Author Archives: Max van Balgooy

About Max van Balgooy

President of Engaging Places LLC, a design and strategy firm that connects people to historic places.

Third Edition of the Encyclopedia of Local History Arrives with a Thud

The latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Local History just arrived with a thud on my doorstep. Weighing nearly three pounds and two inches think, it’s a small beast. I served on the advisory board, suggested writers, and contributed entries and photographs, but didn’t realize what a hefty book it would become until a copy arrived at my door. At 800 pages, the third edition added another 150 pages to the second edition of 2013, so if this keeps up, the fourth edition will need a handle.

Edited by Amy Wilson, the Encyclopedia is a wide-ranging assortment of definitions, topics, organizations, primary sources, historical approaches, and individual state histories, along with appendices on studying various ethnic groups and religion, and contact information for state historical societies and National Archives facilities. Certainly it’s a reference tool for “local history” jargon that you might be able to find online (what is “historical thinking” or “repatriation” or “Soundex”?) but it also contains mini-articles on provocative subjects (such as “Building Bridges through Local History” by George McDaniel, “Local Historical Societies and Core Purpose” by Anne Ackerson, or “Museums and Families” by Linda Norris). The contributors are among the best people in our field, so the information is solid. You’ll not only want to use it to look up a term occasionally but to let it open to a random page to explore the many aspects of local history (Cyndi’s list? fakelore? social purity? Tweedsmuir History Prize?).

At $145, it’s not a book everyone can afford, but it would be great addition to a reference library of a historical society or local public library.

Delaware Historical Society Cleverly Interprets One Object Two Way

Wall between two exhibitions at the Delaware Historical Society.

The Delaware Historical Society reopened their museum last fall with two new complementary exhibitions designed by the Gecko Group, one a comprehensive history of the state and the other on the history of African Americans in Delaware. I recently visited the museum with Scott Loehr, the CEO, who pointed out a clever interpretive technique. The two exhibitions share a common wall, which has a doorway that allows visitors to walk from one to the other and exhibit cases on either side. It’s not immediately obvious, but the objects on display are interpreted differently depending on which side of the wall you’re standing.

For example, a Crown Stone from the Pennsylvania-Maryland Border has a two-sided label. The side facing Continue reading →

This Blog Post is about a New Book about Museum Blogs

Soon to be released is the Museum Blog Book, a collection of “today’s most interesting, innovative and passionate writing about museums and galleries…hidden away in hundreds of carefully-crafted museum blogs.” I’m delighted that my post, “Creating a 21st Century House Museum” is included among the writings of my colleagues Gretchen Jennings, Linda Norris, Steven Lubar, and Robert Connolly along nearly 70 others from around the world in this fat 630-page anthology published by Museums Etc.

The book is divided into five sections related to management, collections, learning, interpreting, and visiting at museums, and historic sites will find particularly interesting:

Replacing Mission Statements with “Why Should I Care?” Statements by Nick Sacco, Public Historian, National Park Service
What Does Democracy Look Like at a Historic Site? by Linda Norris, independent museum professional
Why Co-creation in Archaeology Works by Robert P Connolly, Director, C H Nash Museum, Chucalissa, University of Memphis (who recently retired to balmier places)
Using Virtual Reality to Preserve the Past by Jenny Kidd, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
Informing Restoration by Peter Trowles, Mackintosh Curator, Glasgow School of Art

Until release on February 20, it’s available for a 15% early-bird discount of £49 plus free shipping. With the pound trading at $1.27, that’s $62.23 (okay, that is expensive, but it’s published in the UK where books are always expensive and it is a big 630-pages—more than a ream of paper!).

Video: How to Visit a Museum

Nick Gray at Museum Hack recently published this 2:27 video on how to visit a museum, which is surprisingly similar to how I visit them. I LOVE museums but my friends are often disappointed that I’ll read the introductory label and then just walk through the galleries non-stop. You might assume I’m just a “streaker” but just like Gray, it’s to get an overall sense of the exhibits so I can choose where to spend my time. I’ve learned you can’t spend an equal amount of time on everything in a museum so I have to choose what will give me the most enjoyment and the best experience. I’ll visit the galleries a second time, stopping at those objects or topics that most interested me in my initial run-through (but always allow for serendipitous exploration). Still, it’s hard to fight museum fatigue and mental overload after a couple hours, but that’s what museum restaurants are for.

I do something similar for historic sites, but in this case I’m analyzing the architecture and landscape to figure out how circulation, organization, views, and alignments are expressed through design (a particular interest of mine). That’s why I often become frustrated by guided tours of period rooms, whose slow circuitous crawl through a dozen rooms leaves me disoriented (and bored, sorry).

How do you visit museums and historic sites? What experiences helped you understand them better or enjoy them more? Share them in the comments below.

NMAAHC Director Lonnie Bunch Named a Washingtonian of the Year

Lonnie Bunch, a Washingtonian of the Year.

The January 2017 issue of Washingtonian, the magazine for the Washington DC region, named Lonnie Bunch as one of its “eleven locals whose commitment to helping others makes Washington a better place to live.” Usually the list is made up of wealthy philanthropists, sports figures, political leaders, and education reformers, so it was a nice surprise to see an historian who works at a museum named among its most benevolent in a city full of history and museums .

