IN THIS ISSUE
July/August 2008

In today’s economy, science centers faced with shrinking resources are challenged to find innovative ways of doing more with less. How can science centers save money without sacrificing content or mission? In this issue, directors, chief executive officers, directors of operations, and other staff share their successes with strategies such as taking advantage of free web services, creating a program or exhibition on a shoestring, becoming more energy efficient, and pooling resources with community partners.

Contents
• The Frugal Director: Leadership on a Limited Budget, by Ann Fumarolo
• Off the Shelf: How Outsourcing Products and Services Can Deliver Visitor Satisfaction, by Marilyn Hoyt
• ‘Low Budget, High Impact’: Innovative Projects from Around the World, by Stephen Pizzey
• Nine Free or Nearly Free Ways Museums Can Take Advantage of Web 2.0, by Jim Spadaccini
• How ASTC Uses Free and Cheap Online Services, by Wendy Pollock
• Big Ideas, Big Savings: A Cost-Cutting Sampler, by Robert Ade, David Kramer, Laura Davies, and Craig Blower
• Resources for Saving Money

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By Jim Spadaccini
From ASTC Dimensions
July/August 2008

As the Internet continues to evolve, it seems like I hear about a new web site or software service just about every day. The vast majority of these are free to use. Many of these sites or software packages are produced by start-ups looking to gain first-time customers. Others are created by one of the giants—Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft—that are trying to achieve market dominance. Either way, they are essentially giving away their products, at least for now.

Whether you want to promote your events on the Web or expand your educational activities in social networking and file-sharing sites, there are web services and software you may want to consider. Here are nine free or nearly free ways to take advantage of these new developments on the Internet.

1. Start a blog
You can use a blog to promote events at your museum, support an exhibition, or explore an interesting topic. Try Blogger (www.blogger.com) or WordPress (www.wordpress.com) for free hosted blogs. You can also use the open-source software package from WordPress (www.wordpress.org), which is more flexible and can be installed on your own server. (Open-source software, as the name suggests, means the source code is freely available to other developers.)

Benefits: It is easy to get started. You will gain a presence in blog-only search engines, such as Technorati (www.technorati.com), Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com), and Ice Rocket (www.icerocket.com), and will likely connect with community bloggers. In addition, blogging software is increasingly used as a cheap content management system.

Who’s doing this? Lots of museums are blogging. Take a look at Museum Blogs (www.museumblogs.org), a directory of over 290 blogs.

Tips: Writing and managing a blog can take time, so make sure you have sufficient staff time, or plan to post articles and information from your existing newsletters.

Cost: Blogger and WordPress are free.

2. Create RSS feeds
Take existing content and turn it into RSS (or Atom) feeds. These web feeds are used for frequently updated content such as blog posts, podcasts, or even news headlines. Subscribers can read feeds using web and desktop feed readers. Blogging and content management software usually have built-in RSS capabilities. However, if your existing software packages don’t support RSS, try Runstream (www.runstream.com) to create a stream from scratch or RSS Calendar (www.rsscalendar.com) to make an RSS feed for a calendar of events.

Benefits: You can reach new visitors directly as new content becomes available. Because your content is “atomized,” it can appear in multiple places around the Web.

Who’s doing this? Lots of science centers have RSS feeds. You can subscribe to a feed of the online version of ASTC Dimensions (feed://www.astc.org/blog/category/astc-dimensions/feed). (Please note that you’ll need a feed reader or browser that is capable of reading RSS to view the contents of this link.)

Tips: RSS can be an alternative to e-mail campaigns and also can be used to list a calendar of events. You can use FeedBurner (www.feedburner.com) to promote and track your feeds.

Cost: Free or nearly free.

3. Start a podcast
If you have existing audio or video content or have the ability to record and edit, it is easy to post these recordings online to start a podcast. You can post your podcast on your own web site or make it available directly through Apple’s iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html) and other podcast directories.

