| Abstract: | Abstract As museums enter a new century, they are challenged to demonstrate their relevance to society. Increasingly, institutions have recognized that in order to thrive, they must ensure that mission‐related activities—exhibits and programs, collections and research—are meaningful to the public they rely on for support. Numerous deeply‐ingrained habits of practice and of thought have prevented object‐based exhibits from responding effectively to visitor interests. For museums to be truly relevant to their audiences, this paper argues for a fundamental shift in how they think about and organize exhibits. Exhibits need to become more topical and issue‐oriented, rather than generalized and systematic. Furthermore, a successful topical exhibit program needs to operate on two separate, yet integrated, levels: long‐term exhibits providing context on broadly relevant, interdisciplinary themes shorter‐term exhibits on specific, current issues embedded within the longterm exhibits, linking that broad content to visitors' lives Beyond the crucial role of increasing the museum's relevance to its audience, such an exhibits program would have numerous ancillary benefits, including more evenly distributed costs, greater creativity, lessened job burnout, and new funding opportunities. Though specifically addressing natural history museums, aspects of this paper should be relevant to museums of all kinds. |
