Commencing in the month of January, 2018 the Museum is making an entrance adjustment that will improve both our security and the visual quality of visitor arrival experience: the Side Door off the parking lot will become Museum Staff Only and all Visitors will be asked to use the main Front entrance.
This change is associated with the exciting introduction of our new Admission Desk, which has been custom-fabricated by artisan furniture makers Limber Timber, working with Museum staff members Melanie Munns and Taylor Kite.
We have been addressing several matters of arrival experience and Facility upgrades which include the Admission Desk now being sited along the South wall of the Lobby—(on the right upon entry). The former admission desk placement directly in front of the Permanent Collection galleries has been eliminated.
In the process of these adjustments, it becomes necessary to close the Side Door in part due to our Security Staff and Student workers no longer having a direct sightline down the long hallway to that side entrance. In no small degree due to the very high number of young children who are in the Museum so many days, we have a distinct obligation to assure that all visitors to the Museum are directly observed upon entry.
Of course, several benefits follow from this change, not least of which is the elimination of the ‘first-impression’ challenge we have had for so many years: such a high percentage of Visitors having entered through the Side Door being required to traverse a concrete-block hallway toward a generic office-supply metal desk as their initial experience of the Museum.
While we are certain that the main Front Entrance becoming the sole public entry will result in a much higher-quality arrival experience, and convey a much stronger initial impression of the Museum, we recognize that patterns of access via the door nearest the Parking Lot have many years of existence, and even habit for our frequent guests.
As a result, we ask for everyone’s patience with this change—with the extra 50 steps required perhaps constituting a fitness benefit, as they correspondingly result in a first-impression improvement of very high magnitude.
Many thanks, everyone.
Robert Saarnio, Director
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