The museum’s collection covers an expansive spectrum of telecommunication history. Ranging from early gallows frame telephones to modern smartphones, its collection demonstrates how technology has progressed throughout time.
Volunteers sent out feelers to former telephone workers, prompting items from garages and sheds to come pouring out as tangible reminders of an era gone by and an opportunity for growth in today’s globalized world.
Education
Telephone Historical Centre serves as an acquisition, research, organization, documentation, and exhibition center for telecommunications history materials. Their collections stimulate children and adults alike in discovering engineering – from Alexander Graham Bell’s wooden wall-mounted operator directed phones through today’s multifunctional pocket cell phones.
As part of its response to the pandemic, HBEC initiated a telephone outreach project designed to keep registry participants engaged without needing in-person events or programs. This initiative collected various types of data including mental and physical well-being data as well as accessing resources, strengths and challenges in navigating through pandemic and more.
Additionally, the program team created an exhaustive directory of services callers could recommend to address participants’ expressed needs if necessary. Formative evaluation results demonstrated that this approach to telephone outreach could provide companionship and decrease social isolation during times of crisis; and published results have advanced literature and supported replicable similar projects.
Exhibitions
The Telephone Historical Centre (THC) specializes in collecting, researching, organizing, documenting and exhibiting telephone history materials. With an expansive collection that spans from Alexander Graham Bell’s first patent of 1876 up until today’s sleek cell phones.
Museum collections evoke strong feelings in visitors, providing tangible representations of historic milestones while giving us new appreciation of how innovative thinking has created modern communications technology.
One of the THG’s most beloved exhibits is a WWII era phone booth which allows visitors to leave video comments. This simple yet effective tool encourages all ages to reflect upon and share personal experiences while their videos are edited into the final presentation, drawing visitors back into the museum. This system has proven its worth as an effective means of drawing newcomers back.
Events
The Edmonton Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telecommunications museums, serving as an important research, documentation, and exhibition facility.
Its collection is an engaging representation of how communication technology has progressed since Alexander Graham Bell accidentally invented it in 1876 to the multifunctional devices in our pockets today. Additionally, tours and interactive workshops are available.
The museum’s Traveling Trunks program brings its artifacts directly to schools and community groups for hands-on learning experiences, giving those who cannot visit directly an opportunity to gain knowledge about telecommunications history and its continuing impact on our world. This project used short telephone surveys to collect data on older adults’ experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic and provide resources. Caller feedback indicated that this project was fun and engaging, with callers particularly appreciating orientation training and debriefing meetings HBEC held to provide ongoing help for participants and their families during this research project.
Research
The museum provides an acquisition, research, organization, documentation and exhibition center for telephone history materials. Its collections foster interest in engineering through educational programs that compare modern telecommunications with vintage technology from yesteryear – creating the curiosity that drove Alexander Graham Bell to develop his attic workshop and develop communication devices that changed our world forever.
THG conducted a pilot project during the COVID 19 pandemic that consisted of telephone outreach to home care patients and creating a database to capture results of this effort. For privacy purposes, all data were de-identified before being analyzed using descriptive statistics. Initial findings indicated that phone calls facilitated access to health care by increasing patients’ ability to locate, contact and engage primary care providers. CTMs were also instrumental in helping patients transition smoothly to their new primary doctors, alleviating access difficulties and forgoing care thereby decreasing emergency room use and access problems. Furthermore, those involved with the call program identified additional outcomes not captured in the database such as improved personal and professional satisfaction for themselves and other participants in their program.
