Smithsonian changing its image to appeal to younger Americans

The Smithsonian Institution is currently working on redefining itself in the hopes of drawing the attention of a younger audience.

Wayne Clough is Director of the Smithsonian and said coming from a university environment got him used to working with younger people, and gave him great ideas on how to attract a new generation to visit the museums.

"As I did a little bit of work on it, I found [that] first of all, we have a large number of interns that come here every year -- over 1,000, which is something I'm very pleased about. Then I found that, if you look at our museum audiences, they were a small percentage of our museum audiences. By that I mean teens. . . . Obviously, we get a lot of school kids who are here because their teachers told them they have to come, but we weren't reaching the new generation of young people."

Clough said the Smithsonian is now trying to do a better job of reaching out to young adults in a variety of ways.

"[We are] changing the way we do exhibits -- make them more interactive. [We are] making the work that we do more visible. The work that goes on at the Smithsonian behind the walls or in Suitland where we have our collection centers is fascinating. I think people in general would love to see how those things work."

There is currently a program at the American Art museum where conservationists are visible and available to chat with the public. The feds working on preserving art are also available online via blogs, and Clough said he wants to use programs like this as a model for all of the Smithsonian.

"I think maybe a mix of exhibits would be different. For example, over at the American Indian right now you've got the Brian Jungen exhibit, which, to me, is just absolutely mind-blowing. . . . It's a case where a bright and talented young artist has taken objects that are associated with ancient civilizations and made them out of today's materials. In other words, if you see a whale skeleton and you're at a distance of 15 feet, you'd say that's a believable whale skeleton; you get up close and see he made it out of white, plastic chairs."

It's not just about getting younger people involved, however. Clough said officials at the Smithsonian are using the interactions as a learning experience for themselves.

"We can encounter people who see some object in one of our exhibits who know more about it than we do because they may have had some personal experience with it. We've had that happen a number of times. It's a two way street. We learn a great deal from people when they interact with us, and they get much more engaged and excited about the objects."

Smithsonian employees are currently in the process of learning more about the Web and other ways of interaction with the public, Clough included.

He said that while he acknowledges it is a different mindset, he thinks it will help bring the Smithsonian into the 21st century.

This does not mean, though, that positions such as that of the curator are going the way of the do-do.

"People want to see everything and make their own mind up about it, but the curator, for example, in the museums is still very important because they have to put context around these objects which have stories behind them."

As far as getting more people to come to the museums, Clough said it is too early for real hard data, but there is good news.

"We had six million more people visit our museums this year. It's a little hard to separate out exactly why, but we think part of it was the fact that we put on 90 new exhibits. We had Teacher's Night [recently] and normally we get about 2,000 teachers. . . . [This year} we had 4,800 teachers show up. So, we're starting to see some responses."