Need | Rationale | Description | Results

IMLS funding for No Better Way to Learn was instrumental to the project's scope, implementation, and success. The project used two traveling exhibitions, Turn, Turning Turned: Contemporary Turned Wood Objects and The Good Earth: Folk Art and Artifacts from the Chinese Countryside,  as the fundamental training devices to accomplish real life museum activities. As a result, six participating museums received on-the-job training in:

• Marketing and Public Relations
• Exhibition Design & Traveling Exhibition Basics
• Educational Programming
• Volunteerism

Working with ExhibitsUSA, a national traveling exhibition service, project organizers maximized the capacities of a traveling exhibition to improve professional skills. Participants attended workshops in which basic museum principles were introduced in each focus area. They then set achievable institutional goals and met one-on-one with technical consultants. In these meetings, their local plans were strengthened and revised; for instance, a PR consultant critiqued their marketing strategies. On-site visits from consultants complemented the training package, and these experts urged museums to look pointedly at how the experience could be applied to their everyday operations. At project's close, an evaluation meeting drew all participants to suggest improvements to future incarnations of No Better Way to Learn.

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