At our annual staff retreat we were discussing benchmarks for various 
areas of the museum from visitor services to collections care to 
exhibits. We were discussing other institutions we thought were doing a 
good job in each particular area and why we felt that way.

In our discussion about exhibits we had a hard time identifying very 
many really good interactive history exhibits. What do you all think? 
Who’s doing it well? For this discussion, by “interactive” I mean 
something that goes beyond touching different animal pelts or pushing a 
button to see a video. The exhibit must also be designed so that it can 
be used by a visitor without requiring mediation by an interpreter.

I’ll start by offering one of my favorite examples. The Chimney Rock 
National Historic Site in Nebraska 
(http://www.nebraskahistory.org/sites/rock/index.htm) has among its 
exhibits a small wagon, perhaps ¼ scale, along with a large selection of 
the kinds of items that pioneers traveling on the Oregon Trail might 
have chosen to take with them. Visitors can select items to load on the 
wagon. Should we take food, or some furniture? The wagon is rigged to a 
scale and at some point a red light comes on indicating that the wagon 
is overloaded. There is no way to get some of everything on that wagon. 
You have to choose and in doing so you get a unique perspective on the 
challenges of traveling west before the advent of the railroad. It 
allows for intergenerational learning in that adults can guide the 
child’s activities thus placing them in a mentoring role, or children 
can work on it alone or in small groups and still take away the main 
idea. It can be used multiple times with different outcomes each time 
and from a construction and maintenance standpoint, it’s very low tech 
and looks to be very durable.

So what do you like and why?

Dan

Dan Bartlett
Curator of Exhibits
Midway Village & Museum Center
Rockford, IL

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