The difficult part about creating CDs is marketing and distribution.

The only practical way for most museums to create CDs (especially on
historical topics) is to get grant funding for production and then
use any income from sales to fund further marketing and distribution.
Sexy art CDs may be an exception.

Pitfalls: What is really critical is to find out what teachers want
and need.  In developing the Exploring Amistad web site
(http://amistad.mysticseaport.org), we talked to principals and
curriculum directors about what their teachers would want from a
history web site.  When we did a formative evaluation, we found that
we had gotten a highly idealized version of teacher needs.  In a
perfect world-- where teachers have lots of time to come up with
great new ways to teach-- the primary documents and contextual
materials (biographies, time lines, etc.) we provided would be great.
It turns out that what teachers wanted was lessons ready to go--kind
of a MRE (meals ready to eat) approach.  The other materials get
used, but not in the ways we expected.

You should also ask teachers what media they prefer for the
information.  With many schools wired now, it may be that a web site
is more practical for them.

Budget:  Rule 1: there is never enough money for any technology
project.  Rule 2: if you keep it simple, you can always get something
done.

Organization: You need four skills: content, design, technology, and
project management. These are often four different people. Balancing
these so no one area dominates makes the fourth skill the most
critical.

Companies: Lots of companies would love to help.  Many will be very
expensive.  Few, if any, will offer to do the project in hopes of
making money on it.

>I am involved in an organization that is considering producing a CD geared
>toward schools incorporating detailed biographical and other information of
>a number of individuals, as well as general social history for specific
>time periods.  I am researching the feasibility of this project - and am
>looking for comments, pro and con, from anyone who might have done
>something similar at your institution.
>
>Specifically:
>a) does anyone know of any companies that have the capability and interest
>for such a project?
>b) If you have done something similar - what were the pitfalls?
>c) There would be individuals from several institutions involved in the
>process, any comments or suggestions on how to structure the work tasks
>associated with the project?
>d)  If you don't mind sharing, what was your budget? was it adaquate? does
>your distribution/revenue support the project?


Guy Hermann, Planner
----------------------------
E. Verner Johnson & Associates
Museum Architects & Planners
p: 617-437-6262
f: 617-437-1272

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