their annual conference this September / October at the Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland, OH. The conference includes an opening reception at the Great Lakes Science Center and Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, educational sessions, lectures, workshops, and tours of  cultural institutions in the Cleveland area such as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. This is a great networking opportunity, allowing aspiring museum professionals like ourselves to connect with local and national professionals at various institutions. To learn more about registration, cost,  and prospective programs, please visit the conference website at http://www.midwestmuseums.org/conf_current.html.

Hi everybody,

Thanks for coming to our first meeting!  Michelle and I were very pleased with the turn out and we’re really excited to work with all of you.  Most of the site is still under construction, but we’ll have it up and running sooner rather than later.  Please feel free to contact one, or both of us, if we missed something . . . .

Matt