DOING THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

A workshop collaboration of the MIT Museum and the Hagley Museum and Library

BIG DATA HISTORY: FASHIONING A USABLE PAST

Steven Lubar Brown University October 2013

Thanks to Debbie Douglass and Eric Rau for the invitation pleasure to be back with historians of technology - been much on the fringes in recent years, in the public humanities business. I hope that I can bring something back from that world that is useful to the history of technology.

THE EMERGENCE OF LARGE DATA SETS IN THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH HAS ALREADY REVOLUTIONIZED MANY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BUT IT IS BECOMING APPARENT THAT BIG DATA HOLDS OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIANS AS WELL. ONE SET OF QUESTIONS WITH WHAT AUDIENCES WE WANT TO ENGAGE AS WELL AS HOW. WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW SITES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY? WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF HISTORIANS OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? HOW WILL NEW FORMS OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION BE EVALUATED IN PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS? SHOULD THESE FORMS CONVERGE ON, OR RESEMBLE, EMERGING FORMS OF PUBLIC OUTREACH? HOW WILL UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING BE AFFECTED BY MOOCS AND OTHER DIGITAL HISTORY COURSES; WHAT WILL TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA ENTAIL? HOW WILL WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE EXHIBITIONS? DOCUMENTARIES? WEBSITES? WHAT WILL BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HISTORY MEAN?

The organizers presented me with this scary set of questions my rst thought, as a good historian, was to try to answer them. But then I stepped back and considered them as a cultural document.. A cry for help? A sign of the times? Heres what they meant, I decided:

THE WORLD IS CHANGING!! WHAT DO WE DO???

And indeed, the world is changing. Its scary. So much of what we took for granted is no longer the case. Lets look at those questions again.

THE EMERGENCE OF LARGE DATA SETS IN THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH HAS ALREADY REVOLUTIONIZED MANY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BUT IT IS BECOMING APPARENT THAT BIG DATA HOLDS OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIANS AS WELL. ONE SET OF QUESTIONS WITH WHAT AUDIENCES WE WANT TO ENGAGE AS WELL AS HOW. WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW SITES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY? WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF HISTORIANS OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? HOW WILL NEW FORMS OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION BE EVALUATED IN PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS? SHOULD THESE FORMS CONVERGE ON, OR RESEMBLE, EMERGING FORMS OF PUBLIC OUTREACH? HOW WILL UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING BE AFFECTED BY MOOCS AND OTHER DIGITAL HISTORY COURSES; WHAT WILL TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA ENTAIL? HOW WILL WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE EXHIBITIONS? DOCUMENTARIES? WEBSITES? WHAT WILL BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HISTORY MEAN?

A lot of these are about new technologies, something that historians of technology should have a good grip on. But - as is always the case in good history of technology - its about more than technology. There is a lot of free-oating anxiety here - a fear of change, of losing control, of losing authority, of losing jobs But also a good sense of how to ask new questions. -- Lets look more closely

THE EMERGENCE OF LARGE DATA SETS IN THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH HAS ALREADY REVOLUTIONIZED MANY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BUT IT IS BECOMING APPARENT THAT BIG DATA HOLDS OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIANS AS WELL. ONE SET OF QUESTIONS WITH WHAT AUDIENCES WE WANT TO ENGAGE AS WELL AS HOW. WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW SITES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY? WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF HISTORIANS OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? HOW WILL NEW FORMS OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION BE EVALUATED IN PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS? SHOULD THESE FORMS CONVERGE ON, OR RESEMBLE, EMERGING FORMS OF PUBLIC OUTREACH? HOW WILL UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING BE AFFECTED BY MOOCS AND OTHER DIGITAL HISTORY COURSES; WHAT WILL TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA ENTAIL? HOW WILL WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE EXHIBITIONS? DOCUMENTARIES? WEBSITES? WHAT WILL BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HISTORY MEAN?

Heres what happens when you highlight technology. Technology is changing - how do we adopt? Thats a question that historians of technology should be good at aswering.

THE EMERGENCE OF LARGE DATA SETS IN THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH HAS ALREADY REVOLUTIONIZED MANY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BUT IT IS BECOMING APPARENT THAT BIG DATA HOLDS OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIANS AS WELL. ONE SET OF QUESTIONS WITH WHAT AUDIENCES WE WANT TO ENGAGE AS WELL AS HOW. WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW SITES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY? WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF HISTORIANS OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? HOW WILL NEW FORMS OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION BE EVALUATED IN PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS? SHOULD THESE FORMS CONVERGE ON, OR RESEMBLE, EMERGING FORMS OF PUBLIC OUTREACH ? HOW WILL UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING BE AFFECTED BY MOOCS AND OTHER DIGITAL HISTORY COURSES; WHAT WILL TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA ENTAIL? HOW WILL WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE EXHIBITIONS? DOCUMENTARIES? WEBSITES? WHAT WILL BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HISTORY MEAN?

