Virginia Association of Museums Blog

A Video Snippet in Case You Missed It!

2012-01-26T21:38:00.001-05:00

#vamadvocacy

University Art Museums and Galleries: A Student Perspective, Part II

2011-12-22T09:29:00.010-05:00

Accessing Art on Campus

An integral part of any education is hands-on experience, particularly at the university level, where students are preparing themselves for future careers. This hands-on experience can translate differently from field to field, however, any school would seem horribly negligent to offer a major in chemistry without including access to a laboratory, or a medical degree without experience in an actual hospital. For a student majoring in the arts, hands-on experience means access and exposure to art objects. However, often this fundamental access is viewed as merely secondary to other university concerns. In order to correct this, universities must realize what an asset art collections are to their campuses. Where a chemistry lab is only truly essential to a science major, an art museum or gallery may play host to the education of all categories of students, faculty, and the community at large. Exposure to art can inspire persons from all walks of life, and easy access to these objects should be a great concern of the universities.

In educating Art majors, obviously art would play an essential part. Merely viewing works in the pages of a textbook, however, is not enough. To understand the impasto of a Rembrandt, the sheer size of a Gericault, the tactile qualities of an African mask, students must be able to view these items in person. No photograph or slide can due proper justice to the real physicality of a work of art. Student access to art is a necessary practicum, especially in the study of art. The position of an art collection, and the gallery or museum space that holds it must be viewed as an essential part of the university campus. This connection between art object and art education must be respected and promoted. A student researching a work of art has as much right to access as a student researching science or medicine. Any neglect on the part of a university to create such an atmosphere is to seriously impair the abilities of its student, and to limit their educational tools. Art objects are a vital necessity on any liberal arts campus, and access to these objects should be considered in all university development.

Access to works of art should extend beyond art majors and faculty, public access should be guaranteed as well. Football stadiums and basketball courts open the campus up to the surrounding community, but a university art museum or gallery could offer another means of connection. Exposure to special exhibitions, permanent collections, artist talks, and objects on loan opens a gateway to the public, inviting them into the academic side of the campus, and creating a connection to the outside world. Just as the public and the campus may come together to cheer on the university team, so to can they come together to discuss an art exhibition. If a university utilizes these possibilities, the opportunity to establish an open and multi-faceted dialogue between all sides of the campus and the public at large could exist.

It is important to recognize artworks as a vital part of any campus, whether it is a work by a master painter, or a student-created sculpture on the quad. Access should be guaranteed to these objects, and pains should be taken to integrate collections into a more active role in campus life.

by Taylor Horak
B.A. Student, Art History
Virginia Commonwealth University
Department of Art History, School of the Arts

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Winter VAM Voice Sneak-Peek

2011-12-07T16:39:00.001-05:00

Soon, our members will be receiving the Winter 2011 edition of the VAM Voice newsmagazine, complete with annual report. We've focused this edition of the Voice around the idea of advocacy and the importance of being an advocate for your museum. VAM got a legislator's perspective on this, and we're giving you a sneak peek, below. Members can look for the full newsmagazine in your email-box soon!

Many thanks to legislator David L. Bulova for answering the following questions for us. Mr. Bulova represents Fairfax City and parts of Fairfax County in the Virginia House of Delegates, 37th District. Find out more at www.davidbulova.com.

What do you know about the museums in your district? Would hearing from your museum constituents be of interest/helpful to you?

I have several wonderful museums and historic properties located in my district, including the Blenheim House in the City of Fairfax (c. 1858-60), the Fairfax County Courthouse (c. 1799), and Mount Gilead in historic Centreville (c. 1785). All three are integral parts of the character of the surrounding communities. Hearing from my museum constituents and the historic preservation community is very helpful to me. In fact, it is how I became aware of the need for HB1963, which passed in 2011 and allows local governments to create resident curator programs to manage historic properties.

From your perspective as a legislator, what is the most helpful information a museum constituent can provide for you?

Museums are an important part of protecting our cultural heritage and it is important that we make the investments necessary to preserve historic objects and properties for future generations. Especially in tight budget times it is critical to hear from constituents about the importance of museums, and their contribution to our economy, since they are competing with many other services and programs throughout Virginia. It is also helpful to hear about creative ideas for preservation and programming that do not involve funding, or that capitalize on public-private partnerships. The resident curator program was a great example of out-of-the-box thinking.
What would be your advice to a person who has never been involved in the advocacy process, but is interested in starting?

