Monday, November 8, 2010

Visitor Contributions!

Nina Simon's chapter on visitors contributions to exhibits, by donating/lending their ideas or belongings, and even by making comments for the exhibit, reminded me of a similar exhibit I had been to. In the fall of 2008, I had a chance to go to Dublin and see the Guinness Storehouse. The whole place is a museum on the history of Guinness beer in Ireland. It was not only very different and creative, but it was also a lot of fun and was educational (it tied the history of the company in with some of Irish history as well). Near the end of the exhibit, there was a station for visitors to post comments/thoughts on the exhibit on a wall for future visitors to read. It was cool because people posted things about what they did/didn't like about Guinness, or the museum. Most cards also showed where people were from so it put some things in perspective on the beer. Perspectives like where in the world its sold, what people like about it or don't like about it, and how it must be popular if people come from all over the world to see the museum. It made the exhibits on how it is made interesting and further pushed Arthur Guinness' (the founder) conviction that people would buy it all over the world, and that it would be famous for years, even if people thought he was crazy for signing a lease for 9,000 years!

No comments:

Post a Comment