A Building Full of Stories
By Regan Brooks, Registrar

“We are the storytelling animal.” ~Salaman Rushdie

Stories. We all have them and you tell them just about every day - when you come home at night to your family, having coffee with your friends, or chatting with coworkers. And stories are important. They allow us to process through what happened during our day. They share clues to our loved ones the parts of our lives they were not present for and scientists have proven that with children, storytelling increases learning capacity and knowledge retention as well as critical thinking. Storytelling is so important, not just because it’s more interesting, but because our brains are wired to want to understand something. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance – often times things tend to butt up against each other. We hear something, but it doesn’t quite jive with something else we know. And if we just hear it, and it doesn’t jive, we’re unlikely to believe it. But a story allows us to resolve those issues of cognitive dissonance. They allow us to begin to get a much greater understanding of what it is that we’re hearing or that we’re talking about. And that’s why it’s so tremendously important. It’s literally everything to us in the Museum business.

If you were to stop a person on the street and ask them what it is that the Museum (this Museum, that Museum, ANY Museum) does, what its core purpose was, the answer would probably involve ‘stuff’. They preserve old stuff, they showcase art stuff, they show science stuff.

Wrong. Our core purpose is to tell you a story. We use stuff. We take care of that old stuff, that art stuff and that science stuff so we can use it to tell you that story. The story of how things used to be and why they are the way they are now. The story of how things work, the story of what’s happening now. Museums are storytellers. And we try (particularly in the history museum business) to get others to share their stories as well by getting oral histories. Sometimes it’s formal, sitting down with a tape recorder, a video camera and asking specific questions. Sometimes, it’s just “Talk to me.” Either way, when we ask – and this may come as a shock to some people – we actually do want to hear what they have to say. You’d be surprised at how many people that will happily ramble on to a complete stranger that hasn’t asked, but the second someone does ask them to talk, clam up and shut down. There’s a variety of reasons for it: They don't believe they have anything of value to tell you, and don't understand why you would want to interview them, or maybe they’re afraid you’re going to use that information in some way that would reflect poorly on them. There’s been numerous times when we’ve invited people to come meet with us and share stories and they walk into the room, give us a look (usually akin to a deer in headlights) and say they really don’t have anything to tell. It really makes you want to bang your head on the table and ask them “Then why are you here?” And the frustrating thing? They do have something to tell. And we really, really do want to hear it. And we’re not going to do anything bad with it. We promise. We no bite.

Of course, on the flipside, with other folks, you have to remind them that you’ve only got three tapes with you and you might have to continue this session another day.