Make an appointment to sit down with your legislator several months before session, which starts on the second Wednesday of January. Most legislators love to discuss the legislative process and can help a constituent develop an advocacy plan. Before making an appointment, think through what you are interested in accomplishing. Do you have a specific idea? Do you want to create greater awareness? Remember that in Virginia, legislators are part time and only meet a couple of months out of the year. If you have a specific idea, think through whether it will cost money and who will likely support or oppose the idea. Touch base with other stakeholders to see what they think as well. Be patient and understand that your legislator will help out if at all possible, but that legislators also need to be strategic about what they introduce, and when. Timing is everything, especially when trying to get an idea through the committee system. Finally, remember that advocacy is about relationship building. Stay in touch with your legislator and invite him or her to special events and functions in the museum community. Your legislator won’t be able to make all of these events, but will appreciate being given the opportunity to participate.

Top 10 News from Richmond

2011-11-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

Top 10 News from Roanoke

2011-11-14T19:00:00.002-05:00

University Art Museums and Galleries - a Student Perspective

2011-10-16T23:00:00.000-04:00

No matter where you are in Virginia, you’re only as far away from an art museum or gallery as you are from a college or university. Around 30 college or university art museums / galleries are scattered across the state, and that number doesn’t even include independent university collections, historic houses or other specialized museums. During the Spring 2011 semester, I was a part of an undergraduate museum studies class at VCU took an entire semester to look at the phenomenon of university art museums and galleries, visiting a small handful. From the museums’ functions within the university to collections, cite visits showed that each institution was unique and a great asset to the Commonwealth. But while museum professionals know where to find them, does the public? Or––maybe an even more important question––do students know where to find them? While many students will search for internships in DC, New York and other museum hubs, they only need to look outside their dorms.

University and college art museums and galleries already provide invaluable resources to students, and now we need them now more than ever. All students are more than aware of the job market that awaits them after graduation. Many are looking to fill their CVs and resumes with experience related to their fields, and university museums are in a unique position to prepare students academically and professionally.

Most students are looking for internships. While formal internship programs are time-consuming to organize, having some kind of structure really helps utilize the work interns do. For example, long-term projects allow students to invest in the work they do––plus, interns that come to work (because that’s really how we look at it) and can pick up where they left off spend less time hovering around the office doors of staff, waiting to be assigned a task. The University of Virginia Art Museum and the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary list formal internship programs on their web pages. The Muscarelle even requires students to have already volunteered before applying for internships. On the job training is really the only way to acquire the skills needed to work in a museum, so students are looking for opportunities to gain the necessary experience in proximity to where they live and study.

An internship may even help a student decide if he or she really wants to work in a museum. If students are considering graduate school or an academic career, they are most likely looking for opportunities to conduct research. Sure, students can contact university museum directors and curators directly about gaining special access to the collection, but does the wider university community know that a collection is available for research? This past spring, one exhibit at Randolph College’s Maier Museum of Art, Nature Perfected: The Art of Botanical Illustration, was curated by a pre-med student. Reaching across departments and disciplines is one unique opportunity that museums have when operating under a university umbrella. Partnering with professors to create courses that relate a particular field of study to the museum would also offer more university-wide exposure. And regardless of academic background, students are looking for opportunities to learn new skills.

So university museums, keep offering and expanding programs, internships and research opportunities for your students!

And, students, don’t pass up those internships and other opportunities that your university museums offer—especially while you’re still on a meal plan!

by
Sharayah Cochran
M.A. Student, Museum Studies
Virginia Commonwealth University
Department of Art History, School of the Arts

The End of PowerPoint

2011-09-27T13:45:00.001-04:00

There's lots of advice on the web about how to avoid it. But PowerPoint, or any other presentation tool (check out Prezi) is only as good as the person making the presentation. A great presentation leaves you inspired, gives you ideas, helps you solve a problem, allows you to discover something new. Too often, we use digital slides as a crutch, cram in too much text, jam too many slides into too little time, and do not rely on the power of our ideas, our experiences, and our stories. And, because we try to cram all of that information in our presentation, we stifle questions and dialog. Whatever your calling in the museum field, you most likely have to communicate information to peers, patrons, and/or the public on a regular basis.

At this year's American Association for State and Local History Conference, I attended a session entitled, "The End of PowerPoint." Presenters Lindsay Baker and Linda Norris delivered—and modeled--several good ideas for conference session presentations and for presentations in general. (Linda blogged about it in her popular Uncataloged Museum blog, too.)

