Welcome - If you could do one thing?

[Robert Kiihne]

On September 24th 75 museum professionals spent the day listening to four great speakers and talking about the museum experience. At the end of the day many of you asked for a forum online to continue the discussion.
Welcome to the general family learning forum- you asked for it you got it.

To start things off: If you could change one thing about your institution to make it more family friendly what would it be?
For me it would be new restrooms! Ours are dark, grey (the 90's designer color) and poorly ventilated Visitors complain about them - even when the restrooms have just been cleaned. I am sure that for every visitor that complains 10 more are just turned off, yet convincing funders that restrooms are the place to put their money is a hard sell. This affects all our visitors, though I think families are particularly upset.

[kmkucharski]

If I could change one thing, I would like to make the exhibits more family friendly at Harvard's Peabody Museum. I think they are fine for adults, but many of the artifacts are well above eye level for the younger visitors. One way around this is having carts with study collection objects that vistors can handle (under the supervision of an education staff member or volunteer). These types of experiences are available for school programs and special events, but it would be nice if they were a more regular feature for visitors at other times.