Who’s doing this? Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts, has a weekly series of podcasts (www.mos.org/events_activities/podcasts). The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), California, has taken things a bit further and even allows its visitors to create podcasts. Take a look at SFMOMA’s Artcast Invitational page (www.sfmoma.org/education/edu_podcasts_inv.html). You can also use the search function in Apple iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes/) to find other museum podcasts and see how they are formatting and developing their episodes.

Cost: Free or nearly free. You may want to buy Apple’s QuickTime Pro (www.apple.com/quicktime/download/) for $29.99 to encode your audio and video clips.

4. Share a video
The phenomenal rise of YouTube (www.youtube.com) gives science centers an opportunity to share videos with potentially huge audiences. Short video clips of exhibitions, events, educational programs, or other activities can allow you to connect with people who may never visit your main web page. You can also embed these videos into your own web page, essentially using YouTube as a video service provider.

Who’s doing this? The Ontario Science Centre, Toronto, Canada, has over 100 videos on YouTube and has received literally millions of views. Go to their YouTube page (www.youtube.com/user/videochick770) and sort videos by Most Viewed.

Tips: There are many other video sites out there aside from YouTube. Take a look at Wikipedia’s list of video-sharing sites (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_sharing_websites). You may reach visitors more easily if you are featured in one of these sites than if you are one of millions on YouTube.

Cost: Free

5. Share photos
Flickr (www.flickr.com) is the most popular photo-sharing site. As with YouTube, you can use Flickr to share images and connect with new web visitors. The photographs can be “mashed up” with your own web site, allowing you to post images to Flickr and your own site simultaneously.

Benefits: Flickr can be a great way for your museum’s visitors to share their photos with you and with each other. You can also start a group that other Flickr members can join.

Who’s doing this? The Youth Exploring Science (YES) program at the Saint Louis Science Center, Missouri, has its own Flickr group. They have mashups of their photos, along with videos from www.blip.tv, on their own web site (www.youthexploringscience.com).

Cost: Free, or $24.95 per year for an upgraded “pro” account. You can ask for a discounted account through TechSoup (www.techsoup.org/stock), a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits with technology issues.

6. Create a museum persona
Social networking sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com) are now among the most popular destinations on the Web. For many, especially young, web visitors, these environments are self-contained destinations—places to explore, socialize, and connect with others.

Benefits: Having a presence in one of these sites can increase your museum’s visibility. It also allows members to become Fans or Friends of your museum—making an overt, albeit digital, connection with your organization.

Who’s doing this? If you’re a Facebook member you can check out the Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, profile (www.facebook.com/pages/Saint-Paul-MN/Science-Museum-of-Minnesota/5905048291?ref=ts). They are one of more than 40 museums that now have a presence in Facebook. There is also a group that tracks museums in Facebook (www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8173798651).

Cost: Free

7. Promote events
Event-based sites are a new development on the Web and they are resources that few museums have taken advantage of. Descriptions of exhibition openings and other community events can be posted directly on sites like Yahoo Upcoming (www.upcoming.yahoo.com) and MeetUp (www.meetup.com).

Benefits: You can let others know about important events at your museum and you can post an event in just a couple of minutes. You can also add a link to drive visitors to your web site.

Who’s doing this? The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Portland, is posting events on Upcoming along with a few other museums (www.upcoming.yahoo.com/user/116843/).

Tips: These sites are just beginning to emerge, so set your expectations accordingly. If you’re in a smaller city or region, you might initially gain only a few attendees through these sites.

Cost: Free

8. Build exhibitions, manage collections
For those of you who might be more adventurous and perhaps more technically savvy, there are a few open-source initiatives geared specifically for museums. Open Collection (www.opencollection.org) is a collections management and online access application. Omeka (www.omeka.org) enables museums to publish collections and exhibitions online. Pachyderm (http://pachyderm.nmc.org) provides templates to help museums create multimedia presentations.

My company, Ideum, in partnership with ASTC, is proposing our own open-source initiative, called Open Exhibits (www.openexhibits.org), for interactive, computer-based exhibits. Our software will be geared for science centers in particular. Pending funding for research and development, the first software modules should be available next year.

