The Virginia Historical Society (VHS) is in the process of spending $38 million on reimagining its museum.  The purpose of this extensive redesign is to better educate people on Virginia’s history and to increase visitors to the museum.  Having the opportunity to visit the exhibit in progress showed the limitation that space places on an exhibit.  Issues dealing with exhibit design, artifact selection, and the ways that Virginian history will be told must be addressed within the given space of the museum.  The ways that the museum space will be utilized will be influenced by the decisions of historians, exhibit designers, and even those on the board of the museum. Continue reading →

Over the past few decades, attendance at many historic sites and house museums has declined steadily.  It is arguable that cultural institutions and practices undergo lifecycles and eventually die out, and that history museums may be about to do the same.  The Virginia Historical Society (VHS) faces the same challenging environment.  Cary Carson discusses the culprits for this trend and attempts to offer solutions in his article “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?”  Carson, the vice president for research at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, has much first-hand knowledge of the effectiveness of marketing and immersion with respects to generating revenue for historic sites.  The VHS has compiled a list of strategic objectives, its plan B, in order to escape the attendance troubles that have plagued the field.  Can history museums, like the VHS, survive, develop their educational missions, and remain financially viable? Continue reading →