Two ideas stood out for me. The first was a demonstration (using "good" and "bad" PowerPoints) of the Pecha-Kucha approach. Basically, it's twenty slides, twenty seconds per slide. The approach is a powerful means to focus what you are saying, using the slide deck as a powerful visual aid, not as a visual crutch. Imagine that. You have 400 seconds-- six minutes and forty seconds--to make your point. Do the standard conference panel math: panel lasts ninety minutes with three presenters. Each presenter uses the pecha-kucha approach and you end up with just over twenty minutes of presentation and nearly seventy minutes to reflect, react, comment, and question. That's a proportion more in line with promoting dialog than the standard conference math: three presenters, twenty to twenty-five minutes each, with only fifteen (often) to thirty (rarely) minutes left for questions and discussion.

The second approach was to present via an interview. At first, I didn't think this made much sense but, as Lindsay interviewed Linda about a project she worked on, I realized the power of it. The agreement beforehand was that there was nothing off limits and they had not scripted or outlined the interview. As Linda described the project (which you can read about here), guided by Lindsay's questions, interest in the attendees led us, without prompting, to begin asking questions about the project. For ten minutes or so, we were not talking about presentations, we were talking about the project. The attendee questions stemmed from the answers Linda gave to Lindsay's questions and provided more detail or further information on that related to the participants’ interests. I think the approach has merit for discussing a project or related projects, and avoids the "show and tell" tendency of panel presentations.

Lindsay and Linda presented other ideas, including a small group activity where we had to come up with alternative proposals for programs based on the titles of actual sessions at the conference. It was a fun, creative way to talk about and think about applying what we had learned, while modeling yet another effective technique for more involvement.

The session inspired me to be think more creatively about how to promote a greater level of engagement in my own presentations at work--or in panels--to instruct, to inspire, and to lead. Why not head over to the "tips for presenters" page on the VAM website and see what is there that will inspire you or suggest resources that work for you. Also check out Linda Norris’ blog, The Uncataloged Museum. She may be putting the slide deck up from the “End of PowerPoint presentation.”

Happy Presenting!

GARY SANDLING | VICE-PRESIDENT | VISITOR PROGRAMS & SERVICES

MONTICELLO | 434.984.9833

www.monticello.org

What a Ride...

2011-09-20T15:51:00.000-04:00

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

Leaving a Legacy to Your Profession

2011-08-01T14:41:00.002-04:00

Well, my brother the attorney finally convinced me – I’m not getting any younger (the big 50th birthday hit me last fall), and it was time to think of where I wanted my millions (well, maybe a few thousand) to go after I’m done with it here on earth. Yes, it was time to draw up my WILL! It gave me sort of a spooky feeling to be thinking of planning for my death, but I must admit that I did want to make up my own mind about where my hard-earned money would end up.

My husband and I gave this a lot of thought over many months. We were not able to have children, so the option of leaving any funds to our kids was off the table. Along with my twin brother, I’m the youngest in my family, as is my husband in his. We figured our siblings could cope on their own, so maybe we’d look toward the next generation. We’ve lots of nieces and nephews, we thought, so let’s help them out! Of course, none of them have chosen the lucrative museum field, so they’re actually making or likely to make much more in their chosen professions than we ever will. Okay, so they don’t really need the bequest.

So…what to do with the bit that we are squirreling away? Charities and educational foundations, of course! We’ve come up with a few crusades that are very near and dear to us – a scholarship for high school students (my husband taught for 30 years), funds for homeless kitties (cats make great children!). And lastly, a cause that is nearest and dearest to my heart: Museums!

Once I thought of that, all was clear. What have I spent my first 27 years of professional life doing? Working for museums! What is the one organization I have had a membership in for all of those years? VAM! The Virginia Association of Museums has been valuable to me since I first joined as a graduate student in the early 1980s, and it’s remained a crucial part of my professional life ever since. Now that I have been on the VAM Council for several years, I have come to see how the organization works behind-the-scenes for its members. And, clearly, I have come to realize that VAM cannot survive without support both now and in the future from all of us. I can work in the museum field for another 27 years, and will remain on the VAM Council until the organization tires of me, but the best thing I can do for VAM is to name it as a beneficiary in my will, and that’s what I’ve done. It won’t be a huge amount of money that will come to VAM in the end, but every little bit helps.

Come on, VAM colleagues, think ahead and plan for not only your future, but VAM’s as well! Draw up your will, and include the Virginia Association of Museums as a beneficiary.

- Tracy

Tracy J. Gillespie
Historic Site Supervisor
Aldie Mill Historical Park
Mt. Zion Historical Park/Gilbert's Corner Regional Park
Properties of Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority

Purposeful Museum Blogs

2011-07-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

To complement the third VAM member White Paper being released today, entitled Blogging: An Introduction for Museums, this blog post highlights a few museum blogs that we have come across that we think are innovative, purposeful, and provide a conversational 'voice' for their museums.

