Dear Deanna, Thanks for taking the time to respond. Your comments should be shared with all. Best Wishes, John deanna l jordan wrote: > Most of my experience has been with working with small museums. I can > remember the day I was working on some early designs for a display and > I had a budget of fifty dollars for supplies and the first thought > that came to me was that to do what I had in mind was goning to cost > me all of fifteen bucks! I had to find some way to spend money on that > puppy! Was I ever happy for about fifteen minutes. I think small > museums to be effectrive HAVE to make better use of the resouces they > have at hand. They have to find the perfect photograph in their > collection, use their oral histories on hand to advantage to make that > personal connection and tell the story from the local prespective. > Also, they're at a greater advantage in that they can often expect to > ask a local person with a connection to the exhibit to come in and > talk about it and interact with the visitors and know they'll have > them for as long as necessary. And out of that give and take a vital > connection will be made with the visitor that will most likely > generate more information for future refinements for the display. I > also think it's the personal elements that small museums can work with > much better than large ones. They don't have a schedule of when the > tour should be completed per se. With the Arkansas Air Museum I could > call people to volunteer to lead tours who'd had a lifetime of > experience in aviation and who loved to talk for hours and hours about > it and never tell the same story twice. And that's nice when you have > people who make it a point to visit often bringing their current group > of house guests with them everytime. In effect your staff and > volunteers are as much exhibits as the items on display. And I don't > think you'd find that so much in larger museums. Thomas E. (Pete) > Jordon