NATURAL WONDERS: A LIBRARY AND MUSEUM COLLABORATION

Natural history museums are attractive and important venues for informal STEM learning. However, they often have fees for entry and are limited in number and geographic occurrence, which reduce access and engagement. Although a visit to a natural history museum can be an impactful experience, it is usually an isolated one, occurring in a single annual visit or even less frequently. From an institutional standpoint, exhibits are costly to develop and maintain, and the ways in which visitors interact with them may not be the most effective way to foster engagement and learning. The Ohio State’s natural history collections are designed primarily for research and lack exhibit space. As an alternative to exhibits, we develop and extend programming with community organizations, putting biodiversity content in a variety of spaces throughout Columbus, OH. These partnerships support repeated encounters with biodiversity themes and allow multiple points of access to museum specimens and content experts. Taking natural history specimens out of research collections, and using them to catalyze learning in informal spaces extends the impact of the collections in the community. We partnered with our local library to develop biodiversity display kiosks with rotating monthly exhibits. Each display includes specimens, text, and images that are designed in collaboration with librarians and museum staff.