G'Day Carolyn (and others interested in this subject);

The North Carolina History Museum, some years ago, shut down completely, while
their old building was torn down and a striking new one built in its place.
They bridged the gap by instituting a VERY aggressive program of outreach,
especially in educational programs. My impression is that they had the whole
state waiting for the new museum to open! Contact Martha Tracy at (919)
715-0200 (voice) or (919) 733-8655 (fax) for details.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization shut down for (as I recall) more than a
year while their spiffy new building was being constructed. A major problem was
that they were accommodated in a variety of premises (14 or so, over a VERY
wide area). One of the major problems when they all got together was
re-integrating the people. For information on what they did in the interim,
contact:

louise.dubois(at)cmcc.muse.digital.ca or sylvie.morel(a)(same address).

We are planning to build a major addition to our public building. At the same
time, we will gut the galleries that take us from prehistory to the end of the
First World War and make major improvements to our Second World War gallery. We
will probably have to close the building for the ten most "quiet" months of the
year to do this, and we will do the three projects simultaneously.

Our plan is to open our collections and research building, on the other side of
the downtown core, six days a week, through the construction period. For the
past several months, we have been rearranging the big pieces of kit into large
thematic "exhibits", which will simplify and enhance this strategem (one of our
problems is that various countries keep giving us tanks and guns and such,
which makes us continually rearrange things!)(but we're NOT complaining!). We
will move our educational programs to the same building and move more
aggressively on outreach - electronically, travelling exhibitions, loans
program, etc. And, on the while, mount an accelerating PR campaign to build
expectations for the biger and better museum.

Hope this is helpful. Best regards to all at MoV.

Harry Needham
Director, Programmes & Operations
Canadian War Museum