Heres what happens when you think about our relationships with our audiences

THE EMERGENCE OF LARGE DATA SETS IN THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH HAS ALREADY REVOLUTIONIZED MANY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BUT IT IS BECOMING APPARENT THAT BIG DATA HOLDS OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIANS AS WELL. ONE SET OF QUESTIONS WITH WHAT AUDIENCES WE WANT TO ENGAGE AS WELL AS HOW. WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW SITES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY? WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF HISTORIANS OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? HOW WILL NEW FORMS OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION BE EVALUATED IN PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS? SHOULD THESE FORMS CONVERGE ON, OR RESEMBLE, EMERGING FORMS OF PUBLIC OUTREACH? HOW WILL UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING BE AFFECTED BY MOOCS AND OTHER DIGITAL HISTORY COURSES; WHAT WILL TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA ENTAIL? HOW WILL WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE EXHIBITIONS? DOCUMENTARIES? WEBSITES? WHAT WILL BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HISTORY MEAN?

But it seems to me that this is the key one: what about us? Whats our role? Historians of technology, it seems to me, should be better at negotiating the changes brought on by new technology. But I dont think thats true. Why is a good question. Ill get back to that later.

THE WORLD IS CHANGING!! WHAT DO WE DO???

But rst, lets take a look at how the world is changing What is it we should be thinking about My instructions were to be provocative and get discussion going, so please excuse anything that seems too provocative.

New sources New modes of presentation New voices New demands

Im going to look at four topics: New sources, new modes of presentation, new voices, and new demands. End each with questions, and hope that Ive hit the right level of provocation to encourage discussion.

NEW SOURCES: NEW THINGS TO COLLECT, NEW WAYS TO COLLECT THEM

Start off with collecting

With notable exceptions, specialist museums have generally failed to collect an adequate record of the material culture of post-war science and technology. John Durant, Whatever happened to the Genomatron? Documenting a 21st century science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, forthcoming

And I think this is true - not just for specialist museums, but for general museums as well. . Lots of good reasons for this. Let me give a few examples of the challenges, and some solutions. Many people here can provide more examples and better stories.

CHALLENGES OF ST 21 -CENTURY TECHNOLOGY

Scale Size Software driven Difficulty of selection Materials challenges Speed of change Blackboxing Move to the digital Science in silico Distributed character
A few examples -- Scale (global, regional networks of transport and communications) -Size (both too big and too small) ---Selection - changes so fast, so many incremental changes - hard to spot important ones (no distance). Blackboxing is perhaps the most interesting -- when everything is a box with software and a touchscreen interface how do you collect it/

Complex systems both within and without

(From Durant, Soraya de Chadarevian, and Fischer and Lubar)

Artifacts as elements in larger systems Software-driven artifacts User-defined artifacts

What you might call the iPhone problem. Artifacts have always been part of systems - but so much more obvious now A cellphone as an artifact in a museum is dead in so many ways

Focus on use and storytelling

But we can solve some of this in the method of collecting. Our challenge is to bring it back to life. We believe that one can understand historical technology better because we can capture, in our collecting of contemporary technology, much more than we can in collecting the past. We can collect the personal stories that all technologies had, but which are lost to the historical record. We can collect the systems that we wish our predecessors had thought more about, not just the objects. We can see the cultural complexities of contemporary technologies more easily than those of old technologies. Lubar and Fischer, Collecting Contemporary Consumer Technology

Cooper-Hewitt Museum collects Planetary software by making it open source and putting it on GitHub
Collecting the digital - a big question, especially the stewardship of digital collections (which I wont talk about) The recent acquisition of an iPad app by the Cooper Hewitt Museum sets a new style for museum acquisitions? Collected software - saving it by making it open source - still challenges here Other thing to note is the Cooper Hewittt collections page - a fascinating model - not only style, but its openness to the web - not closed off, but connected to wikipedia and other museums through APIs and other means

Crowdsourcing the collecting of stories

Crowdsourcing collecting - not just stories online, Many examples of this -, CHNM 9/11 and Katrina projects -- also using web and community meetings to collect artifacts -- NMAH bracero project

A Yes, please policy opens up a whole array of fruitful interactions between museums and practitioners of science, technology, and medicine. Instead of seeing the university museum as a closed repository for exquisite objects guarded by professional curators, a Yes, please policy is an open invitation to every single researcher, technician, and student at the university to become adjunct curators of their own heritage. Thomas Sderqvist, The Participatory Museum and Distributed Curatorial Expertise

Crowdsourcing, participatory - Museum 2.0 Nina SImon This is perhaps the most important change - and the most difficult one - for museums to make. Share authority. Let go. - dont have to go as far as Soderqvist suggests, but this is the right direction. And not just individuals - need to work with organizations.

