What a Ride...

This has been the inaugural year for Virginia’s Top 10Endangered Artifacts program, which is part of our larger Virginia CollectionsInitiative. The past few weeks have been our public voting ‘contest.’ To be honest, we weren’t sure what to expect during this first year. Will people be engaged enough to “vote” on an artifact from a collecting institution? Will the media be intrigued by the “stories” behind artifacts and their conservation and preservation needs? Will we accomplish, through the public voting, our goal of engaging the public and the media, and raising awareness of collections issues for all museums?

Of course we hoped so. We were bold enough to even “think” so. But we didn’t know. For sure. Because, of course, during public voting there could be something like an earthquake or a hurricane to take away people’s attention (but what are the chances?). There could be a major day of remembrance that dominates the media (still can’t believe it’s been 10 years). All sorts of things could happen to distract people and take their attention away from our little campaign.

Well, I’ve got news to report. Today is our final day of voting. We have about 90,000 votes as of now. The public has been incredibly engaged, with museums’ ‘groupees’ pitting themselves against each other in a friendly competition to see who can get the most votes for “their” museum’s artifact. As I type this, I have another window on my computer open which shows me every time someone casts a vote – it is clicking away every 3 – 4 seconds!!! Right now I can HONESTLY say, “Every 4 seconds in Virginia, a member of the public shows their support for artifact conservation.” Wow.

As far as the media goes, the AP picked up our story last week and it has hit news, radio, and TV across the state and in Washington, DC. Virginia Living Magazine ran a piece on the project, too. Here are just a few of the stories:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/1-week-left-in-online-voting-for-virginia-top-10-endangered-artifacts/2011/09/13/gIQAlFTnOK_story.html

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=2541598

http://www.nbc29.com/story/15454936/most-endangered-artifacts

http://blogs.roanoke.com/arts/2011/08/virginia-museum-of-transporations-1776-engine-among-candidates-for-top-10-endangered-artifacts/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/house-divided/post/civil-war-items-compete-to-be-among-top-10-endangered-artifacts/2010/12/20/gIQArCV1fK_blog.html

So, what’s next? We’ll see how it all pans out. Public voting ends tonight. Our independent peer review panel will meet soon to determine Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts for 2011. We’ll have “the big day” in November (stay tuned!) announcing those Top 10. Then museums will be armed with a little more marketing know-how, and some fine voting numbers, when they begin the challenging work of engaging donors or grantors to help fund conservation of artifacts. I’ll keep you posted in this space, but we are hopeful that our little project has helped put conservation on the map in Virginia!

Heather Widener,
Communciations Director, VAM