Wilton House Museum’s Found in the Collection
Museum and Gardens’ Hermitage Collection Connection

These are two innovative blogs that use the museum collections to give life to the blog posts.
The blog posts reciprocate by giving life to objects, telling their stories, and discussing the
overall story the museum has to tell in the process.

Library of Virginia:
Multiple Exposure: Catablog of the Prints and Photographs Collection at the Library ofVirginia
Out of the Box: Notes from the Archives at the Library of Virginia
The LVA has two blogs. They’ve used the first, their “Catablog,” to post prints and photographs
from their collection. The second is similar to the Wilton House and Hermitage blogs in that it
focuses on collections from the LVA archives. I think these collections-focused blogs are great
because they not only enrich the experience of learning about the collection for visitors, but they
extend the museum’s reach and ‘flavor’ well beyond their walls by hosting ‘conversations’ about
their collections for a worldwide audience.
Gari Melcher’s Home and Studio at Belmont: Special Events blog

This is a smart marketing move, aimed at people who may want to rent facilities at Belmont for
a special event such as a wedding. Chocked full of great pictures and stories, I’m sure it’s
enticing for those looking for such a venue!

Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum’s Pushing the Envelope

This is an interesting blog in that it highlights the history behind various stamp designs, and it
shares the content of letters written at different times in history. It’s a smart move for this
museum to have a blog, since they have a lot to offer the very-niche-but-also-very-passionate
audience of stamp collectors around the world.
As stated by Nina Simon of the popular Museum 2.0 blog,
“I believe that the museum blogosphere is still underdeveloped and there's lots of room for people to share their inspiration, experience, and ideas.”

Check out the rest of her post, where she outlines six MORE museum-related blogs that show promise
(December 2010: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2010/12/six-museum-related-blogs-you-mightnot.
html).

If your museum has a blog, please share that with us - we're always looking to connect to museum blogs!

What's in a Name?

2011-07-06T06:04:00.000-04:00

As you may have heard, the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park has a new name - the Virginia Museum of the Civil War. Read Director* Scott Harris' commentary on the name change:

Since 1967, the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park has told the story of the battle that occurred here on May 15, 1864, with special emphasis on the role of the Virginia Military Institute Cadets. We also describe how that battle and the war generally impacted the Bushong family (whose farm was at the center of the fighting) and other residents of the Shenandoah Valley. The other major part of our interpretation is the overview of military activity in the state during the entire war, using exhibits originally created for the Civil War Centennial Center in Richmond from 1961 to 1965.

Adoption of the name “Virginia Museum of the Civil War” places our overall interpretation of the war at the forefront, while retaining the Battle of New Market and Bushong/Shenandoah Valley aspects of our mission. With the Sesquicentennial upon us, many travelers will (hopefully!) be coming to the Commonwealth for Civil War heritage tourism experiences. It is our hope that the “brand” embodied in the Virginia Museum of the Civil War will resonate with these travelers. The broader vision of the museum will also facilitate additional exhibits and programming in the future, which will be developed as resources allow.

What VMI has done with the New Market name isn’t a new concept. In Virginia alone, I can think of a few relevant examples of institutions that have (or are) undergoing transitions in their names, usually to broaden their appeal and build awareness. The Roanoke Transportation Museum became the Virginia Museum of Transportation. The National Museum of the Marine Corps consolidated two former museums, the Marine Corps Historical Center in Washington and the Marine Corps Air-Ground Museum in Quantico. Jamestown Festival Park became Jamestown Settlement, and the other two Jamestown locations operated by the National Park Service and Preservation Virginia have also seen revisions. I seem to recall that the Yorktown Victory center was once going to be the Museum of the American Revolution, though variations of that name are being used in several locations.

Among Civil War sites, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society’s “Confederate Museum” adopted its current name, the Museum of the Confederacy, in 1970. Pamplin Park Civil War Site (opened in 1994) evolved into Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier. In 2000, the Tredegar National Civil War Center opened in Richmond, but was later designated the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

The list goes on. For kicks, I Googled “museum name changes” and got over 49,000,000 hits—though I think there may be a few repeats!

Getting back to New Market, there will be considerable overlap in use of both “Virginia Museum of the Civil War” and “New Market Battlefield State Historical Park” for some time. The latter name currently appears in many publications, signs, and online resources. Over time, the new name will assume greater prominence. However this evolution proceeds, the primary goals will be the same—to help visitors understand the rich legacies of Virginia in the Civil War, including the Battle of New Market and the Shenandoah Valley.

Scott
*Scott Harris is leaving the Virginia Museum of the Civil War in July to assume directorship of the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library. Best of luck to Scott and both museums as they make leadership transitions!

