Posts

Lost in Science

Posted on September 11, 2012 | 4 minutes | 804 words | eleekirk

Yesterday I was in London for a meeting, and managed to carve out a couple of hours to visit the Science Museum. Given that I spent eight years of my life working in science museums, and that I now research museums, it was a shock to realise that it’s probably been over half a decade since I’ve visited the UK’s largest and most famous museum of science. In spite of the fact that I inevitably get lost there, my first mistake was failing to pick up a map as I came in. [Read More]

Welcome to the gallery of the real

Posted on July 22, 2012 | 3 minutes | 620 words | eleekirk

Some time last year I was in a natural history gallery with a Natural History Museum educator from the USA. I asked her, “What question do children most commonly ask in your museum?”, already anticipating that the answer would be, “Is it real?”. I was right, of course, with children’s favoured question number two, on both sides of the pond, being, “Did you kill it?”.

The world over, young children seem to be totally baffled by taxidermy. A couple of months ago I visited the Oxford University Museum of Natural History with my two nephews, aged seven and four. They spent most of the visit trying to get their heads around the relationship between ‘real', ‘alive' and ‘dead'. “But when are we going to see the real ones?”, they kept asking. And they weren’t convinced by my patient, rational response that these were real, they were just the skins of dead animals that someone had stuffed to make them look alive. To the boys, ‘real' meant ‘alive'

Small town museums, or museums of small towns?

Posted on July 14, 2012 | 3 minutes | 634 words | eleekirk

Today we escaped the hustle and bustle of big city (ok, Leicester) life, and headed down to the pretty little town of Market Harborough, in search of charity bookshops, cake and the wonders of its local museum. Harborough Museum was full of visitors having a great time – kids (ok, and some grown-ups) dressing up and exploring baskets of toys, and lots of people reading finding out about local life and the history of the town. [Read More]

history local museum museum

Biophobophilia, or, why children (sort of) love big, pointy teeth

Posted on July 6, 2012 | 3 minutes | 591 words | eleekirk

During the course of my research at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. This may not come as a surprise to those of you with children, or who actually remember being a child, but it seems that children really love animals with scary teeth. In this particular museum, the favourites seem to be a large stuffed crocodile, and a model T. rex head. My PhD research involves getting 4- and 5-year-old children to photograph things they like in the museum, and then talk to me about the pictures. [Read More]

children dinosaur museum natural history observation OUMNH research methods visitors

Observation Notes: Not All Bones are Dinosaurs

Posted on July 1, 2012 | 2 minutes | 397 words | eleekirk

Over the past couple of years I’ve spent a lot of time at the wonderful Oxford University Museum of Natural History, where I’m carrying out my PhD research. Although the bulk of my research has involved getting four- and five-year-olds to take photographs for me, I have spent almost as much time wandering around and around the museum, observing visitors more generally. I really love doing observations. I think it’s easy to imagine that most museum visits are quite mundane — we see the other visitors milling around, or we mill around ourselves, and everything blends into the hubbub of the crowds. [Read More]

children dinosaur museum natural history observation research methods

100 Languages of Visitors

Posted on June 26, 2012 | 5 minutes | 939 words | eleekirk

I said “Do you speak-a my language?” / He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich — Land Down Under, Men at Work When I worked in a museum in multicultural Birmingham (UK), myself and the other staff would sometimes worry about whether or not we should provide any of the museum text or leaflets in additional languages other than English. Since starting my PhD I’ve gone back to thinking about the languages used in museums, but my concept of language has changed somewhat. [Read More]

dialogue language museum Reggio Emilia visitors