In his article, “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?,” Cary Carson, former Vice President of the Research Division for the Colonial Willamsburg Foundation, calls into question the challenge faced by many institutions today: Can museums keep up, or are they trapped in the cycle of decline that so many before have fallen prey to? With the internet providing faster and easy access to historical content, it is not enough to simply show the facts, museums must go above and beyond.

Rising up to the plate is the Virginia Historical Society with a major renovation of its facilities and reimagining its permanent exhibition of Virginia history,“The Story of Virginia.”  Their goal is to “accommodate the many different ways that audiences experience an exhibition and the many different levels of detail they may want”, and tell visitors the past, present, and future of the Commonwealth. This task contains three objectives: tell the story of Virginia, connect people to America’s past, and to “prepare the next generation for a successful democracy.”  In forming these objectives, the VHS combats the struggles faced by many institutions. The re-imagination of the VHS includes a reworking of their first and second floors for more exhibit and educational space, website redesign, archiving, and building an endowment for the future.

With these plans, the VHS is working towards what many visitors say they want in a museum experience. According to Carson, “Museum visitors today expect to be transported back to another time and place in their imaginations.  It is no longer enough merely to be told about times past. They are fully satisfied only if they live it—feel it—experience it.” Creating a completely immersive experience is challenging and costly, but it is the new frontier of museum exhibitions. As seen in the picture below, the VHS is attempting to create as interactive an experience as possible within a closed environment. Show and tell is not satisfactory for today’s audience, and museums are tasked with making history “come to life.”

Not only is the experience becoming immersive, it is almost customizable. The VHS designed the exhibit on a ‘wheel spoke’ idea, with the core histories branching out into different subjects, free for a visitor to choose what they want to learn. No longer confined to walls of information on either side, visitors may wander at their discretion throughout the exhibit, reading what they are interested in.

This eagerness to share the history of Virginia is seen in the new education initiative, with the expansion of classrooms and education programs for children. A database has been created “Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names “, an online collection of Virginian slaves. Oral histories of Virginia have also been collected to share with the public, preserving a treasured form of history. By doing this, the VHS has created opportunities for exploration outside the exhibition’s contents, allowing for visitors to become more involved to whatever extent they feel comfortable.

These plans are grand, and based on my visit to the VHS, it appears that the challenges faced by museums are being confronted head on here. The new exhibit space is gigantic and open, breaking away from the typical smaller, connected room found in many history museums. With a focus on a younger audience of school groups, it is ideal for a casual visitor to a historical institution. There will be interactive areas and interesting objects that both captivate audiences and convey the story of Virginia, making the history interesting both for those who race through an exhibit and seasoned history buffs for immerse themselves in every artifact and description. And it’s not only the past, but also the history being made right now. What the Virginia Historical Society is doing is new and different, in both interpretation and design. It will be exciting to see the exhibit premiere in 2015, and see the growth of the Story of Virginia through the years, as the recent past is incorporated into the exhibit.