SOME QUESTIONS

What new techniques does contemporary collecting demand? How can museums collaborate, both with other museums and with other institutions? How can museums take advantage of expertise beyond the museum? How can we encourage participatory and crowdsourced curating? How to move beyond the easy collecting of charismatic megaobjects?

Aerospace, transportation, military, clocks - buffs and big bucks - organizations.

NEW MODES OF INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION

DIGITAL ENCOURAGES COLLABORATION

Collaboration and multiple roles are key in the digital humanities Digital humanists are bricoleurs of code, they borrow and patch things together. Digital humanists are the engineers. It takes lots of different types of engineers and other roles to build a building. Alan Liu

First, four very general thoughts on what the digital means for museum and history work. 1. Doing digital work requires a team - its not the single historian. Museums have always set up teams - we are set to move into this new realm.

DIGITAL IS A CONVERSATION

[Digital humanities projects are] visual, time-based, and structurally open. They are genuinely multimedia and multilayered. They do not seek authority or objectivity but involve negotiation between insiders and outsiders, experts and contributors,... Framed as a conversation and not a statement, [they] are inherently unstable, continually unfolding and changing in response to new data, new perspectives, and new insights. David Bodenhamer, The Spatial Humanities

The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship edited by David J. Bodenhamer, John Corrigan, Trevor M. Harris Bodenhamer is talking about maps here, but it applies to all sorts of digital work. Conversation with our audience, among ourselves. Changes the nature of publication and presentation - we need to embrace this. Another way to say this, perhaps, is that the digital is public, and open

DIGITAL SUPPORTS POLYVOCALITY

Digital, polyvocal expression can support a genuine multiverse in which no single point of view can claim the center. [Digital Humanities] serves to make humanities research into something of a new multi-player online game with global reach and relevance. Anne Burdick, Digital_Humanities

The third general rule - digital decenters the conversation. I like the idea of a multi-player game - in a good digital project, there can be many players, no center.

DIGITAL RESHAPES AUDIENCES, AND OUR RELATIONSHIP TO AUDIENCES

Everything is available to everyone The audience can chose the depth of interpretation The data behind the scenes is available to everyone Expectations of immediacy, anytime, anywhere

And nally, it reshapes our relationships with our audiences. Curtis Wong of Microsoft Research, who did many of the most important early CD-ROMs, and has just completed World-Wide-Telescope, suggests that the model for presentations should be a tour that the visitor can stop at any point to look around, or dig down for proof - a very appealing notion And nally, two other kinds of consderations. Not just digital

EVERYONE HIS OWN CURATOR

We want to allow researchers to tell their own stories by themselves. John Durant, Director, MIT Museum

Brown Daily Herald, April 13, 2012 http://www.browndailyherald.com/2012/04/13/museumdirector-promotes-collaboration/ Sharing authority - not just for the digital - but as Soderqvist suggested above, in collecting, and also for story-telling

RECENT STORIES ARE DIFFERENT THAN OLD STORIES

Rather than lamenting the contingency of the stories we tell we should embrace our lack of narrative closure and challenge those who insist on closure as a requirement for legitimate history Renee C. Romano, Not Dead Yet: My Identity Crisis as a Historian of the Recent Past

And more generally, we need to think about what is different for recent stories. Renee Romano offer four differences: too many sources of unusual types, not enough historiography, no sense of nality, not enough distance. That not enough distance is not only about our distance from the sources, but the sources distance from us - our sources have a stake in this project! --reference is to Monty Python and the Holy Grail --book is Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History That Talks Back, edited by Claire Bond Potter, Renee C. Romano

SOME QUESTIONS
What changes with the digital? What new opportunities, what do we need to guard against? How can we make not only our interpretations but our data available to all? How does this change our role? How can we take advantage of the lack of narrative closure in stories of recent history? How can we allow our exhibitions, writings, and presentations to be multivocal? How can we let go? How might we share authority with our subjects and our audiences?

And some questions, to sum this up. Most important, I think is the nal one

NEW VOICES, NEW CHANNELS

Historians of technology are remarkably scarce among the new voices talking to the public about technology

THIS IS US...

