ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. ***************************************************************************** Hi Sean, I think we are all on the quest for 95%+ uptime for interactive exhibits. We at the Museum of Science, Boston achieve this on a regular basis, but it takes a lot of work. First, we have over 1,100 exhibits of which 500+ are interactive. We consider an exhibit to be interactive if it has a visitor interface. This varies from simple push buttons to Hearphones that relay information to video presentations to complex computer programs. We keep an inventory of all our exhibits in a database, which is constantly updated as exhibits are added and removed. Every 2 weeks I print out the inventory of interactive exhibits and walk the exhibit halls and "be the visitor". I try all the exhibits, making notes as to what is or isn't working. If it isn't working properly when I try it I consider it broken, just as a visitor would. It takes about a full day to this, but it gives us an accurate snapshot of what our guests encountered during their visit to the museum. This "walk through" is shared with the maintenance staff and assignments are made based upon the work required. Even at 95% operational we still have an average of 25 broken exhibits at any given time. At MOS Boston we have a separate Exhibit Maintenance staff within the Exhibits division that just focuses on the exhibit halls. Including myself, there are 14 members of the Maintenance staff that include skills in electronics, computers, carpentry, electro-mechanical, graphics and lighting. The crew is divided into 2 shifts to allow for a 7 day operation. The technicians are assigned to 2 -3 person teams and are assigned specific areas of the museum to watch over. Their responsibilities in these assigned areas include preparing the museum for our daily visitors, inspection rounds of exhibits in their areas in the morning and afternoon, immediate minor repairs, assigned repair work and to report back to the supervisor any major repair problems so they can be assigned based on skills needed. If we can't get a repair completed we can turn to our Technical Design or Production staff for support. There is much more to this operation, but that's the general overview. In 2006 we commissioned a study on the visitors perception of broken exhibits and made a presentation at the ASTC conference in Louisville. If you or anyone else reading this are interested in this study let me know and I can make it available. Good Luck, Dan MacDonald Manager, Exhibit Maintenance Museum of Science, Boston *********************************************************************** 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]