Too Many Museums?
Robert “Mac” West
Over the last several months I have had quite a number of discussions regarding the apparent proliferation of museums in the U.S. as well as in other countries. These discussions usually have been in the context of museums’ concerns about their own attendance, their plans for renovations and expansions, and their concerns about the availability of both financial and audience support for museums in general.
This opens up a Pandora’s box of issues, largely having to do with the general feeling that museums’ attendance across the board, almost regardless of content and approach, is flat or dropping. It is furthered by awareness of the arrival of all sorts of new competition for museums (including other museums, participant sports, family/urban entertainment centers, themed attractions, commercial “edutainment,” cocooning/hiving, and the many aspects of the Internet).
As a result of these conversations and their attendant speculations, I decided to conduct a bit of an experiment. Are there indeed many new museums coming on line and, in a parallel fashion, are existing museums expanding in a potentially unrealistic way? My research involved selecting three one-week periods during the summer of 2004 (when, admittedly, things probably are slower than during the “busy” part of the year). For each of these three 7-day periods, I monitored Google: News: Museum to see what new ventures and expansions were announced in the U.S.
Given the results below, I leave it to our readers to extrapolate these newspaper accounts into a calculation of how many museums are being developed and/or expanded over the course of a full year. This, then, should be positioned against the population and Gross National Product growth of the United States in general, and the locations of the new/expanding facilities in particular.
For each of the three-week periods, I cite the specific
newspaper and web site accounts of new/expanding museums by date and source.
No events are duplicated, though some were mentioned multiple times on
Google: News.
May 29 – June 4, 2004
Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader: Fundraising begins for a new public safety museum on the first floor of the Lexington History Museum. (May 29)
Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Hometown, Perry, Iowa Museum opened in the restored Carnegie Library in Perry. (May 29)
Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader: Newport aquarium opens $4.5 million addition featuring a rain forest exhibition. (May 29)
Corvallis (OR) Gazette-Times: The Oregon Zoo, Portland, opens its new 20,8000 square foot, $2.4 million Eagle Canyon exhibition. (May 29)
Huntsville (TX) Item: The HEARTS Veterans Museum ($3.5 million) is being developed north of Huntsville, adjacent to the Texas Prison Museum. (May 29)
TCPalm.com (Palm Beach, FL): Flagler Museum opens new $4.5 million, 8,100 square foot Flagler Kenan Pavilion. (May 30)
Miami Herald: Submarine chaser Mohawk will become a maritime museum anchored off Bicentennial Park. (May 30)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 5 million gallon Georgia Aquarium to open in Atlanta in late 2005. (May 30)
Akron (OH) Beacon-Journal: Private military museum opens in Akron. (May 30)
New Orleans Times-Picayune: Legislator notes that it has been five years since the state legislature authorized a Louisiana Civil Rights Museum as part of the Louisiana State Museum. (May 31)
Hardin County (KY) News-Enterprise: Elizabethtown council members hear reading of zoning change which will permit the building of the Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia near Interstate 65. (June 1)
Seattle Times: Museum of Flight opens $53,500,000, 80,000 square foot new wing. (June 1)
Ardmore (OK) Daily: Museum of the Red River opens 5,000 square foot addition with full dinosaur skeleton. (June 1)
Salt Lake Tribune: Living Planet Aquarium opens demonstration site. (June 1)
Silver City (NM) Daily Press: New Mexico’s congressional delegation supports Old West Museum in Reserve. (June 1)
Fairfield (CA) Daily Republic: Museum proposed for Solano County Free Public Library building. (June 2)
Boston Globe: $40 million museum, the Center for Arts and Culture, proposed for the Rose Kennedy Greenway. (June 2)
Seattle Times: Tourist-information center and transportation museum proposed for vacant building in Sultan, WA. (June 2)
The Southern Illinoian: Mississippi River Museum and Interpretive Center proposed for Grand Tower, IL. (June 2)
Hawaii News: International Surfing Hall of Fame and Nee Nalau Surfing Arts Museum opens in Kalapaki Bay, Kauai. (June 2)
Hartford (CT) Courant: Kidcity Children’s Museum’s new undersea playspace is now open to the public. (June 3)
WAVY.com: $30 million center for artifacts from the USS Monitor will open in Norfolk in 2007. (June 3)
Yahoo.com: Frontiers of Flight Museum opens 100,000 square-foot facility at Love Field, Dallas. (June 3)
NBC10.com: Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum will move to and renovate an historic building in Fairmont Park. (June 4)
KFMB.com, San Diego: the aircraft carrier Midway
will open Monday as a floating naval history museum on San Diego’s Embarcadero.
(June 4)
July 8 – 15, 2004
NPR.org: Paul Allen’s Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Museum opens in Experience Music Project building in Seattle. (July 8)
WHEC Rochester, NY: Seneca Park Zoo opens new 10,000 square foot health and education complex. (July 9)
South Mississippi Sun-Herald: Local model shipbuilding trying to generate support for museum of the shipping industry in Jackson County, MS. (July 10)
Corvallis (OR) Gazette-Times: Oregon Zoo opens new 18,000 square foot Trillium Creek Family Farm. (July 10)
South Mississippi Sun-Herald: $29 million Ohr-O’Keefe Museums underway overlooking the Mississippi Sound. (July 11)
Miami Herald: Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, currently in a mall near the Superdome, plans to expand into a major museum. (July 11)
Chicago Sun-Times: Underground Railroad Freedom Center to open in Cincinnati on August 23. (July 11)
TheIowaChannel.com: Museum to display WWII prisoner of war camp to be developed in Algona, IA. (July 11)
AccessNorthGa.com: Vienna, Georgia, plans to open a history museum in its former city hall. (July 11)
New Orleans Times-Picayune: New Orleans Fire Department Museum opens. July 13)
PRWEB.com: Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame seeks sponsorship for mobile museum. (July 14)
New York Newsday: A national Coast Guard Museum will be located in New London, CT. July 14)
Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum due to open September 25. (July 15)
Athens (OH) News: The Athens County Historical Society and Museum hopes to have a military museum established in Nelsonville by this time next year. (July 15)
Sacramento (CA) Bee: Loc Vu, executive director of the Immigrant Resettlement and Cultural Center Inc., hopes to launch the Vietnamese Boat People Museum by 2006. (July 16)
August 22 – 28, 2004
Lancaster (OH) Eagle-Gazette: The Ohio Glass Museum is due to open in 2005. (August 22)
Hampton Roads (VA) Daily Press: Phoenix Bank of Nansemond building to become museum of black history. (August 22)
Wichita (KS) Eagle: Wildlife Museum at Rolling Hills Zoo to open in January. (August 23)
Ventura County (CA) Star: Farm Heritage Museum seeking a site. (August 24)
Palm Beach (FL) Post: Coastal Science Center is in the middle of a major $4 million expansion. (August 24)
Exeter (NH) News Letter: Friends of the Earth, Sea, and Space Center are looking for a site for an aquarium and museum. (August 25)
Hartford (CT) Courant: New Britain Museum of American Art near end of $26 million expansion campaign. (August 25)
Fairfield-Dublin City (CA) Daily Republic: Mare Island Artifacts Museum nears completion at Mare Island Shipyards’ oldest building. (August 28)
San Jose (CA) Mercury News: Actress Jane Withers seeks to create a museum in Los Angeles for her collection of Hollywood memorabilia. (August 28)
Robert “Mac” West is publisher and editor of The Informal Learning
Review. He may be reached at ile@informallearning.com