As a typical local museum, ECHM is small and most of the exhibits do not have much interpretation to go along with them. I did notice some good steps in adding to the educational aspect, such as dress up bins and interactive cards. I understand the struggles of the curators working to please the board of directors as well as the Elkhart community that are hesitant to change. What if there was an "I-Spy" list for each room? That would encourage children and adults to really look around the room. It's an idea that works well with the type of collections and displays that ECHM has in place now, and adds the next step of interpretation to the exhibits.
Natalie and I briefly visited each exhibit except for the train room and the Partly Dave exhibit. We spent a few minutes looking at the geological display in the Native American collection and wondered why there were samples from Wyoming, Utah, and other far away states. We were impressed with the samples that were from Indiana, however. I don't think that Elkhart County Historical Museum has the most accurate or best way of representing the Native Americans or the Anglo people that followed them.
The pioneer representation of the museum is based mostly on objects and less on interpretation, as with the rest of the museum. While it's nice to have the freedom to interpret exhibits how you will, I felt like more direction could be given for each room. The two downstairs exhibits, The Cottage and The Schoolhouse both had one board that gave some interpretation. And it didn't leave the Native American's out.
Overall, ECHM is probably doing some good things with the community and as an archive and local history center they are excellent. As an interpretive museum, they could use some work. I think the curators and managers have some big ideas and I'm excited to see the direction of the museum in the future.
Nice balance between appreciation and what could change. Good eye for some details in the exhibits.
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