Cultsha Xpo a Great Success for Richmond's Cultural Nonprofit Community

2011-06-29T07:06:00.000-04:00

I'm just speaking by way of what I saw last Saturday. VAM attended the first annual Cultsha Xpo, which was put on by CultureWorks for Richmond at the Science Museum of Virginia. Not knowing what to expect from this inaugural event, I pulled up to find that parking would be a challenge. Turns out I got lucky and found a space right out front, but the place was absolutely packed! Thousands of Richmond's "Cultural shareholders" were on hand to register, pick up their Cultsha Bucks, and "spend" the day away!

We were representing our TimeTravelers program, and gave away a ton of information, and sold several hundreds of dollars worth of TimeTravelers' passport guides. As the crowds slowly diminished and we began to pack up at the end of a long, tiring, but exciting day, I saw a lot of smiling faces, a lot of Cultsha Bucks being counted out, and a "coming together" and bouyancy in the cultural community. Thank you CultureWorks! We'll be there next year.

Flashmob at Cultsha Xpo:

Field Trip Perspectives: Henricus Historical Park (Part 3 of 3)

2011-06-09T09:12:00.000-04:00

Museum: Henricus Historical Park
Audience: 2^nd grade
Format: 2 hour guided exploration of life at Henricus

Luckily, I had a day to recover between my 5^th grader’s field trip and my 2^nd grader’s. The second grade traveled to Henricus Historical Park. Unlike the 5^th grade trip, it was a relatively short distance from school, and therefore was not an extended day trip. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I had never visited Henricus, and had never been on a field trip of children younger than 4^th grade.

Upon reporting to school, we received our groups and instructions from the teachers – we were to stay in a large group that would then be taken through the program by the museum educators. As chaperones, we were to help shepherd the kids from place to place, assist when someone needed a bathroom break or a behavior reminder, and generally help make sure the kids were engaged (they were extremely engaged the entire time!).

This was a very different format from the trip I had just taken, and my role as chaperone was different as a result. While the kids at the Aquarium had taken their own initiative to see this exhibit or that, the museum educators at Henricus were guiding us through various aspects of life for the Powhatans and the English 400 years ago in Colonial Virginia. The program had the kids planting seeds the way the Powhatan Indians would have, hoeing tobacco, and grinding corn. The kids were experiencing a ‘living lesson’ so to speak, while at the Aquarium the kids were largely ‘curating’ their own experience. What I realized was that both formats are extremely valuable for different reasons, and both formats have benefits for different age levels. One benefit of a program such as the one we experienced at Henricus, is that it can be correlated specifically to the standards and curriculum the children are learning in school.

An Aside (Diverging a bit from a chaperone perspective):
Again, there were several children on our trip with special needs. We had school personnel who work with these children on a daily basis on the trip, and we chaperones helped steer these kids back on track when necessary, such as when one child got very caught up in some nearby construction equipment that was working when we as a group were ‘focused’ on the workings of an English farm in Henricus. This made me wonder about best practices – this was a child who, in all likelihood, did not realize that earth moving machinery did not exist in 1611 (I’m sure he was not the only one!). Would this have been an opportunity for the museum educator to discuss “then and now” in a more basic way for the students who may have benefitted from such a discussion? Perhaps it might have, but perhaps not. This was a format where there were four groups circulating through various ‘stations’ within the museum area, and likely each educator had a strict timeline along with learning outcomes to cover. These types of issues, and a myriad others, are those that come up daily in the lives of museum educators, and discussing practices with colleagues and teachers allows reflection and refinement of strategies for all.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the four ‘stations’ that they visited at Henricus. Each allowed them a glimpse into life at Henricus from various perspectives: the Powhatan perspective, the farmer’s perspective, the tobacco trader’s perspective, and the soldier’s perspective. Each of the educators had their own distinct style, which was good in that different kids got ‘hooked’ by different strategies and styles. The kids got to see firsthand the differences between the homes, tools, and rules that governed the people who lived in Virginia in 1611.

Once our tour wrapped up, we ate lunch on the lawn before our busses rolled in. My son slept the whole way back to school. Again, I hope that, once back at school, the kids had a chance to reflect on the wide array of learning that took place that day. Research says sleep helps us process new information. Perhaps my son was “reflecting” all the way home!

