Book Learning

New book on running hands-on centres
Review by Ian Simmons

Tim Caulton, now a lecturer in the Leisure Management Unit at the University of Sheffield, has been involved in hands-on since its early days in Britain, bringing the Discovery Dome to Sheffield in 1988 and playing a significant role in the creation of Eureka! in the early ‘90’s.  He has now put this experience to good use by putting together a book that will be of great help to anyone developing new hands-on centres or running existing ones.

There has long been an array of American publications examining various aspects of creating hands-on centre, but due to the different financial, legal and cultural differences most have not been enormously useful once they crossed the Atlantic. Repeatedly, therefore, anyone starting a new project had to go round asking existing centres the same questions and developing their knowledge from scratch. Apart from the waste of time and effort involved, their task has often been made harder by funders and senior management asking, “where’s your evidence” about advice garnered in this manner. Tim has solved this problem by gathering between two covers exactly the sort of information needed, good solid, sensible advice, well grounded in the experience of a diversity of centres, covering the key aspects for making a centre work - exhibit development, finance, education, marketing, operation, human resources and programmes. He provides useful performance indicators, figures and references which will be as much value to someone with long experience in running centres as to someone starting out, I certainly gained a lot reading it and will be passing it round my staff for their use too.

The one drawback with “Hands-on Exhibitions” is that it is a very “now” book, with much of its information, gaining relevance from giving an accurate picture of the situation as it stands today. The hands-on field is, however, anything but static.  It is one of the most dynamic sectors of the educational leisure market, and while the book looks forward at the forthcoming Millennium projects, I suspect the picture of the field will be very different by 2002 when they are all up and running. Tim, though, has no intention of stopping his researches into hands-on, and if Routledge have any sense, they will keep him busy with new updated editions, so that “Hands-on Exhibitions” continues to be a useful and relevant tool for anyone.

Hands-On Exhibitions - Managing Interactive Museums and Science Centres by Tim Caulton.  Published by Routledge 1998, Paperback ISBN 0.415-16522-9 Price £15.00  Hardback ISBN 0-415-16521-0 Price £45.00

Newsletter Spring 1998 Contents

Centres > Satrosphere News | What is happening to Light on Science? | Inspire News | Herstmonceux News

Exhibits > BIG working group on exhibit development | What is Design? | Exhibit Aphorisms | "Here's Looking at Euclid" - exhibit idea | Roald Dahl and the Children's Gallery | Are hybrids best? - viewpoint

Demonstrations and shows > Shows at the Exploratory | Exploding Can Demonstration | Water to wine Demonstration | Nitrogen story - urban myth?

Millennium News > More Millennium Grants | Pantechniques rewarded | Millennium awards scheme | A listing of interactive projects funded by lottery grants

Research > Measuring the performance of interactive centres

Resources and conferences > Conferences and Future Events | Indian Science Congress Report | Managing Science Centres Book Review | Children's Museums Book information

BIG > BIG Moves - From the Chair | BIG AGM Report | BIG Annual Report 1997