Collections

 

This is the fifth in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Cultural World curator, Tris Perkins. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

Cricket-shaped hairpin with kingfisher feathers

• Year: 20th century
• Location: China
• Accession Number: 94.98.9

A woman's elegant hairstyle was once ornamented with this beautiful blue cricket. Delicate kingfisher (woodpecker) feathers are glued to the cricket's body to look like enamel. The iridescent quality of the feathers looks much like the shiny covering on real insects.  In China, crickets represent good fortune and luck.

Help us make an impact! So far these images do not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include them?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Don't forget, you can also suggest articles for the Electric Marx Mobile, Quail Trap, Alaskan Red King Crab and Baculites!

This is the fourth in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

 

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Natural Science curator, Dallas Evans. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

Baculites

• Scientific name: Baculites compressus
• Accession Number: 2001.12.1

​The baculites is a cephalopod, belonging to the same class of animals as squid, octopi, and the extinct ammonites.   The animal had a flatly coiled shell when young, but on reaching maturity the shell develops into its typical straight  “walking stick” form. A distinctive feature of these baculites is the complex suture pattern apparent in its fossilized shell.  

Help us make an impact! So far these images do not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include them?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Don't forget, you can also suggest articles for the Electric Marx Mobile, Quail Trap, and the Alaskan Red King Crab!

 

This is the third in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Natural Science curator, Dallas Evans. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

 

Alaskan Red King Crab

• Scientific name: Paralithodes camtschaticus
• Accession Number: 2001.20.1

​The Red king crab is one of the larger living crabs in the world and can have a leg span of nearly 5 ft.  Since a red king crab has an exoskeleton (shell) it must molt in order to grow.  The commercial harvesting of these crabs has been highlighted in The Discovery Channel program Deadliest Catch.  The catching of Red king crabs constitutes one of the most valuable fisheries for Alaska.

Help us make an impact! So far this image does not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include this image?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Don't forget, you can also suggest articles for the Electric Marx Mobile and the Quail Trap!

 

This week the museum is helping celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts of America. In honor of this huge anniversary, we're declaring it "Girl Scout Appreciation Week" at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis! That means all Girl Scouts and their immediate family receive a discount this week (March 12-17, 2012)! Just wear your Girl Scout uniform, t-shirt, sash, or vest when you visit and get in for the group admission rate at the Box Office.

We also want to take a minute to share some of the really cool Girl Scout objects in our collection!

By: Janna Bennett, curator of American Collections

Founded in the United States in 1912, Juliette Gordon Low began the Girl Scouts based upon Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts and Girl Guides program in England.  Today, as a global organization, over 3 million Girl Scouts explore the world around them while developing important life skills. 

Beginning in 1935 any Senior Scout troop could choose to be a Mariner troop.  These troops devoted time to outdoor activities including boating and camping to explore recreational and vocational activities. Instead of wearing the traditional green uniform, Mariners wore this blue uniform worn by Peoria, Illinois scout Colleen Cowan in the 1960s.

Low founded the Girl Scouts with 18 chartered members from her birthplace, Savannah, Georgia. One hundred years later, millions of girls and adult volunteers continue to honor the Girl Scout Law and contribute in the world around them through self-discovery and collaborating with others. This first aid kit and game handbook were used in 1929 one year after the group adopted a green uniform.

Congrats to the Girl Scouts on an amazing 100 years!

This is the second in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Cultural World curator, Tris Perkins. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

Quail trap (or jebak puyuh)

• Year: Mid-20th century
• Location: Malaysia
• Accession Number: 86.145.3

Although this looks like a regular bird cage, it’s actually a trap for catching quails.  A female quail is placed in the basket or woven container in the back of the cage with netting placed in front.  When the female calls out, it attracts a male.  When he steps onto the trigger in front of the basket, he causes the net to fall on and trap him.  Although wild quails no longer exist in Malaysia, jebak puyuh continue to be created as decorative items.

Help us make an impact! So far this image does not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include this image?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Wikipedia Image Update! Since last week, our first Wikipedia Image of the Week, the Electric Marx Mobile, was added to the Danish Wikipedia article "Toy car."

You might not realize it, but over the past year the Children’s Museum has been hard at work taking pictures of objects from our collection and making them available to the public in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written and managed by the community that uses it, so the success of Wikipedia largely depends on the quality of the content and images that people contribute. 

Because Wikipedia is such a widely-used free source of information, The Children’s Museum considers it a great place to share images of our objects and information from our experts. With 120,000 artifacts, The Children’s Museum has a wide range of images that we can contribute to a broad range of topics (like “Pie” or specific topics like “Bucky (Tyrannosaurus rex).")  We only get the opportunity to put a small number of objects on display in the museum, so contributing images to Wikipedia is a good way for the public to see objects typically kept in storage.

So far we have donated 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, which is the image repository for Wikipedia. Our contributions have included everything from toys to tribal masks from our American, Cultural World, and Natural Science Collections.

