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Delaware Museum of Nature & Science revamps image

February 7, 2023 |By Ken Mammarella

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The new Delaware Museum of Nature & Science has been reformatted to focus on timely, engaging exhibits for all visitors. | PHOTO COURTESY OF DELMNS/JAY GREEN ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY[/caption] GREENVILLE – When the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science near Greenville reopened last spring after a 17-month, $10.8 million renovation of the old natural history museum, most of the attention was on the all-encompassing rethinking of what visitors were presented. The new exhibits have drawn crowds. Attendance in 2022 was 54,293 – up 18% over goals and 22% over the comparable period in 2019. Here are three elements that are less familiar but still important that occurred during the rebranding. Museum store The museum store has more than doubled sales. Sure, there’s an excitement about being new, but Patrick Wittwer, the museum senior guest experience manager, believes two other factors matter. The store expanded its book selection from mostly board books for young children and academic texts for well-educated adults. “There used to be almost nothing in between,” he said. One promising idea has been adding novels addressing environmentalism, science and animal life. The first addition was “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” a 2022 novel by Shelby Van Pelt that has earned rave reviews. If book sales stay hot, Wittwer is considering moving them into the adjacent café for more display space. Merchandise was also reorganized by the ecosystems used in museum areas, with prominent labeling. “We really matched what the store is selling to what guests are experiencing,” he said. Even with these changes, he wants to ensure there are still $1 items that kids can take home. Value engineering Staffers embraced value engineering during the renovation. “It’s taking a hard look at what you want to do for the least amount of money as possible,” said Liz Shea, director of collections and curator of mollusks, noting she knew the idea from her brother, an architect, and home-renovation TV shows. One mission-significant issue came in concluding the museum could not afford to display the marsh ecosystem by day and night. The nighttime content awaits future fundraising. One less significant issue came with chairs for the café and tables for the discovery gallery. Rather than ordering custom pieces, staffers took on “owner’s work” and found similar off-the-shelf products. “As a nonprofit, we’re scrappy, and those habits proved to be very useful,” she said. , also noting that some decisions involved “an ax vs. an X-Acto knife.” ‘Service is in our DNA’ “Service is in our DNA” riffs off of what Wittwer remembers from interning at Disney (“the standard of guest experiences”) and his 21 years of museum work. The new professional development program includes five hours over two sessions and is required for all 50 full- and part-time employees. It emphasizes three points: Deliver a welcoming experience, nurture connections and act with empowerment. The first tenet provided the framework to solve a problem of summer campers overwhelming the restrooms during their breaks and making adult museums visitors uncomfortable. Limits in money, space and even well water meant that they couldn’t add more restrooms. So museum staffers are looking into high-end portable toilets for this summer, he said. The last tenet led a teenager who works part-time at the front desk to feel comfortable enough to question older workers about which generation is responsible for stewardship of this planet. “We talk a lot about the ecological experience,” Wittwer said. “But are we walking the walk?” The answer: more action items, such as books and kits, available for visitors to take home and help the Earth. He said that “Service is in our DNA,” which will be repeated annually, is “a baseline of expectations for everyone” that he hopes “really motivates the team.”