Benefits: You don’t have to start your project from scratch. The web sites of each of these projects contain help sections and can connect you to their online communities.

Who’s doing this? A number of art, history, and cultural institutions are listed among the users of these software packages.

Cost: Free

9. Manage projects
With all these new web projects going on, you’ll need some help managing them. Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) is an intuitive project management software package that is great for managing new web initiatives, as well as other projects.

Benefits: Basecamp allows you to manage all e-mail correspondence in one place and keep shared To Do lists, Milestones, and Writeboards (similar to wikis). The more advanced versions allow you to keep track of hours spent on a task.

Who’s doing this? Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley, California, is among the science centers that are using Basecamp.

Tip: Try the free version before moving up to paid versions.

Cost: Free for one project. $24 a month for the Basic version, $49 a month for the Plus version.

Museums are increasingly using the Web to advance their organizations at little or no cost. By familiarizing yourself with even a few of the services described in this article, you can easily manage projects or reach new audiences, all without leaving your desk or breaking the bank.

Jim Spadaccini is director of Ideum, Corrales, New Mexico.

IN THIS ISSUE
May/June 2008

Science centers regularly collect data about exhibits and programs, documenting how visitors respond to what the institution offers to public audiences. But once the report is filed, what happens to this knowledge? Is it used to inform daily practice, influence future planning, or demonstrate to a funding organization that the institution is meeting both its own goals and theirs? Many museum professionals think it’s time to apply a strategy of mission-based evaluation to all operations. To accomplish that, staff must first look inward. In this issue, we explore how museums within and outside the science center field are striving to make self-evaluation an integral part of their institutional culture.

Contents
• To What End? Achieving Mission Through Intentional Practice, by Randi Korn, with Mission Evaluation: An Annotated Bibliography
• Learning from the Process: Developmental Evaluation Within ‘Agents of Change,’ by Myrica Gration and Julie Jones
• Striving for Sustainability: A Self-Assessment Tool for Museums, by Charlie Trautmann
• The Funder’s Perspective: IMLS, Evaluation, and Public Value, by Marsha Semmel
• Planning for Family Learning: Research, Evaluation, and Decision Making, by Julie I. Johnson and Kirsten Ellenbogen
• The Funder’s Perspective: Measuring Progress Toward Mission, by Ann Stone
• Scitech’s Effectiveness Review: Appraising the Present, Planning for the Future, by Suzannah Lyons
• The Three Questions, by Carolyn Meehan

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By Randi Korn
From ASTC Dimensions
May/June 2008

At museum conferences these days, people are talking about accountability, public impact, and relevance. These ideas are not new. A decade ago, in a 1997 keynote address for the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums’ 50th anniversary, the late Smithsonian scholar Stephen Weil spoke of the “in-your-face, bottom-line, hard-nosed questions”—the ones that museums often hope to keep under wraps: “Do museums really matter? Can and do museums make a difference?”

In arguing that some museums do make a difference, and that all should strive to do so, Weil supported the notion that “the very things that make a museum good are its intent to make a ‘positive difference in the quality of people’s lives.’” He borrowed this last phrase from the United Way of America, which was then challenging its grantees to document the benefits a given program had made in their lives.

Today, museums face accountability questions from many directions. In response to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, U.S. federal agencies began to articulate the kinds of outcomes they expected grantees to document. Private foundations followed suit, reexamining their own evaluation practices, as well as those of grantees. The effort continues. The National Science Foundation recently published its Framework for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education Projects, outlining five categories of impact it expects grantees to assess. And for those who object that “you can’t measure mission-centered work,” current United Way CEO Brian Gallagher, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, has a succinct reply: “You most certainly can. The question is, ‘Are you committed to do it?’ And then, ‘Are you committed to report on it?’”

As museums begin to grapple with their intent to make a positive difference, they can start by reexamining their museum’s mission. Weil believed, as many do still, that a mission is key to an institution’s success. A museum’s mission should be a declaration of its core purpose—clarifying what the museum values, reflecting what the museum embodies, and describing its intent to affect its public and community. Establishing a clear institutional purpose, Weil believed, is the first step to being able to assess effectiveness in achieving public impact.

