Art museums differ from history and science museums in the way their collections are exhibited in many ways. Space is a major factor for all three types of museums. History and science museums have items in their collection that take up a lot of space. For example, the California State Railroad Museum has enormous items in their collection that take up a lot of space. One Locomotive takes up about as much space as half of the whole bottom floor at the Crocker Art Museum. However the Crocker Art Museum manages to get numerous paintings in the same amount of space as the one locomotive. I know that using a train as an example is extreme because of the sheer size, but it is an effective example. So space becomes a major problem. Art museums don't need a lot of space and railroad museums do. Another example, The Discovery Museum seemed about the same size as the Crocker Art Museum, but it still housed more artifacts than did The Crocker. Each exhibit in the Discovery Museum had numerous artifacts in a small space. While the Crocker had a few paintings on each wall and each category of paintings were separated in different rooms. On one wall there might have been ten paintings, while in one exhibit at the Discovery Museum there might be 50 artifacts in a 10 by 10 space. I also would like to point out that Art museums differ also in the fact that the paintings are not three dimensional, where a history or science museum has exhibits that are three dimensional. Art museums are more open inside than a history or science museum, so there is more room to move around and in some museums like the Crocker or the Nevada Museum of Art there are places to sit down and reflect on the paintings. Some history and science museums have this but not to the extent that art museums do. Another important difference is the way the museums flow. In an art museum the art can be displayed all together with different styles on the same wall and I think that it would flow nicely. I like the Crocker art museum for my example. On the second floor of the museum there is a European collection. In that collection there are pictures of Romans next to pictures of mountains in the United States. To me that shouldn't flow, but it was pulled off fantastically. Now in the Discovery museum, exhibits were very out of place and were not in chronological order so the exhibits didn't flow very well. This is a problem they are trying to fix because all of the exhibits had been moved around in the past and the museum is now trying to get things back in order. The good thing about art museums is that you never have to worry about having too many paintings in one spot. In the California Indian museum at Sutter's Fort some of the exhibits there were simply too crowded with too many artifacts in the exhibit. Exhibits in a history or science museum are more elaborate than in an art museum. In an art museum you can put up a few paintings on a white wall and there you go instant display. You can't really do that in a history or science museum, it would be very boring, because in a history or science museum the display is very integral to the artifact and whole exhibit.
When it comes to the point of, what patrons are expected to gain from viewing the various collections there are very different answers for the different types of museums mentioned. Some artifacts actually can be placed in either type of museums, and some of the information you get can be the same from the different types of museums. However, a history or science museum tries to teach its patrons about the artifacts in its collection. As in the Discovery Museum in Sacramento each exhibit had text panels, and each text panel tried to explain as much information as possible for that artifact. Usually the date the artifact was made, who made it and sometimes the relevance of the object to the exhibit is squeezed onto the text cards. The amount of information depends on the curator and exhibit designer. Most people don't linger very long at each exhibit so the text information has to be very condensed. Some exhibits might showcase simple items that only need basic information, like when it was made and what it was used for. Other exhibits might want to be a little more elaborate. For example if a famous soldier's gun was on display, simply telling what it was and when it was made wouldn't be enough. Letting the patron know that it was Robert E. Lee's gun is very fascinating. Information is what a history and science museum want the patrons to gain from their exhibits
What a patron might gain in an art museum is very different. A patron will get information from a painting, who painted it and when for example, but the real key is the painting itself. Even with no text information a piece of art still has the ability to intrigue patrons. Every different individual will interpret a piece of art differently, where as an artifact in a history museum, like a sword is well, just a sword and the patrons view it as a sword. . Even if a painting is of a scene from history, it could be viewed as historical and would have a place in a history museum, but also it would have just as much right to be in an art museum. One painting will not get the same response twice. The colors, texture and style of the painting all play an important factor. Many items in a historical museum are not very eye catching and are just very bland. As I mentioned earlier there are many benches to sit on and reflect on individual paintings, and I have seen many people sit on those benches and reflect on what the painting means to them and maybe what the painter was trying to portray. I have yet to see someone sit in front of a train or a car and reflect on that object and try to figure out why it was made.