[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1409344787900{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”][/vc_row][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1430512614567{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”][/vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_tta_tabs style=”modern” gap=”1″ active_section=”1″ no_fill_content_area=”true”][vc_tta_section title=”For Who?” tab_id=”1449075525902-27526672-76cf”][vc_column_text css_animation=”right-to-left”]Museum Trade is a peer-to-peer information network for museum professionals, dedicated to exhibit design, installation, and interpretation.
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; learn from a zoo designer, learn from an art preparator, learn from a history park maintenance crew, over and over, so many ideas, successes, and challenges. We think that just the act of documenting your museum’s processes will have a profound effect on your efficiency and keep your standards high. Please share the techniques, games, signage, robots, trinkets, or whatever you’ve done, successful or not. The Museum Trade community can reach more and more folks in better and better ways.
Preparators, Installers, and Technicians
- Show off your tips
- Magnify each other
- Share your materials and vendors
- Pick up a trick or two
- Impress your work colleagues with the number of steps that go into a “simple” task
- Get a better, more beautiful product
- Newbies get up to speed with techniques and language used
Designers and Educators
- Share your techniques
- Find new ways to contextualize your exhibits
- Share your interactives for all types of content
Directors and Managers
- Cut down on training time
- Maintain high standards
- Institutional knowledge retained
- A repository for the revolving activities you do over and over
-MT-
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Origin Story” tab_id=”1449075525929-998f9b3a-3537″][vc_column_text css_animation=”right-to-left”]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.
-MT-
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Now What?” tab_id=”1449075529397-9bf6b1b5-1667″][vc_column_text css_animation=”right-to-left”]Now it’s time to explore. You’ll find things divided into six major groups: De/Installation, Design, Interactives, Conservation, Research and Reviews, and Museums. This last section, Museums, is broken down further by museum types and further still to specifically named museums if a number of contributions have been made on a single site. With each named museum page you will again find the De/Installation, Design, Interactives, and Conservation tabs relating to that institution specifically.
If you are just interested in one of the top five groups you will find articles from every museum type and named museum in that location. Perhaps you just want to see how everyone handles their labels and museum type is not important. There is a search bar at the top of every page and post and a refined search bar found in either the sidebar or at the bottom of the page if you would rather go that route.
You’ll find a Trade Yours link throughout the site, so please don’t hesitate to send in your original articles. Have you had a particular success you’re proud of, or a failure of a new material? Have you run a series of tests to find the best product for your situation? Maybe you just want to record the ordinary things that you do as a collection of standards that are saved to this site. Whichever the case, the more the merrier! We have editors ready to help you polish it up before it gets published. A great way to start is to simply shoot pictures during de/install periods, then come on back to Museum Trade when the crazy time has subsided and add some words to describe the pictures.
There is forum if you’d like to ask or answer questions in one of our five subsections. If you’d just like to be a part of Museum Trade you could simply round out your profile page with a picture and bio and others will know you’re here. Maybe you’d like to reach out to others and “friend” them, or perhaps you’d like to start your own group within Museum Trade, whatever the case it’s all here and ready for you to explore.
This is just getting off the ground, all suggestions and observations are welcome. We will upgrade and correct as quickly as possible. Additionally there is a Content Request form at the top of the page if you want someone to write a specific article or you just want to vote up or down article requests. Content creators can start with this page for inspiration as to what the community is clamoring to see.
This is an open-source site, we won’t remove content or otherwise give warning as to the efficacy of a technique or product. It’s up to all of you to add comments as you see fit and utilize the information found here with common sense. Proceed with caution and test small areas before going all-in with a new technique, product, tip, etc.
Keep in mind that what may seem like an ordinary technique, material, or success could be someone else’s epiphany.
-MT-
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs][vc_empty_space height=”62px”]