One thing to remember about music or any other noise in an exhibit- your
staff. My first exhibit played a musical montage that included the "Duck and
Cover" song. Less than a day after the exhibit was installed, I got a call
asking me to remove the music because it was driving the guards nuts. If you
have guards, guides, or anyone else who will be in the vicinity for a time,
remember they will be hearing the interactives over and over and over. One
interactives company I've been working with lately said they will never
include continuous noise on an interactive because their clients have found
if it annoys a staff person, that staff person makes sure it stops annoying
them soon enough.
So, on behalf of guards, front desk staff and other gallery representatives,
please remember them when planning any sort of noise in an exhibit. If
you're not sure, play the noise in your office for a week and see how you
feel.
Pamela Feltus
Curator
National Museum of American Jewish Military History
1811 R Street NW, Washington DC 20009
202-265-6280 x201
www.nmajmh.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Needham [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 4:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: question
When I was at the Canadian War Museum, we usually had music running all day
in our largest temporary exhibition galley. The music was popular music of
the period depicted. For the exhibition "Imperial Adventure" (The South
African War), we had popular music of the period, such as "Goodbye, Dolly
Gray", "Soldiers of the Queen", etc. For the most popular exhibition we ever
had "We'll Meet Again" which addressed the impact of war on family
relationships, we used popular music of the First and Second World Wars,
including some seldom-heard items.
In these and in some places in our "permanent" galleries where we used
music, we always used archival recordings and, as the National
Archives/National Library of Canada have a wonderful sound archive (much of
which is accessable through the Web), these were not hard to find, even the
period Canadian material which is almost never heard these days.
We did not do any decent research on the subject, but we have a good deal of
anecdotal data from visitors who were very pleased by and interested in the
recordings. As well, they did not appear to detract from visitors' ability
to relate to the subject matter. The most frequent comment we heard from
visitors to "We'll Meet Again" was: "I was so deeply moved by the stories
that I had to leave the exhibit, have a coffee and compose myself, before
returning to see the rest of it." Not bad for a 900 square foot exhiit with
26 stories, some happy, others sad, from the First and Second World Wars,
Korean War and contemporary peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia.
Harry Needham Consulting Services Inc.
Consulting, training & research solutions
for heritage institutions - and others!
74 Abbeyhill Drive
Kanata ON K2L 1H1 Canada
(voice) +1.613.831-1068
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