Graduate Student Uses Social Media to Showcase University Museum’s Archaeological Collections
When Southern Illinois University Edwardsville graduate student Dana Lewis embarked on a project last fall to bring light to the archaeological collections within the SIUE University Museum, she had thousands of places to start. That’s because the museum’s collections encompass 32,000 objects, ranging from archaeological material to fine art to furniture, located in its warehouse and also in 60 buildings spread out across the three SIUE campuses.
“Being in the museum and walking through the stacks all the time, I get to see all of the objects that many people don’t get to see because we don’t have a permanent exhibition space,” said Lewis. “It gave me an idea. What if I did something to showcase all of this archaeological material without having to bring it outside the museum?”
Lewis’ project originated as a course requirement in her Public Archaeology graduate course taught by Susan M. Kooiman, PhD. Kooiman tasked Lewis, a graduate research assistant at the museum, and her classmates with developing their own public archaeology project.
Based on Lewis’ knowledge of the museum’s anthropology collections, she proposed the idea of a public archaeology social media campaign to the museum’s executive curator, Erin Vigneau-Dimick. Vigneau-Dimick quickly agreed to the project, giving Lewis the reins to the museum’s somewhat dormant Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
“It’s really helpful to me when students can engage with our social media,” said Vigneau-Dimick, whose small staff and large collection of objects don’t leave her much time for social media. “Museums are about education, outreach, connection and culture in society. Social media is a viable means for museum curators and staff to give access to their collections for the armchair visitor. It can drive research interest and create support for onsite museum activities and programming. Using social media to establish our public presence is an exciting way to carry out our mission as a public service center.”
Beginning in October and continuing through November, Lewis posted on the museum’s social media accounts twice each week. The focus of her posts was two-fold: one post highlighted a practice or process within museum curation, such as the proper way to tag an object, while the second post displayed the “artifact of the week,” from bannerstones dating back to 8500-1000 BCE to a two-headed jaguar effigy vessel originating in 500-1200 CE.
“I used a narrative approach to highlight something I was doing or to provide reasoning behind why we do what we do in museums,” explained Lewis. “For the artifact of the week, my goal was to showcase objects from a variety of cultures and explain why they were used or why they were made in the culture.”
Prior to publishing her posts, Lewis consulted with Vigneau-Dimick on the content to ensure it was catering to the specific audience that followed the University Museum on each social media platform. These existing followers were part of the reason why Lewis’ project was successful. Another important reason was her ability to create dynamic posts using hashtags that attracted new followers within the archaeology community, both in the U.S. and abroad, and spurred engagement among the University Museum’s existing followers.
“Many of the followers we gained during the project weren’t local. They were archaeologists and archaeology students from across the country, and in the case of Twitter, some were even from outside the U.S.,” said Lewis. “That was kind of a surprise. I wasn’t expecting that kind of global audience, but the internet is really a global place.”
Following the completion of her project, Lewis wrote a blog post and final paper analyzing the success of her project. She also presented her work at the Public Archaeology Reception hosted by the SIUE Department of Anthropology in December.
This semester, Lewis is continuing to work at the museum as she completes her Master of Arts in Integrative Studies in Cultural Heritage and Resource Management. Upon graduation this spring, Lewis hopes to secure a position in collections management or registration at a museum within the St. Louis area. She believes her public archaeology project has provided her with valuable experience she can take with her on the job.
“When looking in the museum field, especially if you want to stay local, having some social media experience under my belt and more public facing work will be really helpful,” added Lewis. “If you’re working in a smaller museum, you’ll be wearing a lot of different hats, which could include social media.”
Check out Lewis’ posts on the University Museum’s social media accounts at facebook.com/siuemuseum, twitter.com/siuemuseum and instagram.com/siue_museum.
Photo: SIUE graduate student Dana Lewis views items in the University Museum's anthropology collections.