Field Trip Perspectives: The Virginia Aquarium (Part 2 of 3)

2011-06-03T13:46:00.001-04:00

Museum: Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center
Audience: 5^th grade
Format: 3-4 hour self-guided tour
I traveled with my son’s 5^th grade to the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach. It was a major trip, and the school hired coaches. This fact, in-and-of itself, garners a lot of excitement among the kids. After all, it’s not every day you can “do your business” on a moving bus. Plus, since it’s May in 5^th grade, this is also the last elementary school field trip for these guys (one of the reasons I wanted to go – childhood is quickly evaporating for my 11 year old!). As chaperones, we were given our list of students, along with the teacher’s cell phone number in case of an emergency. This was to be a self-guided tour throughout this museum with multiple buildings and a huge outdoor component. As a chaperone to five boys, I knew my job would consist largely of “herding cats” all day, and doing my best to keep up. The teachers had downloaded an instructional worksheet from the museum’s website for the kids to use while touring the museum. As a chaperone, it was good to know that I could use this tool to help focus a child who might begin to wander or lose interest (for me, this was not an issue – my group was incredibly interested, darting from one exhibit to another and truly reading/trying/learning from each).

Demographics
The school is extremely small as far as local zoning. There is only one classroom full of fifth graders from near the school. So the county uses this school as a “zone” school for special programs. So in addition to the local kids, who are racially & ethnically diverse but, largely, come from economically modest households, there is a large number of kids from 20+ other elementary schools who attend this school because they are in a “gifted” zone program. This group, too, is racially, ethnically, and economically diverse. In addition to that, the school has a zone program for deaf students.

An Aside
This makes me think about school field trip booking procedures (OK, I’m diverging for a moment from my perspective as a chaperone) – because, had this been a guided educational program led by museum educators or docents, they would surely have noticed that this was an extremely diverse group that required various special teaching considerations. I wonder how much of this type of information is gathered by most museums prior to a trip? Surely it would be helpful to know who you are dealing with, and how to best accommodate their needs. The kids’ needs and the diversity in the types of learners was not a problem b/c of the self-guided nature of the tour. That is one benefit to such a structure for a field trip – different learners will walk away with different experiences, based upon their interests, abilities, etc. At a place like the Virginia Aquarium, there were plenty of things to interest different kids.

Our group hustled through the Marsh Pavilion to the aviary, where they picked up the identification sheets so they could figure out what types of birds they were seeing. In the Pavilion, they loved seeing the snapping turtle, fiddler crabs, and seahorses. We had an hour in this section of the museum prior to eating lunch out back in the shade. The kids’ enthusiasm was only slightly tempered by hunger by the time we sat down to eat. One in my group was celebrating a birthday, so soon Krispy Kreme donuts were passed around and songs were sung. The day was not only filled with learning, it was festive and celebratory. The kids were (no wonder!) in a great mood and so happy to be together outside of school.

After lunch, we headed through the outside areas on our way to the main building. We could have spent a lot more time at each of the outdoor stations, but as chaperone I knew that there was a lot to see in the Center, and I also knew what time the busses would be picking us up, so we chose one or two stops along the way and pushed on so that we’d have plenty of time to explore once we were inside.

In the exhibit areas, one thing stood out to me (I had not been on a 5^th grade field trip since I taught 5^th grade back in the mid-90’s): the technology. The kids were not only interacting with the exhibits in the way that you’d imagine (touching, reading, trying the experiments, pointing out the fish), but many of the kids had some sort of technology – whether that be a phone with photo and internet capabilities, an ipod touch, or a digital camera. Some of the kids were looking up different marine creatures on the internet to learn more about them while in the exhibit halls. I overheard one girl, when we passed through one of the halls, comment, “Shoot! I just lost my signal!”

An Aside: II
The technology that gets brought into museums by school groups is, of course, rather a new phenomenon, but it is one that museum professionals can consider when exhibit planning. Should all of your galleries be WiFi areas? Should there be QR codes at different stations for those who have the capability to use their mobile device as a learning tool? What about the use of iPads in galleries? There has been a lot of buzz in the world of museum education about how these devices can be utilized in a 21^st century museum. Of course, not all age groups and demographics will have mobile devices (certainly in our diverse group, there were many kids who did not bring such a tool), so there is a balance to be struck between taking advantage of technological opportunities and serving all audiences.

Exhausted, with our minds buzzing with all we had seen over the past few hours, we entered the area where the kids could “pet” the stingrays. For my son, this was the highlight. It also provided a stop where the kids all slowed down a little, stayed longer than at a lot of the exhibits, and quieted down as they observed and interacted with the stingrays. It was a good ending. As we left the museum, I was wondering how (and if) the teachers were planning to “unpack the experience” for the kids once back at school. Processing ALL THE INFORMATION is key so that the group can get the most from their experience as possible. This is especially important on a self-guided tour.

