Can You Hear Me Now? Can You Hear Me Now? Connecting to Visitors Through Connecting to Visitors Through

Real Stories of Artifacts and PlaceReal Stories of Artifacts and Place

This workshop is based on national museum standards from the StEPs program offered bythe American Association for State and Local History. StEPs is a self-study program created specifically for small- and mid-sized history organizations.

www.aaslh.org/steps

Funding to develop materials for this workshop was provided by:

“We learned much about ourselves and we are confident that our organization can make effective use of the program.”

George Squibb, Belfast Historical Society, Maine

What is StEPs?• Self-study program• Enroll any time• No application • Mainly for organizations that do not feel ready for

other assessment programs, but open to all

Flavia Cigliano, Nichols House Museum, Boston

How Your Organization Can Benefit From StEPs

Learn more about standards Plan for the future Support funding requests Justify decisions Track accomplishments Articulate progress Increase credibility Prepare for other assessment programs Be recognized for your success!

“With the basic, good and better levels, the workbook became a valuable educational experience for us and helped us set goals for the future.”

Example

Stewardship of CollectionsStandard: The museum legally, ethically,

and effectively manages, documents, cares for, and uses the collections.

Self-assessment question: Are there written procedures for acquiring, borrowing, and lending collection items?

Performance Indicators

Basic a. The institution uses a written donor

form for artifacts and archives items accepted into its collections.

b. The institution uses a written loan agreement for each in-coming and out-going loan transaction that involves collection items.

c. All loans are for a specified time period.

Gooda. There are written procedures for

acquiring, borrowing, and lending artifacts and archives items included in the collections policy.

Bettera. The institution reviews and updates its

procedures on a regular basis.b. The institution requires condition

reports for all in-coming and out-going loans.

StEPs Enrollment

One-time fee of $150*320-page workbook Active ongoing enrollment Bronze, Silver and Gold

certificates**

Window decal

*Non-members pay $265, includes one-year membership**Must maintain active institutional membership to receive certificates

More Benefits

National recognition for certificates earned20% discount on AASLH technical leaflets10% discount on AASLH workshopsAccess to StEPs website offering sample

forms, policies, job descriptions and other documents plus discussion forum, and calendar of training opportunities

“We can demonstrate to county officials thatwe are following national museum standards.”

www.aaslh.org/steps

• Link to free info webinar• Enrollment information• Sample workbook pages • Info sheet for boards• “Are We Ready for StEPs?” info sheet

Rob Orrison, Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre, Bristow, Virginia

Can You Hear Me Now?Can You Hear Me Now?

Plan for the DayEstablish benefits of using stories within

museum exhibits, tours and historic settings Learn basic elements of good storytellingExamine methods by which stories might be

better incorporated into museum interpretation

Object-based stories Community story circles Telling a story without a “storyteller” Audience inclusive narrative

According to the National Storytelling Association:

Stories are narrative accounts of an event or events. We use stories to pass on accumulated wisdom,

beliefs, and values. Stories explain how things are, why they are, and

their role and purpose. Stories are the foundation of memory and learning. Stories connect us with our humanness and link past,

present, and future by teaching us to anticipate the possible consequences of our actions.

Why Should Museums Tell Stories?

Garrison Keillor National Geographic Magazine. December, 2000

“I find that if I leave out enough details in my stories, the listener will fill in the blanks with her own hometown, and if a Freeport girl exiled in Manhattan hears the story about Memorial Day…she may think of her Uncle Alcuin who went to France and didn’t return, and get out her hanky and blow.

I’m not the reason she’s moved, he is. All I do is say the words: cornfield and Mother and algebra and Chevy pickup and cold beer and Sunday morning and rhubarb and loneliness, and other people put pictures to them.”

Listening to Stories

http://themoth.org/stories

Tips for Telling a Good Story

Show, Don't Tell

Keep it Simple

Remain Aware of Your Audience

Be Flexible

-

Prepare

Object Biographies Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Object BiographiesPitt Rivers Museum

From the museum website: All objects in the museum have a life (or series of different lives). They are made, used and then come into the museum. Excerpt from biography:

…a glass specimen jar filled with alcohol and containing a slug impaled on a thorn (1898.71.1). Originally black, but now bleached white by years of being immersed in formaldehyde or a similar solution of alcohol, the slug represents one in a long line of cures for warts. It was purchased by the Museum in July 1898 from Thomas James Carter of Oxford and is the Oxfordshire version of a cure used in several parts of the UK.

