acquisition, displays/exhibits, general, recent biomed
How to disencourage the public to visit a medical history museum
Some medical (history) museums and exhibitions — like the Wellcome Collection in London — are easy to find and have a welcoming (!) attitude to visitors. Others are more of a challenge.
Last Tuesday I went to the (US) National Museum of Health and Medicine for a visit behind the public area. Curator Alan Hawk guided me around their rich collections, and personally I felt taken very well care of. But for the general public a visit to the NMHM is mildly off-putting.
Located in the northern part of Washington DC the museum is quite difficult to reach by means of public transport. It is placed on the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, there are no signs to help you find it, and visitors have to undergo two security checks: first at the campus gates and then again at the entrance to the museum where they take a photo and a copy of your ID.
And finally, after having made your way through the security thicket you are confronted with this behemoth:
Personally, I just love protein sequencers, but I can imagine how it might be somewhat disheartening for ordinary visitors without a training in protein chemistry to be confronted by this showcase before they are allowed to take a look at the beautiful instruments and anatomical specimens behind it.
To the museum’s excuse, it was probably put there because it was recently acquired. And for historians of contemporary biomedicine it is a most important and impressive artefact. Constructed by Caltech immunochemist William J. Dreyer while he worked as a consultant for Beckman-Spinco, it was patented in 1977 (see detailed description in Google Patents here), and then rapidly became one of pivotal instruments in the ‘biomedical revolution’ of the last decades of the 20th century.
03 Nov 2007 Thomas
Speaking purely for myself, since Thomas raised the question, the protein sequencer is in a prominent place because it is a new acquisition and we had recently had a day-long program about it. Parts of that program were filmed and I think we’re planning on mounting them on our website at some point.
Rest assured, we understand the difficulties of visiting us. However the rest of the building we’re attached to has reasons for the security so we have to go along. If someone would like to donate US$50,000,000 I’m sure we’d be glad to consider a more convenient location.
I would note that the traditional Wellcome collection exhibit at the Science Museum, London, is a bit hard to find and definitely overwhelming. I haven’t yet been to the new museum though. Certainly the Royal College of Surgeons in London set a new gold standard for displays.
Mike, again speaking for himself
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment. I’m not against having a protein sequencer prominently displayed in a medical (history museum). I am indeed a fan of protein sequencers. (Before going into history of science I spent two years in the Blood Coagulation Laboratory at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm learning Edman degradation and other protein chemistry methods from Birger Blombäck.)
That said, however, I can easily imagine how less protein-indoctrinated minds may feel when they confront this Big Sequencer after having made their way through the many transportation and security hindrances on their way to the exhibit.
I really hope the NMHM will get funding for moving to a place with easier public access. Your great collections definitely deserve it.
PS: are you the Mike Rhode of ComicsDC? Great blog!
I quite understand your point. Certainly modern technology is rapidly reaching the point of incomprehensibility in a museum setting, at least the more computer driven types. Like with the software collection issue, we’ve had a few contentious acquisition meetings about what collecting a telemedicine suite, for example, really means. Frequently the non-historical departments don’t want to collect the computers. As an archivist I am becoming a computer museum, and am the only one in the larger agency who can still read a 5 1/4″ floppy. I can’t read the wire reel recordings though….
Um, oddly enough, I am the owner of that blog.
Mike