We are thus of that ancient and honorable company of wise men of the tribe, of bards and story-tellers and minstrels, of soothsayers and priests, to whom in successive ages has been entrusted the keeping of the useful myths. Carl Becker, Everyman His Own Historian, 1931

This is how historians and curators think of themselves...

...BEING IGNORED

But we do not impose our version of the human story on Mr. Everyman; in the end it is rather Mr. Everyman who imposes his version on us. If we remain too long recalcitrant Mr. Everyman will ignore us, shelving our recondite works behind glass doors rarely opened. Carl Becker, Everyman His Own Historian, 1931

But in fact, were at the service of Everyman. And there are lots of other voices. They not only shelve our works beyond glass doors - they go to other, livelier sources. And this is a major criticism of historians of technology. For example:

Oatmeal is probably the source of information about Tesla for more people than anyone else...

And enormously successful, on our turf. The public will go to Oatmeal for information, and theyll go to the Goddamn Tesla Museum

But theres a positive side to this, too. These are a sign of a new fascination with technology - its everywhere. Wonderful that everyday the NY Times has a section on technology.

MAKER FAIRE, PROVIDENCE

And that maker faires and science festivals are attracting huge crowds. But heres the problem - historans of technology are not there. Other folks are. (Im working with the Maker Faire providence to bring historical technology to the fair next year)

TED shapes its style against the mores of academia Academic work relies on communities of shared premises and interpretive habit; TED tries to communicate without those givens. Scholarship holds objectivity as a virtue; TED aims for the heart. Nathan Heller, Listen and Learn, The New Yorker

But the question is - how well is it being done? Who is doing it? Story about consulting at Rochester museum TED talks are viewed 7.5 million times every month -- average TED video gets forty thousand views within twenty-four hours Why speak rigorously to an audience of hundreds when you can ham it up a bit and spread the fruits of your research to millions?

Boing Boing an excellent case in point.

Since everything has gone so digital, I think people are becoming more interested in physical objects Hilary Greenbaum, Who Made That? column founder

Buff can reach a wide audience without us

Some places are doing it very well - The Atlantic, Slate Vault - but most are not

There are a million technology sites - it would be nice if they had some depth

TECH INTELLECTUALS

There is a lot that is worthwhile about the new world of technology intellectualism. It connects the world of ideas to a broader public in ways that didnt happen in the heyday of the university, or even the heyday of the traditional public intellectual. It has elevated some smart and wonderful thinkers who would never have succeeded under traditional academic standards. Henry Farrell, The Tech Intellectuals, 2013

Historans of technology replaced by what Farell calls tech intellectuals Henry Farrells term for people like CLay Shirkey and Chris Anderson and Kevin Kelly - not academics, but not historians of technology, but writing the books

HOW CAN WE THRIVE IN AN ATTENTION ECONOMY?

Technology intellectuals work in an attention economy. They succeed if they attract enough attention to themselves and their message that they can make a living from it. Henry Farrell, The Tech Intellectuals, 2013

IS PUBLIC HISTORY AN ATTENTION ECONOMY?

He calls the world of the tech intellectuals an attention economy and notes some of the problems with the work that economy produces My question: Whats the opposite of an attention economy? What the academic attention economy? Public history might be an answer here.

KEVIN KELLY ON SUCCEEDING IN THE ATTENTION ECONOMY

Immediacy - priority access, immediate delivery Personalization - tailored just for you Interpretation - support and guidance Authenticity - how can you be sure it is the real thing? Accessibility - wherever, whenever Embodiment - books, live music Patronage - "paying simply because it feels good" Findability - "being found is valuable."
http://edge.org/conversation/better-than-free

SOME QUESTIONS

Is public humanities a part of the attention economy? Should we be competing in the attention economy? What do we get and what do we give up? Can we take advantage of the new audiences that are fascinated by technology? How can we give them the health food of the history of technology vs. the fast food of the tech intellectuals? Can academic historians learn from public historians about how to do this?

NEW DEMANDS

The Ongoing Transformation of the American Museum: From being about something to being for someone. Stephen Weil, 1999

Over the past decade or two many museums have radically shifted their focus - best summed up by Stephen Weil quote.

DEMANDS ON MUSEUMS
How can they connect history to present-day concerns? How can they attract new audiences? How can they involve the audience and the subjects in the museum in appropriate ways? How might they serve as tourist hubs and economic engines? How might they supplement the schools or serve as a replacement for schools, especially as part of job training or retraining?

