Museums to visit

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Football Hall of Fame

Spring Hill

McKinley Museum

Hoover Historical Society

Canton Classic Car Museum

Canton Museum of Art

Cleveland Museum of Art

First Ladies Museum

MAPS Museum

Stan Hywet Hall

Zoar Historical Society

Amateur Sports Hall of Fame

Kent Historical Society

Massillon Museum

Massillon Military Museum

Inventure Place

Sauder Farm and Craft Museum

Hale Farm and Village

Fort Laurens

McCook House

Western Reserve Historical Society

Warther’s Museum

Schoennbrunn Village

Wayne County Historical Museum

Or up to three others of the student’s choosing

1. Student will visit a total of ten museums during the semester.
2. Student will put together a portfolio of materials from each museum visited—all their literature—pamphlets, fliers etc…
3. Student will answer a series of questions for each museum ( questions on separate page)
4. Student will choose 2 museums to do a more extensive study—one large and one small museum.
5. More extensive study will include an interview with at least one staff member, photos of the museum layout, a 2 page discussion of what visitors learn about history visiting the museum and finally, suggestions for what could be done differently and why—how would this enhance the visitors experience and learning.
6. All materials will be due the first day of finals week in May 2004.

Questions for Museum visit

What is the mission statement of the museum—if it has one?

What is the museum’s stated purpose and does it fit with their mission statement, if they have one?

How are tours conducted?

If tour guides are used—are they trained or just volunteers?

Is the museum dedicated to one topic or multiple ideas?

What types of labeling for exhibits are used? Are they easily read?

Is the layout easy to follow or is there no real order to the exhibits?

How long does a good tour take?

Extended Study questions (in addition to those above)

How many people work at the museum?

What kind of educational background does the staff have?

Who is in charge of fundraising?

Do the exhibits change and if so, how often and who makes the decisions?

How much of the museum’s material is regularly on display?

How are other materials stored?

What kinds of accessions policy do they use?

How do they acquire most of their materials?

How are materials identified for record keeping?

Do they loan out their objects?

Do they ever borrow from other museums for exhibits?

Do they conduct tours for school children and if so, ages and how often? If not, why not?

What is the museum’s responsibility to the public? In other words what view of history are they showing to the public and why?

Option 2