Once our images are in Wikimedia Commons, volunteers from all over the world who edit Wikipedia articles - called Wikipedians - find our images and place them in related Wikipedia articles. Did you know that once an image is in a Wikipedia article written in English, it’s often used in Wikipedia articles of many languages?  Wikipedia includes articles in over 280 languages! Another reason we contribute images to Wikipedia is because it makes it easy to share pictures of our objects with families from all over the world.

But it takes a lot of work for Wikipedians to place these images in articles – and we need your help! This is the first in a blog series that will feature one of our donated images and give you the opportunity to see where this image can end up in Wikipedia. Are you ready?

Wikipedia Image of the Week #1:

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

The Electric Marx Mobile

• Year: 1959
• Accession Number: 2006.8.28
• Maker: Louis Marx Company
• Material: Lithographed Steel

This electric “Marx Mobile” was made for driving fun! From the ignition key in the dashboard to the classic fins at the rear, this car mimicked real vehicles of the 1950s and 1960s. Using an electric motor, this riding toy transported kids from pedal power to the battery powered toys popular today. 

Help us make an impact! So far this image only appears in the Hafner Manufacturing Company article.  Can you think of any other Wikipedia articles that should include this image? How about the detail image of its intricate dashboard? Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in two weeks to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up! 

We’re doing what many families are doing at home now that the holiday season is over. We’re packing up our decorations and putting them in storage. Of course, not every family has giant snowflakes and a 12 foot tall snow globe to contend with. Nor does it take the typical family 5 semi trucks to haul away their decorations (thought it may feel that way sometimes).

Back in November, Exhibit Developer Cathy Hamaker wrote a post on the process of preparing for the Jolly Days exhibit. The process for taking down the exhibit is very similar to the process of putting the exhibit up, but it only takes about a week to take it down as opposed to the two months it takes to put the exhibit together.

A majority of the work was done today while the museum was closed. We have a special lift that we use to take down all the decorations that are high in the air like the hats on the dinos outside, the tree and gifts in the Welcome Center, Bumblebee’s hat, and the snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. Museum staff will also disassemble the Yule Slide piece by piece and put it away for the year.

Most of the decorations and exhibit elements will be packed up and hauled off site for storage. Some of our objects, like Jingles and his stuffed animal friends from our Steiff collection and the objects you see on display in the windows while standing in line for photos with Santa, will go back into the museum’s collection which is stored in the lower level of the museum.

It’s that time of year again at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis… the time when everyone says, “What, Jolly Days ALREADY??”  Yep!  Some of us (myself included) start thinking about each year’s Jolly Days exhibit starting way back in April or May—but things really kick into high gear on November 1.  That’s when we roll up our sleeves and get to work.     

As you probably already know, our Jolly Days exhibit goes into the same gallery where the Children’s Museum Guild Haunted House is during the month of October.  It takes our hardworking Facilities staff plus our amazing Guild Witches 2 months to build and decorate the Haunted House—and it all has to come out of there in a week!  Starting November 1, it’s a scramble to get the Haunted House pulled down and packed away, and the gallery cleaned and re-painted so that Jolly Days can start going in.  So while that’s going on in the gallery space, our exhibits and production team are working hard to get all the decorations in our welcome center and Sunburst Atrium into place. 

The giant tree in the Welcome Center requires a crane to put it in place and decorate it, so we usually do that on the first closed Monday after Halloween so we don’t have to worry about visitors’ safety.  Then it’s about 4 straight days of work to get all the other decorations out of our storage facility, into the building, and arranged on the deck around the tree.  We also have a new resident in our welcome center—the Transformer, Bumblebee!—and he has to be moved several times to allow us to get equipment around the welcome center and hang all the snowflakes  from our ceiling.  Once we’re done with the Welcome Center, the crew moves to start unpacking the rest of Jolly Days!

The Yule Slide—everyone’s favorite holiday tradition here at the museum—takes a crew of four people a day and a half to install and decorate.  The tree in the Atrium has to be assembled and decorated before our collections department staff can put Jingles and his stuffed animal friends into place; they are real artifacts from our Steiff animal collection, and have to be handled with care! The gallery façade (the house, the lights, and the title graphic) takes another day to put up.  Meanwhile, inside the gallery, our paint crew finishes re-painting and touching up so that the exhibit can be unpacked, installed, cleaned, and tested—4 full semi trailers worth of stuff! 

When the walls are in place, the curator brings in the toys and games from our collection that make Jolly Days special—from old board games to stuffed bunnies, even Santa’s antique desk!  The graphics staff adds trees to the walls and snowflakes to our theater, replacing any of our signs that are damaged or dirty, and our cleaning crew washes and sanitizes all the toys from the play areas. Once the lights are focused and the floors swept, the exhibit is finally ready for you to visit! 

So from start to finish, getting Jolly Days ready to open the day after Thanksgiving takes us about 2700 work hours total!  I’m tired just thinking about it… or it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve still got work to do….

Jolly Days is open now through Jan. 8, 2012. It's a great INDOOR winter activity for kids and families in Indianapolis!