This subject has come up on the list before, so we don't need to do a
full-fledged revisiting, but I'm investigating incorporating smells into
an exhibition. We are a small museum with a very tiny exhibition budget,
so I can't go the route of a company like Scentair or Intercontinental
that sells machines and custom scents. 
 
If anyone has come up with practical, low-budget ways of working with
smells, please contact me. I've been talking to the Boston Children's
Museum, which is doing some work in this area. I've also seen the
Exploratorium's squeeze bottle method for Garden of Smells, and an
exhibition designer diagramed a sippy-cup method for me. I'd like to
know what other methods are out there, particularly how you control the
smell so it comes out when visitors want to smell it but stays contained
the rest of the time and--most importantly--is tamper-proof. 
 
Also, I've been investigating cheap ($15-25/bottle) sources for buying
atypical stock scents (smoke, body odor, wig powder, etc.). I found
Demeter Fragrances, but I'm wondering if there are others out there. And
if you have used this simple method of spraying cotton balls with
scented oil or perfume and placing the cotton balls inside a container
with a hole in the top, I'd to know how long I can expect the scent to
last. I want to find ways to keep maintenance to a minimum.
 
Any advice, either on- or off-list, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
 
 
Rainey Tisdale
Director of Museum Collections and Exhibitions
Bostonian Society
206 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02109
617-720-1713 x24
617-720-3289 Fax
www.bostonhistory.org
 

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