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After 30+ years in museums, my response is: Science centers that have survived well have enough money.  Not having enough money seems to cause problems for science centers.

To quote Charles Dickens' Micawber:  "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
 
As another sage, Rabbi Hillel, said in a very different context "the rest is just commentary."

Sorry, its been a long week.  I hope others have more useful responses...

eric siegel

On Sep 25, 2013, at 7:20 PM, Amy Johnston <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Hi all,
> Here is a big philosophical question for you all.  At Science Alive in Christchurch, New Zealand the earthquakes have given us a unique opportunity to start again. We can build a new purpose built centre. We want to make the most of this opportunity. One of our biggest challenges is to make the new centre sustainable so it is around for years to come. The world seems to be full of science centres that started so well but then had to close down a few years later or make significant numbers of staff redundant. We want to know what are the characteristics of centres that have survived well?  Also the converse. Are there any factors that seem to cause problems for science centres?
> 
> We know what we believe to be the answers to these questions, but would love to get your unbiased (and biased) opinions. The collected knowledge will feed into our strategic planning.
> 
> Thanks for your time.
> 
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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.

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