Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History
During the summer of 2010, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to intern at the Carnegie Museum's of Art and Natural History. It was an amazing experience and I learned a tremendous amount. While working closely with the customer service and volunteer departments, which service both museums, I came to be in charge of the daunting task of completely redoing the staff education program. Each day I visited and took extensive notes and went on tours, all the while asking questions about each of the museums' permanent exhibitions. I then took all of that information and transformed it into a comprehensive study guides. These study guides would highlight important parts of the exhibitions, provide a brief explanation and require the staff member to either look for the answer or construct one based on knowledge gained from the exhibition as a whole. Each study guide was in full color providing an array of constructed scenes that mirrored those in the museum. During my last week I also created a filing system for the study guides as well as a way to know when each employee had completed the mandatory coursework.
I was also asked by the department managers to make a listing of brochures in the museum. I created would be a spreadsheet that contained things like a description of the front panel of the brochure, what information could be found in it, and for what dates it would remain on file. This spread sheet could be found at each of the help desks so that volunteers were able to find the correct pamphlet to answer patrons' questions about any of our locations. Shortly thereafter, the managers were so pleased that I was put in charge of redoing the binders that contain all discount codes that coordinate with passes, membership, publicity and coupon's that go through the registers at the museum. Two copies of these files were made containing example discount paperwork as well as the code to be used at the register when the patron paid.
All of my jobs while at the Carnegie were meant to improve the visit of the patron and the workload of the employee or volunteer. With a better knowledge of the exhibitions, staff and volunteers are better equipped to answer questions, direct patrons based on interests, or make suggestions as to what is popular in the museum at the time. It has also made me a better employee and patron as I go back to visit as well as volunteer often and am able to share my knowledge with the others around me.
I was also asked by the department managers to make a listing of brochures in the museum. I created would be a spreadsheet that contained things like a description of the front panel of the brochure, what information could be found in it, and for what dates it would remain on file. This spread sheet could be found at each of the help desks so that volunteers were able to find the correct pamphlet to answer patrons' questions about any of our locations. Shortly thereafter, the managers were so pleased that I was put in charge of redoing the binders that contain all discount codes that coordinate with passes, membership, publicity and coupon's that go through the registers at the museum. Two copies of these files were made containing example discount paperwork as well as the code to be used at the register when the patron paid.
All of my jobs while at the Carnegie were meant to improve the visit of the patron and the workload of the employee or volunteer. With a better knowledge of the exhibitions, staff and volunteers are better equipped to answer questions, direct patrons based on interests, or make suggestions as to what is popular in the museum at the time. It has also made me a better employee and patron as I go back to visit as well as volunteer often and am able to share my knowledge with the others around me.