With the app to Chicago

Research trip to the University of Illinois

Jens Alvermann is a doctoral researcher in Museum Studies at the Institute for Prehistory and Early History of the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities. His main research location is the Neanderthal Museum, and his topic is “Mobile Media in the Museum”. In October and November 2015, he spent five weeks at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Good planning is half the work

Before I could get started, there was a lot to organize: I had to find accommodations, book flights, apply for a visa and devise a schedule for my stay. My colleagues at the University of Cologne did their best to help me, as did the UoC’s International Office. In Chicago, I got fantastic support from the “Museum and Exhibition Studies Program” at the UIC and from my colleague Nancy Harmon, who also does research on museum apps. The financial support I received from the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School’s program “a.r.t.e.s. international – for all” decisively contributed to the success of my stay.

Research in the middle of brick buildings, parks and Lake Michigan

At the beginning of October, I was all set to go. After my arrival in Chicago, I went to my apartment in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, which is well known for its old brick buildings and parks, and located directly by Lake Michigan. The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, where I conducted the research project with my colleague Nancy Harmon, was located just around the corner. The research project evolved from a spin-off of my work at the Neanderthal Museum that addresses media information. This made it possible for me to develop an app for the Nature Museum in Chicago. The app uses so called beacons – small transmitters that make it possible for visitors to have additional information on the exhibition interactively displayed on their smartphones at seven stations along the way. At the same time, the app collects information that is relevant for visitor research. In the summer of 2016, I hope to have collected enough data to be able to publish my research results in a paper and present it at an international conference in the Austrian city of Graz. 

Working on the UIC campus in the middle of Chicago

One of the first things I did in Chicago was to explore the UIC campus, which is located right in the middle of town, close to the “Loop” with its skyscrapers and the famous Chicago Elevated. Dr. Therese Quinn, the director of the Museum and Exhibition Studies Program at the UIC’s College of Architecture, Design and the Arts, officially invited me and provided an office for me to work in. I could work on my project for the Nature Museum there and prepare my lecture. Almost every day, I commuted between my office and the project location. I quickly came to feel at home in this city of 3 million inhabitants – albeit temporarily.

In my lecture on “Mobile Media in the Museum Space”, I had the opportunity to talk to students about my dissertation project and the Neanderthal Museum in the city of Mettmann, my main research location. I was able to tell them a lot about the museum’s history and explain how the research project is embedded into its museographical context. Together with Nancy Harmon, I told them about our joint research project at the Nature Museum. After the lecture, we held a workshop in which we helped students develop their own museum apps.