NYHS and AMNH

As we are scrambling to work out our final projects while there are predictions of 11 inches of snow our class headed of to the NY Historical Society and the American Museum of Natural History. I much prefer history museums to art museums so I was really looking forward to today. I was not disappointed. We started the day with the New York Historical Society, a beautiful building that houses an impressive collection of artifacts and exhibitions.

Mike Thornton led us through some of the permanent and current exhibitions the Historical Society is hosting. He had a very clear passion, knowledge, and love for his job and the organization. The historical society had a great layout and map, as well as various areas where one can use touch screens to learn more information about the objects on the wall. For out tour we were given audio guides that were linked to Thornton so we could hear him clearly over the school groups, something that I greatly appreciated. I felt that thought the society has had some issues in the past, such as loosing their AAM accreditation, they are currently doing a great job. They have a good balance of print, technology, and staff that is working well.

Things were a little different at the American Museum of Natural History. I greatly enjoyed walking through the halls and seeing what they had on display; whether it would be fossils or beautiful dioramas. There were times where I was bit overwhelmed by the sheer size of the building and the collection but that was to be expected at such a large museum.

Before we got to explore, we were led around by Matt and Blaire, Matt who had been at AMNH for 18 years and Blaire for 6 week. We got to hear a bit about what they do and how they got to this point in their careers. Blaire has worked for many museums and has gained experience and insight into the museum world. She made the great point that if you want to wear multiple hats a smaller museum might be the place for you because their size makes it so one person has to do multiple jobs. As opposed to a larger museum where there are clear boundaries and descriptions for every job in every department that they an institution may have. It made me think about my job at LACMA, a large museum, where my duties and responsibilities are very clear and differ from colleagues. It also made me question if I want to stay at a large institution where I know what my role is or if I want to go and work for a smaller museum where I would be doing more but also learning more.