An Aside: III
If your museum offers a self-guided tour, you may consider offering post-visit activities (online or otherwise) that assist in the “unpacking” of the experience. What I mean by that is that the experience itself is rather short, very filled with energy and excitement, and continually active. Educational research consistently shows that, to complement that type of experience, students need the opportunity to reflect, analyze, make connections, and extend their experience. While many of the post-visit activities I’ve seen focus on kids recalling what they’ve seen or classifying items, a simple, open-ended journal prompt that allows the kids to reflect back on an aspect of their visit, or an assignment that asks the kids to create a short instructional video about the experience for a younger student to view, allows the kids a little more leeway as far as reflection and consideration of the museum’s collection or program. (And if museum educators could have a chance to see products such as this, they’d provide invaluable insight for planning and evaluation of programs).

Field Trip Perspectives (Part 1 of 3)

2011-05-31T23:59:00.003-04:00

Every museum educator knows that May is “Field Trip Month” in Virginia and D.C. Recently, I removed my VAM hat and put on my “mom visor” to chaperone two field trips – one with my fifth grader; one with my second grader. In addition to the trips being with different age groups, one was a long (read: excited kids on tour bus!) trip, while the other was more local, and one was a self-guided tour while the other was completely guided by museum educators. I decided to blog from the perspective of a field trip chaperone to add yet another point of view to our “Perspectives from the Field” VAM blog. So, in the next two posts, read about two very different – but very educational and beneficial - field trips from a slightly different “bent.”
While I’m discussing school programs, I’ll use this space to remind folks that if your museum offers summer (or anytime!) teacher institutes, lectures, workshops, or open houses, VAM is happy to list those on the Teachers section of our website. Simply email the information or a link to the page on your site where it is described to Heather.

And for All the Education, Networking, and the Such..... VAM Conferences are FUN, Too!

2011-05-24T21:55:00.001-04:00

And here's the proof. A few of our conference go-ers decided that our stuffed giveaway, "Andalo" (Children's Museum of VA 'mascot') should have an adventure in Portsmouth that extended beyond the inside of their Conference bag - and oh boy did he!!!! In honor of the Grand Re-opening of the newly renovated Children's Museum of Portsmouth on Thursday, we decided to share some of the photographic proof that Andalo had quite an adventure while VAM visited his 'hometown' of Portsmouth - this one is just for fun, folks:

VAM Members Have Big Ideas - Vote for This One!

2011-05-20T15:25:00.000-04:00

From the Norfolk Botanical Garden:

We need YOUR vote! Please help us spread the word!

Please support Norfolk Botanical Garden in the 2nd round of the Chase Community Giving Facebook contest!

Your determination put the Garden and our eagles in the Top 10 in Chase’s national 100 charities worth supporting, helping us win a $25,000.000 prize – now it’s time to take hold of that #1 spot!

From Thursday, May 19, 2011 – Wednesday, May 25, 2011, you can click http://bit.ly/leqt4q to vote. One vote per person.

The charity with the most votes for their ‘Big Idea’ will be the recipient of a $500,000.00 prize!

Norfolk Botanical Garden’s ‘Big Idea’ is to capture the enthusiasm from our eagle fans all over the world and put it into a FREE educational program that would allow us to upgrade our technical capabilities and develop compelling stories, online learning resources, printed materials, videos, images, benchmark-driven educational curricula, demonstrations and other multimedia resources and make them available to our viewers!

This educational program, ‘Without Boundaries - Wild Eagle Encounters,’ will help our wild eagles soar into homes and schools around the world sharing our message of environmental stewardship!

Please vote and help us spread the word!

Together we can reach new heights as we work together to promote our wild eagles, plants and the environment through our beautiful gardens and educational programs.

For more information, contact Kelly Dierberger at (757) 441-5830 ext. 346 or email kelly.gaita@nbgs.org.

Donor Relations - An Open "Q & A" for VAM's Museum Professionals

2011-05-19T21:38:00.005-04:00

The following exchange was originally via email, and I got permission from Sean, Charlotte, and Patrick to post them here. If you have additional feedback on this issue, please comment on this post!

Sean Fearns:
A colleague of mine asked me a question which I said I would in turn survey my fine associates with VAM:
A donor makes a restricted contribution of $X dollars to a museum Y in late 2008/early 2009 to develop an exhibit on a certain topic. It's seed money to get started developing that exhibit, but not nearly enough to come close to mounting the entire exhibit. The museum begins to look for other sponsors to make up the difference. Everyone will recall that this gift came just as the economy started to tank and giving in general is down over the past few years. Museum Y has not raised the rest of the money to build the exhibit in question yet, but continues to activly solicite for the project. Donor has grown impatient and has now asked for their donation back. Does Museum Y give donation $X back to the donor even thought hey are still working to pull together the rest of the funds?

