Guy King wrote:
The message t
from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:

er - what's the Secret Hills Centre?

An idea with plenty of potential - there's an area of hills south of
Shrewsbury called the Long Mynd. It's a very strange place, more like
Scotland than Shropshire. Open moorland with lots of hidden valleys and
the like. Used to have substantial mineral deposits, too, being
volcanic. The idea of having a place that explains to anyone who's
interested why it's like that and all about the ecology etc. is a good
one, but utterly and irredeemably[1] let down by the presentation which
is aimed at a the junior school level.

There's nothing wrong with pitching exhibits low like that provided that
more in-depth information is readily to hand for those who might be
interested. Perhaps on pull-out drawers or flip-up things, or maybe even
(stand by for a really old idea) on a bit of paper. But when the only
information available at all is superficial, and asking the curators
gets either a "don't know" or in one case a response that was utterly
wrong then it's failed completely.

I was similarly seething when I left the painfully expensive Exploratory
in Birmingham. At least a third of the exhibits weren't working, several
of those that were were incorrectly labled, and the Hurricane[2] hanging
from the ceiling was labled as a Spitfire[2]. Just thinking about it
still makes me cringe.

[1] Short of a satisfying fire.
[2] May have been the other way round - it was five years ago and for
fairly obvious reasons I've never been back.

Seems to me something wrong with our culture, where people that dont
know and dont care are so pervasive that even information services are
staffed by them, and this is considered prefectly ok. At least there
are some good places around, but it is disappointing to see the junk
exhibits.

Also I dont know how dumbed down sites / places are supposed to kindle
any interest when theyre dumbed to primary school level. Surely its not
hard to have a mix of exhibits aimed at people with a basic
understanding of things as well as the lost.


NT