From my own experience as an evaluator, I would add this observation: Museums do not, in and of themselves, value, reflect, or intend. People do.

An institution’s mission will not be within reach unless everyone who works in that institution is mission-focused and mission-driven. Before museums can assess their impact, staff must collectively clarify their intent. Public impact, relevance, and value grow from what I have called “intentional practice”—the willingness of everyone in the museum to examine all operational activities through three mission-based filters: clarity of intent, alignment of practice and resources, and reflective inquiry.

• Clarity of intent. Opportunities for all staff to come together to discuss the core values of their museum are vital. Colleagues should both encourage others to explore their passions and also challenge others’ thinking as a way of clarifying what is truly of importance.

In the spirit of thoughtful inquiry, why not ask a colleague to defend his or her position? Most people appreciate being asked to explain why they think the way they do. This kind of exploration allows practitioners to voice the passion behind their ideas and learn what they, as a group, really care about. Reexamining the essence of the museum together can reinvigorate the collaborative spirit, enabling staff to further their practice with intent.

• Alignment of practices and resources. Unless the work of the museum is aligned with its intent, staff may spend time and resources on activities that are good in themselves but may not support the museum’s intent. Perhaps staff should determine—through evaluation—which programs yield the highest impact, keep those programs, and either improve or discontinue those that do not deliver impact.

Aligning practice—the activities a museum does and how it does them—and resources so they support the museum’s intent requires thinking about what you should be doing and what you need not do any more. Conversations about realignment will deepen staff members’ understanding of the museum’s intent and the ways in which their work supports it.

• Reflective inquiry. As an evaluator, I frequently see front-end and formative evaluation being used effectively to shape a final visitor experience. The same cannot be said of summative evaluation. By the time a mandated final report is done, practitioners may have little time or motivation to review it. This is unfortunate because much can be learned through reflecting on past work.

I see a strong relationship between taking the time to think about the work you have done and learning from the work you have done. Practitioners who want to be intentional in their practice can use summative evaluation as a way to gain insight and knowledge about visitors’ perspectives and experiences. The outcome of such reflective inquiry is learning about the ways in which their museum is achieving impact. I would encourage all museums to routinely set aside time for staff to use inquiry as a reflection strategy and to discuss their practice in the context of the institution’s intent.

In conclusion, accountability questions are not likely to disappear, but even if they did, museum practitioners would still need to respond to the “To what end?” question. The sustainable health of the museum depends on it.

Most of the workers I encounter in museums are passionate about their work and want to make a positive difference in people’s lives. If practitioners begin collaborating with colleagues to clarify their museum’s intent, realign their practices and resources to support that intent, and engage in reflective inquiry to learn how they can improve their efforts, they will be on their way to achieving that goal.

Randi Korn is principal of Randi Korn & Associates Inc., a firm of museum evaluation and research specialists in Alexandria, Virginia.

March/April 2008
In This Issue

Is membership the key to moving “beyond the gate”? Should we be building deeper relationships with our most loyal customers? In recent years, ASTC Dimensions has examined such audience segments as early learners, female visitors, teachers, and adults aged 50+. In this issue, we focus on a group often taken for granted: the individuals and families who join our science center as members and renew their memberships year after year. Articles highlight member audience research and approaches to membership fulfillment across a spectrum of ASTC science centers. Together, contributors examine what turns a casual visitor into someone who speaks with pride of “my museum.”

CONTENTS
• Breaking the Mold: The Science of Retooling a Membership Program, by Heather Calvin and Deborah Kulich
• Passport to Science: Member Benefits That Travel, by Diane Frendak
• The Continuum of Museum Membership: What Research Tells Us, by Susie Wilkening
• Value Added: Membership Strategies That Work, by Kelly Brault, Michael Conley, Tara Keblish and Steve Jacobson
• A Member-Shaped Museum: The New Science Center of Iowa, by Sara Scallon
• It Feels Like Home: The Core Value of Community, by Paul Tatter and Kristin Leigh
• Membership Resources

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