Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service's Blog

Reducing a Museum's Carbon Footprint

Let's face it, we're all trying to be a little greener . . . at least at home. What about the office, your museum, your library, your historical society? Ask yourself these questions:

Am I turning my lights off when I'm not in the office?

Do I use recycled paper in my printer?

Does the office have recycling bins for cans, bottles, newspapers, etc.? If so, how are they getting to the local recycling center?

Is there a way that my office could limit the number of paper communications it creates and start using Web 2.0 platforms (like wikis) to collaborate on documents and conduct meetings?

These are just a few of the little things that we could be doing individually to reduce our carbon footprint, but have you ever thought about creating a completely GREEN exhibition?

SITES is partnering with Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry to present Green Revolution, an innovative “traveling” exhibition about various aspects of environmentalism. We provide you with the plans, design, and “how to” for your team to fabricate and install your very own green exhibit using materials from your own backyard. Plus, no crates and no trucks minimizes our carbon footprint.

With a website and video to guide you, you’ll have solutions to all your green problems at your fingertips. Using your recycled materials, your local resources, and your muscle, you’ll be able to build your own eco-zibit!

But before we start planning, we’d like to hear from you about what we should offer in our Green Revolution exhibition. Please take our Green Revolution survey!

SITES, CFC, and Bread for the City

The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), the public-sector version of United Way, is an annual event for federal employees. This year SITES “keyworkers” decided to supplement our departmental fundraising by conducting a food drive—a tangible response to the economic downturn that’s decreasing food bank donations at a time of increasing need. We selected Bread for the City, a local agency that provides comprehensive services, including food, clothing, medical care, and legal and social services, to vulnerable residents of Washington, DC.

We liked its emphasis on encouraging healthy eating as one way to address the obesity, diabetes, and hypertension that affect many of its clients (as well as society at large). As Bread’s Executive Director George A. Jones says, “It’s not enough to merely help people eat; we must help them eat well.” The organization’s nutritionist offers one-on-one nutrition counseling and healthy cooking classes free to the community. And it eliminated from its food pantry all foods with trans-fats and high-sodium, high-fructose corn syrup.

Guided by the website’s list of suggested foods, SITES surpassed our target of 100 healthy food items. During our month-long drive, staff contributed boxes of unsweetened cereal and whole-wheat pasta, cans of tuna in water, bags of dry beans, jars of organic baby food, and low-fat, low-salt broths and soups. A lunchtime movie (Night at the Museum, of course), with a food donation as the price of admission, helped fill three cartons, which we donated before New Year’s Eve. As for the CFC drive itself, SITES has more than doubled our goal of $5,000—and we still have the rest of January to go!

Behind the Scenes with the Curator

Jim Deutsch is co-curator of The Working White House: 200 Years of Tradition and Memories, which examines the fascinating history of the men and women who work behind the scenes to help keep the White House running smoothly. Reflecting his work as a program curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Jim focused on the White House as a unique workplace with a distinctive work culture. Excerpts from his interviews with recently retired White House workers are featured in the exhibition’s audio tour and video and may be downloaded from The Working White House exhibition page on SITES’ website.

Q. Define “occupational culture.”
A. Every occupational group—whether it is actuaries, biologists, cowboys, dishwashers, engineers, firefighters, gaffers, and haberdashers (to take just the first eight letters of the alphabet)—has its own “occupational culture”—the set of skills, specialized knowledge, and codes of behavior that not only distinguish it from other occupational groups, but which also meet its needs as a community. There is only one White House, so the people who work there have a very specialized set of skills, knowledge, and codes of behavior. As with any folk group, these skills, etc., are shared and passed on, from one generation of workers to the next. In the case of doctors and nurses working in a hospital, some of their traditions will be part of a broad category of medical lore; some will be tied to the individual hospital in which they work; and some will be tied to their specific department. For instance, the culture of emergency room workers is quite different from that of endocrinologists.

Q. How many former workers did you interview?
A. We interviewed 10 former workers in the late summer and early fall of 2007.They represented a wide variety of occupational skills (chefs, butlers, ushers, electricians, housekeepers, etc.) and supplemented the more extensive series of interviews with former White House workers that had been done by my colleague Marjorie Hunt in preparation for the 1992 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Q. What makes a good interview?
A. I think the best interviews are ones that are free-flowing and conversational. I always try to start with basic questions that are easier to answer—such as how the interviewee came to work at the White House—in order to put them at ease, before moving into topics that might be more sensitive and difficult to answer. I do have some questions in mind before the interview begins, but I think what’s most important is to listen very closely to what is being said, and to follow up on some of those points before going on to whatever your next question might be.

Q. Give an example of how not to conduct an interview.
A. One example comes from a conversation with Lynne Cheney that I observed in 2005. When asked about her favorite presidents, Cheney named George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and James K. Polk. But instead of posing the obvious follow-up question—James K. Polk!?—the interviewer simply looked down at his index cards and went on to the next question he had prepared. So my first three rules of successful interviewing should be listen, listen, listen.

Q. What tips can you give individuals who would like to conduct oral histories with family members?
A. Do it, and do it before it’s too late! My mother’s parents died when I was five years old, and I’ve been trying to find out where they came from; all we know now is that they immigrated from somewhere on what was the western edge of the Russian Empire in 1908. But that could have been present-day Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia; my grandparents’ native tongue was Yiddish, which was spoken all over that part of the world. If only someone in our family had interviewed them, or had saved some of the relevant documents, I might now have the answers I am seeking.

Want the full interview with curator Jim Deutsch?