Lonnie Bunch is the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened last fall and whose continuing popularity makes admission one of the hottest tickets in town. Bunch was previously the president of the Chicago Historical Society and curator at the National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of American History, and the California African American Museum, where I first met him twenty years ago when I was conducting research on jazz bands in 1920s Los Angeles. I’ve always enjoyed my encounters with him, which often happen as happy accidents through a last-minute invitation to dinner in Chicago, running into him during the Folklife Festival, or sharing a car ride with him to the airport in Charleston. So I was delighted when he agreed to write the foreword for my first book, Interpreting African American History and Culture at Museums and Historic Sites.

Washingtonian recognizes Bunch for his effort to find a spot on the Mall for the museum, raising much of the $270 million to match Congress’ contribution, and attracting donations from people across America. I also know him as a Continue reading →

What Does a Trump Presidency Mean for IMLS?

President-elect Trump continues to demonstrate that he doesn’t plan to govern like his predecessors, having recently nominated department heads who are at odds with the mission of their departments. What does that mean for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), whose Director and its National Museum and Library Services Board are appointed by the President and whose authorization and funding are approved by the President? Most house museums and historic sites know IMLS for its grant programs (e.g., Museums for America) but they also conduct research on the state of the museum field (e.g., museum database); tackle national issues that are important to museums (e.g, preservation of collection, digital platforms); and fund the Museum Assessment Program (managed by the American Alliance of Museums) and Collections Assessment for Preservation Program (managed by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works).

September 11 Memorial Museum visits by President Obama in 2014 and Presidential candidate Trump in 2016. Note the differences in how the groups are moving through the museum.

At this point, it seems President Trump will have little interest in museums or libraries, which could be good or bad, depending on Continue reading →

Is Twitter Effectively Engaging Your Audiences?

With the new year on the horizon, I’ve been evaluating my projects from the last year to determine how I can help historic places better connect to their audiences. For the past two years, I’ve used Twitter to share news about history, historic sites, historic preservation, and history museums. Each morning I scan the New York Times and other newspapers for stories, aiming to tweet about three stories daily to my @maxvanbalgooy account so that my followers can quickly learn what’s happening. The result? I have created 4,180 tweets and attracted nearly 500 Followers since I joined Twitter in June 2009. This blog, on the other hand, has 1000 subscribers, so it seems my time is better spent on my blog than Twitter. It could be very different for you, but how do we decide if Twitter is effectively engaging your audiences?

A useful place to start is with the metrics that Twitter provides: Followers and Likes. Likes are a low level of engagement because they only require that readers support a specific tweet or find it especially useful or enjoyable—but that’s it. Followers are a mid-level form of engagement because it means that a reader wants to engage with you and read everything that you tweet (“read” is probably overstating things; “scan” is more appropriate for Twitter). Retweets engage at a high level because your Followers share your tweet to their Followers (did you follow that? it’s about the impact of the multiplier effect)—unfortunately, there’s no easy way to measure Retweets (but boy, we would have more impact if we promoted Retweeting instead of Liking).

To better understand how effectively Twitter can engage audiences, I collected statistics for a variety of major history organizations to measure Tweets, Followers, and Likes as of today (December 8, 2016) to develop the following chart: Continue reading →

Stabilizing Sandy or Uneven Paths with Mobi-Mat in Cape Cod

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On a recent visit to the Cape Cod in Massachusetts, I often encountered unpaved sandy paths down to the beach. It can be tough slog walking up and down those sandy hills but people also trample the nearby vegetation to get a solid footing. At the Cape Cod National Seashore, they covered these sandy paths with Mobi-Mats, a flexible woven recycled plastic mat that stabilizes the path and reduces erosion, while allowing water and sand to filter quickly. It was so much easier to walk to the shore and I immediately saw that they could be helpful at historic sites that have muddy or uneven paths to make travel easier for persons with limited mobility or in wheelchairs. Although the mat is bright blue, it feels much nicer to walk to the beach on this mat than it would on a concrete or asphalt sidewalk—you get the sense you’re walking at the beach, not in the parking lot (I suppose it’s blue because light colors would be blinding in the summer sun and dark colors would become too hot for bare feet).

Mobi-Mats are made by Deschamps, a French company with an office in New Jersey. According to their website, these mats are also in use in New York City Parks, Traverse City State Park in Michigan, Arches National Park in Utah, and Hunting Island State Park in South Carolina. And in case you need to move vehicles or heavy equipment temporarily through landscaped areas for an event or construction project, these mats were originally designed for beach landings by the U.S. Marine Corps so they can handle the traffic (they say a 50 foot long roll can be installed by two people in ten minutes!).

EngagingPlaces.net Celebrates a Belated Five-Year Anniversary

five-candles On October 24, 2011, the Engaging Places blog launched with the mission to both continue and expand a blog that I established for National Trust Historic Sites in 2007 (it was so unusual, we called it a “weblog” to explain what it was). I’ve been so busy that the five-year anniversary slipped by unnoticed. That’s traditionally the anniversary for wooden gifts but instead I’d appreciate “likes” and “shares.” 🙂

Here are some stats that suggest what’s happened over the years:

454 posts. The most popular posts are Let’s Give SWOT a Rest; The Truth About the Customer Experience; and Welcoming New Members. What does this mean?
168,516 views. Most visitors are from the United States, followed by Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia (and a surprising number from India, Germany, Brazil, and France).
Google is the search engine that overwhelmingly brings most people to the blog and “community engagement” is the most popular topic.
719 comments. Thanks!—the discussions have always been helpful.
nearly 1,000 subscribers.

Thanks to all of the house museums and historic sites that were willing to share their experiences and activities through this blog with others around the world. Thanks to my readers for your kind words and ideas when I meet you at conferences and workshops. More posts are coming (although it’s hard to keep up with so much happening).