Cures for warts through the ages fall into several groups, with the slug example being considered a transference method. As the label on the jar in the Pitt Rivers says:

Charm for Warts, Oxfordshire. Go out alone & find a large black slug. Secretly rub the underside on the warts and impale the slug on the thorn. As the slug dies the warts will go.

Minnesota Historical Society MN 150

The Odditorieum Exhibit, Powerhouse Museum, Australia

The Four Types of TruthForensic Truth - What happened to whom, where, when, and how, and

who was involved.

Personal or Narrative Truth - Truth of personal recollection and memory. In the words of the TRC, “Memories of pain, however flawed with forgetting, indelibly scar the victims of unjust suffering…Personal stories are not the whole of truth, but they are integral to the truth that leads to new justice.”

Social Truth - One South African jurist defines this as “The truth of experience that is established through interaction, discussion and debate." Simply put when a number of stories of a given society are told publicly, together they form a “social” truth, or more aptly put, a “societal” truth.

Reconciliatory Truth - Also called “Public Truth” is the exposing of the past events in order to raise a public awareness and to elicit a “never again” position toward such atrocity resulting in a “healed” society.

Multiple Perspectives

Anoka County Historical Society,

Vietnam War Exhibit

What is an Open-ended Question?

An open-ended question has no right or wrong answer because it asks for opinion, belief, or knowledge based on personal experience.

Role of Questions in a Story-Based Interpretive Approach

1. Invite opinions, thoughts, and feelings

2. Encourage participation

3. Establish rapport

4. Stimulate discussion

5. Maintain balance between educator and visitor

Types of Questions

Factual: Have only one correct answer

Evaluative: Ask for opinion, belief, or pointof view, so they have no wrong answers

Fact-based Questions vs.Open-ended Questions

FACT - What kind of assistance do you think was available during the Great Depression?

OPEN - Where would you turn for assistance during difficult economic times?

FACT - What do you think the average rent for a

public housing unit in Chicago is?OPEN - What would you be willing to spend for an

apartment in center city Chicago?

FACT - Where do you think Bob Schneider got the money to open his general store?

OPEN - If you were starting a business, where might you get the money?

Reframing Questions for Visitors

Best Practices In the introduction, tell visitors

that the tour will be a conversation between theeducator and the visitors. Explain “we’re going to think about this history together,”and that the tour will be a cooperative process.

Ask people why they are visiting today and relate their answers to the history of the site in an effort to get people to make connections between past and present.

Balance presenting information with asking questions - a good rule of thumb is one question per space or tour stop

Best Practices Be supportive of comments people

make, especially the first commentbecause it sets the tone for the tour.

If someone says something that istangential or off-topic, acknowledgethe comment politely and graciouslyand then bring the discussion backto the main topic.

Only ask questions about the topics that you really want visitors to be grappling with. Don’t ask too many questions about less significant issues.

Build up to the most difficult questions. Start with questions that are less challenging (questions about personal experience) and move to those that are more challenging (questions about values and beliefs.)

Labels and Storytelling atJane Addams Hull-House Museum

Questions•Who, besides the staff of the institution, might have a story to tell about your object?

•Whose stories are your institution not telling?

•Who in your community might be the keepers of those stories?

Harvard Museum of Natural History

The Hairy Part: Telling Difficult Stories

So What Are You Afraid Of?

enolagay.org (accessed on 1.17.12)

International Slavery Museum

What is the Story You Most Fear Telling at Your Institution?

[Insert board member or funder name here] would be very nervous about us addressing that part of our community history

If I pitched an exhibit about ???? to other staff, volunteers or board members they would worry that we'd lose patrons

The most divisive issue in my community today is ????

School Desegregation

Labor Strikes

SILENT REFLECTION

What is the “difficult story” of your institution?

What makes it “difficult”?

Who might care about the way this story is told?

What benefit could the institution gain in telling it?

Next Steps?