AUBURN - As Lauren Chyle settles into her new role as curator of the Cayuga Museum of History and Art, she sees the museum's potential to become more engaging and interactive.

“There's always the lofty dreams of touch screen and all that fancy stuff, but there are always limitations, especially with a small museum,” she said. “It could be as simple as getting a scanner so we can do more things with photographs or as big as getting the big computers.”

Being fresh out of school, having just finished a master's degree in museum studies and another in art history, she knows about all the latest technologies museums use in exhibits. Her goal is to make the exhibits engage the audience more which could mean incorporating sound and video into the displays.

For example, the museum received a grant from the Emerson Foundation that will help fund the museum's largest exhibit to date that will focus on the foundation and the Dunn and McCarthy Shoe Co.

“We'll be able to do some really exciting things with graphics, and we're putting together a documentary, so I'm really excited to be working on that,” she said.

One thing that the museum has been working on is getting families with children into the museum, Eileen McHugh, the museum's executive director, said.

“That means we have to get things for children to touch,” McHugh said. “We want to show them that history is about them too.”

But before Chyle can start on the path of getting any of these improvements, she has to deal with her first major challenge.

The county budget for 2009 may not include any money for the running of the museum, which received $13,000 this year.

“Right now, we're going to stay optimistic and hope that we can communicate with the county and try and get that back,” she said.

Tuesday the Cayua County Ways and Means Committee voted to reinstate funding for the museum, making it possible for funding to be added back to the budget pending approval by a vote from the legislature.

But, if the money doesn't come back, Chyle is prepared to start looking for ways to cut costs.

“That might mean you have to produce more stuff in house,” she said. “I'll have to cut labels instead of having them printed which is difficult. It calls for some better time management and lots of planning up front.”

The museum will also have to spend more time working on fundraising, which it already does, to try and make up the gap, she explained.

Making her own labels and helping with increased fundraising would add another task to Chyle's already long job description.

Most curators are responsible for using objects to create a story within the museum's displays, she said. Here, since it is such a small museum, Chyle is responsible for caring for the museums artifacts.

This job is great for a first museum job, though, because it offers the opportunity to take on a variety of responsibilities, she feels.

“I get to do a lot of different things here,” she said. “One day I'm writing and researching, the next I'm digging through artifacts; it's always different.”

While digging through the thousands of artifacts that the museum holds in its attic may be time consuming, it is the objects themselves that fascinate Chyle.

“I do love the objects. It's really fun to be able to see all these old things, whether it's clothing or household objects,” she said. “They really carry a story and speak to people too. People love to come in and look at a photo and say, ‘Wait I've been there and I know that person.”

“We're very pleased with her,” McHugh said. “She is extremely outgoing, and people skills are a big part of what we do.”