Talk:Free Geek Museum

Where should we put the museum? The lab is fine for inventory and research, but we will need more space to display it. Some of the exhibit ideas I have will take quite a bit of space. Of course, this is hardly the only thing we're having to find space for at Free Geek. Any suggestions welcome.

white hole?

Hi Blaine,

It might be unreasonable for the short-term, but it seems there's some desire in the long-term for the White Hole to be a more public-friendly space. (I don't know what the space needs or possibilities are for Server Build, but I'm sure there are ideas out there.) I'd love to see the museum there, though hopefully it could coexist with public terminals etc.

Pete

Hi Pete,

I like the space of the white hole, but I see a problem. Have you seen the exhibits I want to have? I don't know if the white hole would be big enough for those museum exhibits by themselves, no way we could have all of them AND public terminals. I was thinking we could get more space behind the stage, and maybe in front of it as well.

Blaine

Blaine-

I have looked at the wiki page, but didn't realize how much space this would take. Here is a thought: What about using the space behind the stage, and in addition, setting up a rotating exhibit for a more public and obvious place, like the Thrift store? Every month, put out a piece of equipment, wit a brief history and maybe a place for people to write questions, or share stories about similar equipment they once used? I think this might be a good attention grabber...if the musem's behind the stage, there will need to be something to get people interested enough to seek it out.

Pete

What is the benefit of the museum? We show off pieces of computer history, and maybe teach people a little bit about such things. Maybe it attracts some attention and/or donations. But it takes a lot of space and a lot of effort. The effort will be there if someone coordinates it, because lots of people say they love the idea of a museum, and some of them will actually work on it. But it takes a lot of space. Space is a problem. Also, while not technically fully outside our mission, it's rather close to the edge.

Here's my suggestion: ask the nonprofit community if there's someone out there who would like to start a computer museum as a separate thing. We can help them get grant money to exist, and they can find a space and curate (maybe they want to be a computer + ufo museum, I don't know), and trade giving them pieces of equipment to show off for advertising us. This takes it out of our space and hands.

Jeff 21:11, 24 Jan 2006 (PST)

Wait, I have another idea.

Give them away to nonprofits and businesses that want to have an exhibit, maybe a rotating exhibit, in their windowfront. We'll make cards explaining what the piece is, and get it there and set it up. In exchange they get a strange piece of computer history in their window, and we'll make a walking tour of the city which can give them some publicity.

I like this one even better.

Jeff 21:16, 24 Jan 2006 (PST)

Jeff-

I think you're missing some information. I'm not sure I'm the best-informed, I'll try to fill in some gaps:

• We HAVE a coordinator/curator. That's Blaine. He's been working on it, and now is looking for feedback. So this isn't as hypothetical as you seem to think.
• As for justification...first off, I don't think the wiki is the best place to discuss that. Because of limited participation. Also, while I don't know if there have been council decisions about this yet, it DOES seem there is some consensus (at least in the non-technical sense) that people want Blaine to move forward on this.
• Musings...it seems that all the potential benefits might fall in the Outreach area, so maybe it would be good to bring a proposal to Outreach for some refinement, before bringing it up at Council.
• Filling out a Program Planning sheet might be helpful for various aspects of planning.

Personally, I think that an actively-curated museum would be a great benefit, and worth devoting some space to. If Blaine ends up losing interest or something, then it could become a dust-gathering space-waster, but I'd rather deal with that if/when it happens (because I don't think it's that likely.)

Pete

Pete,

I'm not sure if you were at the Council meeting where it was decided that space usage was in fact an issue which affected everyone, and was therefore not something that could be decided ad hoc, though Council didn't want to take the task on itself. That aside, I don't remember you being at the space usage meeting itself, though I may simply be misremembering, so I'll e describe a bit of it to explain why I don't think the museum in FG is currently viable. The biggest impression I was left with from the Space Usage meeting was that there were multiple competing interests for each space that existed in FG.

Above the discussion centers around where to put the museum (or so it seems to me). I think that this discussion stems from seeing the spaces at FG not being currently in use and not knowing that there was such a meeting where what to do with the space was actively and long discussed.

Behind the stage? There was an active debate: would it be build storage, or white hole storage, would it be extra build space, even? The museum wasn't even considered, though maybe it should be. There was discussion of moving the stage forward and turning all that space behind the stage into the secure build area. Considering the benefit to production for any of those, I would rate the museum far lower.

The front room? Although it's been 'slated' for an internet cafe for a long time, that wasn't really the consensus of the group, primarily because an internet cafe doesn't gain us as much as people think at first. The most interesting proposal was to move the conference room there and then re-purpose the conference room, though the idea of having offices up there was also strongly considered.

So I fully support the idea of the museum moving forward, as soon as you have a space for it. But from what I've seen, there is no good space at FG that could be dedicated to it. The lab is going to be repurposed and will be much more valuable to us when it's build and office space, or build and testing space, or build and eval space, or ... than I think a museum will be. The upstairs isn't really much of a museum space, though it could work (though there are other ideas vying for it).

Jeff

Back to the original question, please

Jeff-

I was not at the space usage meeting. Nor can I find any details about it on the wiki, in council meeting minutes (some mention, yes, but no detail), or on the council email list.

So offhand, I'd have to say it doesn't look like that group did a very effective job of getting the word out. (Not looking to point fingers, just saying that my ignorance is not due to lack of effort!)

But, I don't think any of that bears on the current question.

Blaine wanted to know (and I assume this is an open question, still) where might be good places for the museum to go.

I don't see any harm in exploring ideas, independent of what other things might use particular spaces. The ultimate choice of what goes where is a separate concern; brainstorming is a good thing. (It's only a BAD thing if there is no rational process for making the decision. But if that problem exists, we can't solve it here!)

So, Blaine, have you had any further thoughts? What are the most space-consuming things you have in mind? How would they benefit Free Geek, or the world at large?

-Pete 13:50, 15 Feb 2006 (PST)