Improving the cool

I feel like a lot of people just forget this museum exists, even though it’s great. We had a museum critic in recently, which I didn’t even think existed but there you go. He had some very warm things to say about the museum, but there hasn’t been a great amount of interest. Maybe people just don’t want to know about historic birds any more.

We’ll see. I’m currently on a super-secret trip around Melbourne to see what all the other attractions have that we don’t. So far my list includes ‘a gift shop, air conditioning, people’.

Jury’s out on that third one, the gift shop is definitely something that we can think about, but air conditioning? Melbourne folks like that kind of thing so much that they’d use it to decide what place they’re going to visit? I guess it’s a LITTLE bit annoying when it gets really hot, and we have to turn the ceiling fans onto full pelt. It doesn’t really do all that much, either; our ceilings are very high, and there’s not too much to be done in the museum rooms where all the heat tends to coalesce.

Maybe that’s something to think about for later, but seriously. We also don’t really have any heating besides the bar heaters we scatter around the place, which really aren’t that great, so…okay, I’m starting to see the problem. I haven’t done a trawl in winter, but I think all the museums I’ve seen have proper heating as well. Maybe climate control really IS that important to people. I guess that’s why people tend to schedule a regular air con service. Melbourne really is one of the most trendy places in the Country. They want to go to a museum to spend a lot of time poring over the exhibits, and feeling comfortable while they do so.

I need to look into air conditioning repairs in Melbourne. Maybe we could fire up the old cooling systems as summer approaches. And…well, a gift shop is a big commitment, but maybe we’ll start with keyrings at the front desk and work our way up from there.

-Robin