Brown, Lorraine

" I have a degree in Biology and Geology from Queen's.

In 1972 I got my first serious job, as a clerk-catalogues at the Mineral Sciences Division of the National Museum of Natural Science in Ottawa. Needless to say, with a degree I wanted a better job. Eventually I went to the museumobiles, my first interpreter's job, then to NMNS when it re-opened to the public in 1974. We were called museum interpreters." In 1972-73 she was a Museum Interpreter with the National Museums Museumobile Program based in Nova Scotia.

In 1973-76 she was an Interpreter at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Ottawa ON.

In 1976-85 she was an Interpreter with the Ontario Science Centre and in the later years in Exhibit research. "Being a science lover, I guess the curators at the museum were my first mentors. Some of them were better at communicating to the public than others, for example Stewart McDonald, Dale Russell and Dennis Alsford of CMC. At the Science Centre, my career moved more over into interpretation through exhibits, and the exhibit designers there became mentors in my learning about the power of exhibits. The late '70s were a heady time for people working for science centres. We were the leading edge of science education. I learned a lot working there, about how people respond to exhibits, what works and what doesn't." In 1986 she was an independent consultant and exhibit designer with Apropos Planning based in Owen Sound in partnership with June Creelman and Linda Champoux-Ares. "The Chinese exhibition and Food Show at OSC were a couple of big ones. I also developed a series of interactive exhibits testing various aspects of physical fitness while at OSC. The Canada Pavilion at Expo '92 was another good one. Apropos planned the exhibits for the Canadian Pavilion. Since then, I spent a year as guest curator at the now defunct Seagram Museum, developing an exhibit and writing a book on the history of Canadian whisky. I've been very proud of the exhibits I developed for the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls. One that I think is going to be interesting is a project for which I've just completed the interpretive plan: an Aboriginal Heritage Garden in northern New Brunswick, which interprets native use of plants in the past and today. And I'm currently working on the exhibit concept for a new fossil gallery at CMN, which I'm very excited about." "I was on the executive of the Canadian Association for Women in Science for a while, but no others that are related to interpretation. I was the founding president of the Owen Sound Field Naturalists and am now their newsletter editor. That's quite closely tied in to nature interpretation. I'm about (in 1999) to become a member of the board of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists too." She won a Canadian Science Writers' Award for an article in Equinox in 1992.

She is the author of 200 Years of Tradition: The Story of Canadian Whisky and The Trent-Severn Waterway: an Environmental Exploration "Interpretation has allowed me to indulge in my favourite pursuit -- learning neat new stuff -- all the time. So it means that my work has become my hobby, and my hobby my work. I like it when that happens!"