So you’ve vowed not to leave the annual meeting in May without a large dose of culture. Well, in a week in Chicago it will be difficult to more than scratch the surface of the diverse museums, cultural experiences, and historical sites that the nation’s third-largest city offers.

Start with the rare chance to view artifacts that predate the founding of Chicago—by 2,000 years, give or take a few. The renowned Field Museum of Natural History has a special exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are thought to be the oldest surviving copies of the Old Testament. Scraps and nearly complete sections of all the Old Testament books except the Book of Esther have been found since a Palestinian peasant first discovered the scrolls in 1947. They appear to date from about 300 B.C. to 70 A.D.

By the time of the annual meeting, Sue, the Field’s guaranteed new crowd-pleaser, should also be welcoming meeting goers. Sue is the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, and she did not come cheap, costing the museum $8.4 million at auction. The Field is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free on Wednesdays.

Many people are surprised to learn that the first colonial settler in what is now Chicago was a black man, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. A museum named for the Haitian-French trader, who arrived in 1780, is dedicated to the experience of blacks in the U.S. Located in Washington Park in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood, the museum’s exhibits commemorate such historical turning points as slavery, the huge migration of blacks to the Northern states, and the civil rights movement. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Sunday when it opens at noon. Admission is free on Thursdays.

Hyde Park is also home to one of the city’s world-class attractions, the Museum of Science and Industry. Anything to do with the tragic sinking of the Titanic continues to fascinate, and the largest exhibit ever mounted of artifacts recovered from the wreckage will be on display until September. Among the most spectacular exhibits will be the largest piece of the wreckage brought up from the ship’s North Atlantic grave—a 26-foot by 20-foot section of the hull. Tickets will be required for this exhibit and are available by calling (773) 684-1414 or online at <www.msichicago.org/tickets/mainmenu.html>. Click on "Buy Tickets."

The science museum opens at 9:30 daily and closes at 4 p.m. on weekdays and 5:30 p.m. on weekends. Admission is free on Thursdays.

If you don’t get your fill of technological wonders at the Museum of Science and Industry, try heading to the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum or the John C. Shedd Aquarium. Both are part of the Museum Campus on Lake Shore Drive, just south of Grant Park. This is also the home of the Field Museum. The planetarium opens at 9 a.m. every day, and closing times vary throughout the week. Tuesday is free-admission day. The aquarium is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. on weekends.

Cosmopolitan and cultured Chicago also offers a host of smaller, more specialized museums. These include the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Oriental Institute Museum, the American Police Center and Museum, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the Mexican Fine Arts Center, the Polish Museum of America, the Ukrainian National Museum, the Peace Museum, and the International Museum of Surgical Science.

A unique offering for those tired of traditional museums housed in cultural centers or impressive marble edifices is the Pullman Historic District. In the 19th century, the Pullman Palace Car Company built a community for its railroad workers. A walking tour that takes about one-and-a-half hours begins at the Hotel Florence after a short video—Florence was the name of Pullman’s daughter—gives visitors access to homes of the workers and company executives as well as to company stables and the district’s Methodist church. The visitors center is open from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday and to 3 p.m. Sunday.