The theme for 2009 is:
Forces Shaping the Future of Museums

This year’s speakers will address the impact of new technologies and new understandings of visitors on museum professionals’ daily lives and on museums operational activities.

“Through the Looking Glass: Museums and Internet-Based Transparency”
Dr. Maxwell Anderson
Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Ring Auditorium)
Washington, DC
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
2:30–4:30 pm
Replay available here.

As museums adapt to the potential of social computing, the old-school website focused on facilitating physical access and rudimentary collections information is fast becoming a necessary but insufficient front door for museums online. By opening museums to public participation, and by revealing operational details that are normally kept confidential, museums have the potential to animate strategic planning, anticipate outcomes-based inquiries from governance authorities and funders engage a new generation of users, mollify a prying press, and encourage philanthropy. This presentation will present some ways in which the Indianapolis Museum of Art is striving to open itself in unexpected ways to the general public.

Author of many publications and an internationally known speaker, Dr. Anderson is a leader in moving museums toward incorporating web mediated technology in their daily lives. His publications on museums and technology have promoted greater transparency among institutions, and his advocacy led the Indianapolis Museum of Art to launch, in 2007, the first real-time museum dashboard, revealing over 50 fields of sensitive financial and performance data and soliciting commentary from the general public about the museum's commitment to openness.

“Forces Shaping the Future of Museums: Visitors”
Dr. Colette Dufresne-Tassé
Codirector of the master’s in museology program at the University of Montréal and chair of ICOM-CECA

Dr. Sue Allen
Director of Visitor Research and Evaluation at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and a Program Officer, Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings at the National Science Foundation

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (McEvoy Auditorium)
Washington, DC
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

The lecture, introduced by Stephanie Norby, Director of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, features Colette Dufresne-Tassé, Ph.D., codirector of the master’s in museology program at the University of Montréal and chair of ICOM-CECA, and Sue Allen, Ph.D., director of visitor research and evaluation at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and currently a program officer in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings at the National Science Foundation.
 
Dr. Dufresne-Tassé’s topic is: “Let’s Revisit Learning:  Establishing Better Dialogues between Adult Visitors and Curators in Exhibition Spaces.”  Dr. Dufresne-Tassé argues that learning has been over-emphasized in analyses of adult visitors’ experience in exhibitions when it actually represents only a small portion of their experience.  She will discuss the process of meaning making and how it can provide a better understanding of what visitors think, imagine, and feel. Using recent visitor research, Dr. Dufresne-Tassé will show how meaning making can help museums establish better dialogues between the visitor and the curator.

Dr. Dufresne-Tassé April 22, 2009 Presentation
 
Dr. Sue Allen’s topic is: “Video-Based Evidence of Learning as a Process.”
How can we identify learning when it happens on the exhibition floor? In this interactive presentation, Dr. Allen will show videotapes of visitors using interactive exhibits at the Exploratorium and discuss different principles of learning.  During the screening, audience members will use these principles to look for evidence of learning and how the exhibition environment supports or limits it.

The program will be webcast live on this page.

G. Brown Goode Smithsonian Education Lecture Series 2008

The Necessity of Making the Invisible Visible: The Challenges of Using Museums in Formal Education
S. Dillon Ripley Center
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
10 AM–noon
Replay available here.

Learning Across Time and Place: The Role of Museums in the Informal Educational Landscape
Ring Auditorium, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Monday, March 3, 2008
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Replay available here.

G. Brown Goode Smithsonian Education Lecture Series 2007 (PDF)

Fostering Critical Thinking in Schools and Museums
Ring Auditorium, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Thursday, June 28, 2007
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Replay available here.

From Research Lab to Classroom: Can Cutting Edge Science Influence the Schools?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Replay available here.

G. Brown Goode Smithsonian Education Lecture Series 2006 (PDF)

Animals in Translation -
How Animals Think and Feel
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Replay available here.

Learning on Location with Handhelds in Museums
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Replay available here.

Designers at the Exhibition:
Balancing Aesthetics and Learning at the Museum
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Replay available here.

George Brown Goode
George Brown Goode (1851-1896), ichthyologist and museum administrator, received his B.S. degree from Wesleyan University in 1870. After a year of postgraduate study with Louis Agassiz at Harvard University, Goode returned to Wesleyan to direct the Judd Museum of Natural History.

In 1872, Goode met Spencer F. Baird, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and United States Fish Commissioner. He quickly became Baird’s chief pupil and assistant. In 1873, Goode was appointed Assistant Curator in the United States National Museum (USNM), a position he retained until 1877 when his title was changed to Curator. In 1881, when the new USNM building was completed, Goode was promoted to Assistant Director. On January 12, 1887, Goode was appointed Assistant Secretary in charge of the USNM, and he remained the chief administrative officer of the museum until his death.

Goode’s primary scientific interest was ichthyology, and he published both specialized and popular works on fish and fisheries. In addition to his duties at the USNM, Goode also served in various capacities for the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. After Baird’s death in 1887, Goode assumed the position of Fish Commissioner until January 1888.

Goode was regarded as the premier American museum administrator of his era. In 1881, he issued Circular No. 1 of the National Museum which set forth a comprehensive scheme of organization for the museum. Goode was involved in designing and installing Smithsonian and Fish Commission exhibits at many of the international expositions held during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Goode was also a historian, bibliographer, and genealogist, and he published several papers on the history of American science.

Selected quotes on the purpose and function of museums from G. Brown Goode:

“The people’s museum should be much more than a house full of specimens in glass cases. It should be a house full of ideas. . . .”
Museum History and Museums of History, p. 306

“The museum cultivates the powers of observation, and the casual visitor even makes discoveries for himself, and, under the guidance of the labels, forms his own impression. In the library one studies the impressions of others.”
Museum History and Museums of History, p. 310

“The museum of the future must stand side by side with the library and the laboratory, as a part of the teaching equipment of the college and university, and in the great cities cooperate with the public library as one of the principal agencies for the enlightenment of the people.”
Museums of the Future, p. 332

“The museum…is the most powerful and useful auxiliary of all systems of teaching by means of object lessons.”
Museums of the Future, p. 322

“The museum likewise must, in order to perform its proper functions, contribute to the advancement of learning through the increase as well as through the diffusion of knowledge.”
Museums of the Future, p. 337

Quotes taken from:
Goode, George Brown, The Origins of Natural Science in America, edited by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.