Tag Archives: museum of arts and science

My Last Week at MOAS

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As of yesterday, my internship came to an end. I was able to complete my docent guide and the activity sheet for Tech Savvy by Thursday and turn it in. I wanted to add extra information into the docent guide, but it was already longer than usual due to the spread of objects and themes we have in the exhibit, so it didn’t get much extra. As for organizing the back room, that will be left to the employees that work in the office that’s connected to the storage room. They seem to have ideas on how they want to organize it now that someone has done the initial push of finding some nice storage boxes.

Most of the responsibilities I had in the last week were tied to the actual summer camp. I tied up some loose ends, such as the docent guide, but for the most part I helped out with camp classes, either in the morning of afternoon. We didn’t even have any tours this week! So, overall, it felt very laid back, especially when compared to the week we were putting up Tech Savvy. However, this was not only my last week, but this was also the last week for the summer camp at MOAS for the year, so it was fun to be a part of wrapping everything up.

I enjoyed my experience at MOAS so much. I’ve already spoken with some employees there about next steps after I graduate or what to do in the meantime. I’m going to be signed up as a volunteer, so I can help out at future events between now and when I graduate Stetson in the spring. I also have plans to go back in December and help run a camp with one of the employees there! I don’t know how much I can say on that, but it’s all exciting!

The Next Steps for Tech Savvy

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Now that Tech Savvy has opened, more work is, of course, to be done! One factor surrounding a gallery that someone might not think about needing to do is putting together a guide for the museum docent. A museum docent is a volunteer who gives tours on the the galleries at a museum, and because they’re going into it without any knowledge of the gallery, it’s up to the museum and those that made the exhibit to provide the most necessary and important information about the exhibit to the docent in order for them to provide the best tour possible. Putting together a docent guide isn’t always necessary for temporary exhibits but since Tech Savvy is going to be installed until December, the department decided that it would be worth it. Since I did a large amount of the labels for the exhibit, I was asked to help put together the docent guide that would go on file for the Tech Savvy exhibit.

After giving a tour today in the Root and Sloth exhibits, I spent a good part of my afternoon walking around Tech Savvy, imagining how to group the information together and how one might walk around the room so I could put all the information in a document in a fluent order. When putting the information in the document, a lot of it is copy and pasting or grabbing key information from the labels and informational posters on the walls. This part of the process doesn’t require any extra research, as it has already been done by the time the items are on display in the gallery. It’s mostly organization and thinking about the best way to present the information to the docent who will be reading the guide so they can present the information to those that they’re giving the tour to.

Exhibit Opening

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Yesterday, on July 23rd, the exhibit titled Tech Savvy, opened to the public! It was very exciting. So exciting, in fact, that I took my mom and grandma to the Museum of Arts and Sciences to check out the exhibit in order to see how it would be received by the public. Finishing up the exhibit on Friday was a huge relief, as the project had been going on longer than I had been interning there. In fact, one of the first things that I did was write up a label on a vacuum from 1911 that ended up in one of the two vignettes in the exhibit. It was super cool to see a bunch of labels that I wrote up on display in the exhibit. In general, it was incredibly neat to be a part of that process and to work with a bunch of artifacts like the old typewriters, cameras, and phonographs.

One of the goals of the exhibit is to spark nostalgia from people, to get a reaction that makes them go “oh, yeah, my mom used to have one of those in her living room!” or something akin to that. Going to the exhibit with my family (ages 70 and 90), I got reactions like that to a few things, and it was very satisfying. Now that the exhibit is up, it will stay up for a few more months. A couple of my friends said that they’re going to try and stop by to see it, which is super cool! It’s fun to be a part of something that’s going to continue to be on display after I leave, even if it’s only for a little bit.