IMPRINT, the Bell Museum's quarterly magazine for members, offers stories of scientific adventure and discovery, insight into today's rapid environmental changes, updates on museum programs and exhibits, and fun activities for kids. IMPRINT is published quarterly and is available as a benefit of Bell Museum membership.

For more articles, see the Director's Column index

A Season of Exciting Changes
By Scott Lanyon
Winter 2007

Although we’ve been talking about building a new Bell Museum facility since 1995 and actively planning the project since 2001, museum visitors and program participants have been largely unaffected. We’ve managed to do all the planning behind the scenes without interfering with our ongoing exhibit and education programs. That is about to change. It will soon be time for us to move beyond planning the new museum with just paper and pencil, Microsoft Word, and Excel. Soon we will need to start prototyping a new generation of exhibits.

The upcoming “Project Art for Nature” exhibit is our last scheduled show in the West Gallery. We hope you’ll join us for the opening reception February 10, not only to view the spectacular artwork, but also to celebrate the end of one era and the beginning of another. After “Project Art for Nature” closes May 27, we plan to use the West Gallery as a place to build and test prototypes of various exhibits we intend to install in the new museum. And that is just the first of many significant changes that will take place in the months ahead.

As soon as we have a firm construction schedule for the new building, we will begin the process of de-installing our dioramas. After consulting with experts around the nation, we’ve developed a plan for how we will move Bell Museum dioramas to the new museum building. But we aren’t about to implement that plan on our priceless Francis Lee Jaques dioramas until we’ve worked out all the kinks! Before we so much as take the glass off the beloved moose, wolf, or sandhill crane exhibits, we’ll practice on the one diorama that doesn’t depict a Minnesota landscape: the Dall sheep. This will give us the opportunity to test and modify our methods to ensure that the exhibits are properly documented, conserved, and transported. If possible, we will set up this de-installation process itself as an exhibit so visitors can watch observe the process and see how the dioramas are constructed.

The coming months will see the release of schematic drawings of the new building, three-dimensional models of the building and landscape, and computer reconstructions of the project that will allow visitors to take a “virtual” walk through the new museum. One thing we’ve learned is that there is no shortage of great ideas for exhibit and program content. The difficulty will be deciding what to implement first. Over the coming year we will ask our visitors, members, and the general public for feedback on exhibit and program ideas. We hope you’ll let us know what you find most interesting and compelling.

Throughout these exciting changes, Bell Museum members will be kept informed and up to date. As always, members will be able to enjoy our informative, fun, and inspiring programs for families and adults. If you haven’t yet attended our Sunday Nature Films or Science on Screen, I encourage you to do so. Film is just one of the ways the museum is bringing new and artistic perspectives to complex social and environmental issues. Our Café Scientifique program continues off-campus, and has added a new location: Bryant Lake Bowl in Southwest Minneapolis. Throughout this exciting season of change and growth, our old favorites—such as summer camps, field trips, and travelogues—will continue to provide a window on the natural world and our place within it.