The Museum Effect
For somthing which is so straightforward, the "Museum Effect" which is the titular concept in Jeffrey K. Smith's The Museum Effect: How Museums, Libraries, and Cultural Institutions Educate and Civilize Society is a complicated subject which strikes the core of what such institutions are and do.
The "Museum Effect," in short, is the ability of an object(s) encountered while walking through a museum or a variety of other cultural institutions to cause us to take a moment to reflect, rethink, and then react. It can be just about anything we encounter (from a space shuttle to a painting to a former urinal repurposed as part of a modern art piece), it does not require any previous expertise or particular type of experience, and it can most often be a something or many somethings which we only encounter briefly before we continue on our merry way. But the ability for such a brief interaction between person and object(s) to bring about new ideas, perspectives, or actions is the Museum Effect.
The book The Museum Effect does an excelent job of both quickly summarizing this concept as well as delving into the same simplified idea in great detail,, including a case-by-case analysis of which types of institutions are part of the Museum Effect (the author notes that he calls it "the museum effect" instead of a longer more obviously inclusive title for simplicity's sake), case studies of the Museum Effect at work, and methodology for this and potential further research into the topic.
The author also includes a welcome amount of humor to help readers through the more dry parts. In the research methodology he recounts the famous "airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow" joke in Monty Python and the Holy Grail to illustrate two key points about undertaking research:
1. Make your questions very specific, to avoid metaphorical (and literal) chasms.
2. The question of velocity and unladen swallows cannot be answered best with social science research.
(Image not mine, Isource unknown)
While there were several times when I had to stop and "chew" on a bit of the text and enjoyed many portions of this book, there are also some key points with which I cannot entirely agree. The argument that the quiet contemplation of the Museum Effect is the essence of the greater significance of museums and similar institutions leads to an intriguing analysis of user behaviors and one type of meaning-making. However, I would also contend that another essential strength is in the type of rethinking and reacting which does not happen in the quiet moments of emotional connection and contemplation, but in the loud messiness of institutions. The ability to let someone roll up their sleeves and experience something themselves, to make a mess and try something new, to step outside of their everyday expectations and color outside the lines a bit. I admit this bias has probably been strengthened by my other educational endeavors recently, including some research in maker spaces, as well as a personal bias towards the library environment (mostly user-centered) instead of the museum (often collection-centered). But I like letting people not only look at something, but also touch it, taste it, try it, engage with other senses and make new memories. Perhaps this is just my fresh-from-the-ivory-tower idealist phase, but in spite of reading an awful lot of theory and best practices it's still going strong.
