Show off your “HOW-TOs”, innovations, tips, and tricks. Learn from others or from other types of museums.Read More »
Design
Discover new ways to contextualize an exhibit, share and be exposed to new interactive ideas, concepts, and techniques.Read More »
Educate & Interactives
Contextualizing concepts can be quicker with the use of interactives, visitors just learn faster with hand-on.Read More »
Mounts & Care
Caring for things starts with a proper mount, enclosure, or support. Our job doesn’t stop, ongoing care is important.Read More »
Museum Types
We don’t live in bubbles, we believe that you can learn useful tricks from all types of museums.Read More »
Research & Reviews
Try it, test it, solve it, and tell everyone about it; successful or not. A place to go when deciding on a product or solutionRead More »
NEWSLETTER
• You can navigate directly to one of six sections. The Museum Type page breaks each type of museum into the five sub-sections •
For Who
This site is dedicated to getting the job done in fresh and beautiful ways.
It’s a cross disciplinary environment for those in the Museum Trade.
Preparators et al
Preparators, Installers, and Technicians: Enhance each other with tips, materials, and vendors, Get a better, more beautiful product, Newbies ramp up quicker.
Designers & Educators
Share your techniques, Find new ways to contextualize your exhibits, Share your interactives for all types of content, nerd out on fonts and title wall designs.
Directors & Managers
Cut down on training time, Maintain high standards, Institutional knowledge retained, A repository for the revolving activities you do over and over.
55,000
Number of museums
in 202 countries
35,000
Number of museums
in the U.S.
350,000
Number of preparators,
technicians, & handlers
(educated guess)
Origin Story
Museum Trade was born from the love of working in museums. It started over a dozen years ago when two guys found themselves riffing on both simple and outlandish solutions to preparator issues while on the installation crew (late nights, long hours, you get the picture). These two guys riffed over and over again through the years until one day it was decided that these crazy ideas and our preparator knowledge couldn’t be contained in our heads any longer, it should be archived, shared, and amplified. We hope that others feel the same.
Your ordinary is someone's epiphany
Some of us have worked in museums for 20, 30, 40 years. Others two, three, or four, while some of you may just be starting out. No idea is too small, no technique is too obvious. Trade here. Learn here.