W. M. Keck Museum Research Paper

The W.M. Keck museum is Nevada’s second oldest museum. Founded in 1908, it has become a museum within a museum as many of the methods to display artifacts used in 1908 are still used today. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. A museum’s job is to allow for everyone to enjoy and to be inspired when they visit the museum. That is not an easy job as people experience museums differently and to be accommodating for everyone is difficult, especially for the Keck museum which is now constrained with what it can do as it is a historical treasure in itself.
The Keck museum is limited with its options in conveying information. As the museum is a historical treasure, it cannot be gutted and remade to become more efficient. It is forced to use the same cases along the walls that were used in 1908, and while the Keck museum plans on adding modern technology with a 1908 look, it cannot modernize everything. We have come a long way since 1908 and it shows. The museum conveys its information mostly with its use of the storage exhibits along the wall and modern cases that display in an 1908 fashion. While this tactic for displaying may not be the most efficient in showing off the artifacts, it …show more content…
As stated with the text and cases, it would be difficult for children to fully enjoy and be inspired by the museum just by how much information there is to take in at once. In every case there is a lot of objects, along the walls there are at least thirty-six different rocks with their own label. It is impossible to tell what is important when there is so much information being conveyed at once. It is the idea that if everything is important, then nothing is. This means that the majority of the audience, children, are basically ripped off as they are unable to fully comprehend everything. There is so much information the most adults would not be able to fully understand the