This is driven in part by politics, and funding, but in large part by an attempt to meet new demands on museums - what are donors and visitors getting for their money This last one is particularly interesting. -- Ill get to some examples later. Image is

DEMANDS ON UNIVERSITIES
A push for efficiency Vocational training Engines of economic transformation Engines of cultural transformation UK university impact criteria

Universities are driven by similar demands. More explicit in the UK. --click to expand image Note that there are Academic Impacts and Economic and Societal Impacts. Improving social welfare, social cohesion, and/or national security - policy - public engagement - cultural enrichment and quality of life

DEMANDS ON UNIVERSITIES
A push for efficiency Vocational training Engines of economic transformation Engines of cultural transformation UK university impact criteria

Universities are driven by similar demands. More explicit in the UK. --click to expand image Note that there are Academic Impacts and Economic and Societal Impacts. Improving social welfare, social cohesion, and/or national security - policy - public engagement - cultural enrichment and quality of life

SOME QUESTIONS

How can new demands open new possibilities? How can we shape these demands to be useful to our work? How can we build on the flexibility of museums and public humanities institutions to respond to our audiences needs?

More generally - I think that museums have a long history of change - weve forgotten that we need to draw on it now.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES, AND SOME EXAMPLES AND SUGGESTIONS

There has never been a time with more interest in technology

THE EMERGENCE OF LARGE DATA SETS IN THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH HAS ALREADY REVOLUTIONIZED MANY OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BUT IT IS BECOMING APPARENT THAT BIG DATA HOLDS OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIANS AS WELL. ONE SET OF QUESTIONS WITH WHAT AUDIENCES WE WANT TO ENGAGE AS WELL AS HOW. WHAT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW SITES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY? WHAT ARE THE ROLES OF HISTORIANS OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY? HOW WILL NEW FORMS OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION BE EVALUATED IN PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS? SHOULD THESE FORMS CONVERGE ON, OR RESEMBLE, EMERGING FORMS OF PUBLIC OUTREACH? HOW WILL UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING BE AFFECTED BY MOOCS AND OTHER DIGITAL HISTORY COURSES; WHAT WILL TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE AGE OF NEW MEDIA ENTAIL? HOW WILL WE DESIGN AND EVALUATE EXHIBITIONS? DOCUMENTARIES? WEBSITES? WHAT WILL BEST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HISTORY MEAN?

Going back to this - some examples in the museum world where historians and history museums are taking on new roles. Mention MIT Museum - expanded beyond a base of technological artifacts to become a vibrant center for discussion of science and technology at MIT and the community.

CHARLES RIVER MUSEUM OF INDUSTRY, WALTHAM, MA

Volunteer, Do-ityourself, collections, and workshops

Machine shop open to hobbyists to use, artist installations, steampunk, makers

ELI WHITNEY MUSEUM AND WORKSHOP, NEW HAVEN, CT

After-school arts and engineering programs; teach students to make things.

Mention makers movement in US Gave up on history to do this

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, PHILADELPHIA

The Institute has become a dynamic agent of change through its rich array of internationally recognized exhibitions and programs, lectures and discussions themed to illuminate issues in contemporary science, community outreach initiatives particularly targeted to girls and to urban youth, and its series of innovative partnerships in public education.
Science museum as tourist attraction

HENRY FORD ACADEMY DEARBORN, MI

...providing learning experiences that support students and teachers making meaningful and tangible connections between what they learn in school with what they value in the world beyond classroom walls through Design Challenges.

BROOKLYN NAVY YARD BROOKLYN, NY

Developed by the BNYDC, an organization whose goal is to promote local economic development, this exhibit will share space with a Job Training Center whose participants will take inspiration from the stories of hard work and invention told in the exhibition half of the building.

ROCHESTER MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY Increase science

literacy Encourage young people to develop and maintain their natural interest in science and innovation while learning to apply these skills to real life problem Help people understand scientific and business principles and the associated career opportunities.
End of examples

End with some suggestions and two big questions.

SOME SUGGESTIONS

Share authority Do public scholarship Work with communities and community organizations Think digital Be bold!

More detail -- bring more people into discussions, let them have their say, from crowdsourcing to simply giving them space. Public scholarship more than making your scholarship available to the public - its working with the public, in public. Communities have their own structures - acknowledge them and work with them. Digital needs no explanation FInally, be bold. Its not like we can keep doing things the same way.

HOW CAN OUR WORK BE INTERESTING, USEFUL, AND MEANINGFUL TO THE PUBLIC? HOW DOES WORKING WITH THE PUBLIC MAKE OUR WORK BETTER?

Two nal questions

Thanks.