ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Hi,
I guess I may as well wade in on this one and give my two cents' worth too. I think it's safe to say that none of us (including the Smithsonian) have enough personnel to maintain all the exhibits that seem to break at the most inopportune of times. (Why is it that they always seem to gang up on us and die at the same time which is also the most inconvenient?)
Anyway, I think one of the most effective ways to get at this problem is spend more intelligent money up front to "build 'em right" in the first place. We have found that carefully designed exhibits, built with industrial quality parts, are likely to be very reliable. This can sometimes cost a lot of money up front in terms of design and testing time and in the purchase of sometimes very costly parts. For example, a brushless DC motor driven pressure blower made by Ametek might easily cost $ 500.00 dollars whereas a leaf-blower might be picked up at Home Depot for $ 50.00. BUT the former will long outlast any $ 50.00 blower and be quieter to boot. Cheap parts are great for prototypes but have no place in heavily used exhibits that are expected to last for a decade or more. The same goes for quickly arrived at design solutions.
I could go on with other examples but won't. The point is that we all often "step over a dollar to pick up a dime" and this can be very costly later. I think more of us should be designing exhibits with the long-term costs in mind. Most exhibit houses don't take this approach and we all know what this causes. In addition, it's very important to design things so it is easy and simplistic to repair them when they do break, hopefully with the use of volunteers or at least people who don't have to have a degree in electrical, information, or mechanical engineering.
A subset of this is the matter of lighting. There are fixtures available right now that use HID lamps that last between 12,000 and 24,000 hours and you don't have to trade off light control or color to gain the benefits. And these types are three to four times more energy efficient than even Quartz Halogen lamps. Sure, they are initially much more expensive but who wants to be changing bulbs every 6 months when they could last 3 years?
John Bowditch
Exhibits Director
Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum
> ----------
> From: William
> Reply To: Informal Science Education Network
> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 10:12 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Exhibit maintenance and upgrading costs
>
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
>
> I agree with David...
> Although it is *highly* variable. Speaking of ourselves, we operate 12,000
> sq. foot of interactive exhibitry with a primarily elementary school age
> audience. However, we are not a major metropolitan area - so don't get as
> much throughput (read in the neighborhood of 1000-2000 per week (2000 would
> be very high for us)). We technically have 1.5 people for all exhibit
> maintenance, installation of travelling exhibits and development of new
> exhibitry. We have an additional .5 people to take care of the animals
> (feed them, change out bedding, etc.) and aquariums.
> Our dollar maintenance budget is $15k - but that includes operating a
> separate shop (utilities). We normally have enough left over in that
> budget to do some equipment upgrades - though nothing too major (it also
> depends what breaks down). Also, unless you are truly a super-center,
> realize that the "5 year" life-span of your exhibits will probably get
> stretched to far beyond its five years for most pieces. Certainly, we
> change out one exhibition area or more every 3 years, but with 7 exhibition>
> areas, that means many exhibit areas will have to last longer. Our
> smallest area, the natural history "hands-off" area, gets the least use,
> the least abuse, and we haven't changed in forever....okay, a slight
> exagerration there.
>
> I hope that helps!
>
> -William
>
> William Katzman "The important thing is to never stop
> questioning." -A. Einstein
> Director of Exhibits "Are you sure about that Al?" -His wife.
> Catawba Science Center
> ph: (828) 322-8169 x307
> fax:(828) 322-1585
> [log in to unmask]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Taylor [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 9:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Exhibit maintenance and upgrading costs
>
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
> ************************************************************************
> *****
>
> Peter,
> Boy I wish that could be true in most places... but
> in my years at Pacific Science Center, we had only 3
> guys to cover the 7 day a week 10 hour a day operation
> for more than 100,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space. Now admittedly
> we had some other staff in the metal and wood shops they
> could call on when things went really wrong, but there never
> seemed to be enough money to get the numbers any higher
> than that.
>
> The import thing I found was to find folks who were
> generalists rather than specialists... and good at finding
> solutions rather than problems.
>
> Unless you are the Smithsonian, I doubt that anyone
> has enough staff to support their operations, and they would
> probably argue that they don't either...
>
> David
>
> David Taylor
> AHHA Museum Services
> "Now I Understand"
> (206) 363-8126
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> http://www.AHHA-MuseumServices.com
>
>
> > From: "Peter A. Anderson" <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 20:05:23 -0500
> > Subject: Exhibit maintenance and upgrading costs
> >
> > Philipe, hi!
> >
> > I have a rule of thumb that 10,000 sq. ft. of substantially interactive
> > exhibition takes 3 people to maintain. 2 - 2.5 of these people have a
> tool
> > pack on their belts; the rest is overhead - management, accounting,
> design
> > and fabrication (for those exhibits that are unmaintainable and just must
> > be changed), graphics (for those graphics which just must be changed)
> etc.
> >
> > Many people think that this is a high estimate - but I think that they
> > haven't added up all the bits. Most science centers are open 1.6 times a
> > person-year of 236 days, so quite a few of these maintenance people must
> be
> > part-timers.
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > Peter Anderson
>
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