ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

Sean:

Years ago when I used to get that very question, I had to go by 'gut  
feel.'  And then I got irritated enough to try and quantify the  
number.  It was a big ol' pain in the booty, but we created a  
checklist with each exhibit in each gallery.  Someone in exhibits, on  
a rotating basis, was responsible for going through the galleries  
each morning during startup and noting whether an exhibit was  
operational or not - did it physically do what it was supposed to  
do?  did it need consumables? etc.  Someone also had to do this after  
lunch.

After about a month of this pain, we were indeed able to show that  
95% to 98% of the exhibits were working at any given time.

Of course the paperwork is a stupid thing; who's ever going to look  
at the paper?  But it sure got a couple of people off my back.....

To me, a person who likes theory as much as anything else, there are  
a couple of more subtle questions that enter into the equation.   
First, it often seemed the case that if one exhibit was broken, the  
perception was that 'lots of things were broken.'  The other:  crappy  
exhibits...If the visitor didn't get 'something' - say it wasn't  
intuititve, it was just a bad exhibit, it wasn't a chunk they could  
understand, the perception was this was an exhibit that wasn't working.

Exhibit maintenance is perhaps the most thankless job i can think of;  
its never a job finished, there's something always needing fixing,  
and you're battling perception as much as reality....


	



>


***********************************************************************
For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html.

To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the
message  SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to
[log in to unmask]