Thanks for any input and examples of policies that your fine institutions use in a case like this.

Charlotte Whitted:
We are in a similar situation over a building. We have some donors who have pledged to the construction of a Farm Heritage Center (about a $4 million project). We have completed the design/development phase and brought the infrastructure up to speed with sewer connection, but are nowhere near ready to begin construction. Our Board voted to defer groundbreaking for up to 5 years.

Once we knew we could not break ground in a timely fashion, we declined to ask the Virginia Tobacco Commission for another extension on the remaining funds they allocated for this building. We sent a letter to show them we were trying to act in good faith and be good stewards of their funds. If we had used it to build a retaining wall or some small part of the building just to draw down the whole allotted amount, it would have been a mistake. We hope this action will serve us in good stead should we need to approach them again later for this or another project.

With the $300,000 grant from Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, we were able to convince them to allow us to repurpose the grant for capital improvements for existing museum assets. This means I am spending $ like crazy over the next couple of years to completed restorations on 2 buildings, convert our physical plant to outdoor bathrooms, install sewer connection, internet, etc. throughout the entire site, replace roofs, lighting, upgrade security, landscaping, convert a caretaker's cottage to a guest accommodation, etc. Some of these projects will become revenue generational upon completion (leasing a building for restaurant/retail space, private facilities rental for another building, cottage rental, etc.). The grant was given originally in the name of Tourism, so making the case that these assets will enhance tourism also was easy.

USDA Rural Development gave us $25,000 for equipment for the Farm Heritage Center, which we also were able to repurpose for equipment at the existing museum facilities. This is earmarked for computers, copier, phones, etc.

The other outstanding pledges and dollars already deposited for the Farm Heritage Center are still valid. We have communicated with the donors and they have agreed to continue paying on their pledges. We have stressed the importance of this so that when the Board determines the time is right for a capital campaign for Farm Heritage Center within the next five years we will have the seed money still, especially for matching grants. All have agreed to this plan. No one has asked for their money back yet? These are county, foundation and individual donations. It will likely mess up their taxes to try to get a refund of their donations at this point. We will update the donors annually with the prospects for groundbreaking. If after five years we decide to abandon plans for the project, we will approach donors about repurposing their donations for an alternative project that will help the museum. If no alternative will suit them, then we will probably refund their donation if they insist. It is better to do that and maintain good relations than to hold it restricted to a project that will likely not come to fruition.

It sounds like the difficulty in the scenario Sean presents is the donor's personal connection to the subject matter of the exhibit, rather than to the museum itself. Was the funding solicited or accepted contingent upon a particular exhibit opening date? Was it solicited with the anticipation of the donor finding other like-minded donors to fund the rest of the cost of mounting it? Are artifacts from the donor involved? Who on the staff or board is close enough to the donor to listen to their frustrations and respond compassionately but clearly about the realities of the funding prospects and needs? Can the donor become more a part of the solution? Can a new realistic timeline be established? Does this exhibit still fit into the museum's strategic plan or meet the museum's mission?

Patrick Farris:

Were this situation occurring at my museum, I would work intensively with the donor to create a timetable acceptable to all parties for the completion of fundraising for and mounting of the exhibit. Should the donor simply and regrettably not wish to continue participation in the project, then I would return the donation - definitely not worth the bad blood and potential bad press to keep the money. I would also worry that, in keeping this donation against the desire of the donor to have it returned, I might poison opportunities to work with other potential donors in the future once word got out.

A final consideration concerning the downturn in the economy (which you noted was beginning roughly when the donation was made); the donor's change in heart and subsequent desire to have said funds returned could have something to do with his/her financial status and needs, which also likely changed with everyone else's. If that is the case then there could be little hope of an agreement, even though the donor may not admit this to be the core reason.

Lin Ezell:
Gift agreements should be crafted to cover unfortunate scenarios, esp helpful for a complex project that is both long-term and dependent on a variety of financing options. One grant we accepted years ago for a project clearly called for construction to begin by a certain year and the funds to be expended within a certain window of time. When construction was delayed, we informed the donor; they reclaimed the funds. Fortunately, and in part because we kept the donor informed annually on our steady progress in raising funds for the project, we reapplied and the funding was restored along with a little extra. If this is a restricted gift and there were expectations on the part of the donor that are not being met--explicit or implied--I would return the gift with a positive message that the project is still important as is the relationship with the donor and the promise that the museum will give the donor the opportunity to reengage in the future. There are lots of ways for everyone to lose in such a situation; while this museum may not be able to make it win-win, they should work hard to salvage the relationship and not give the donor an opportunity to be unhappy and share that unhappiness with others. Better to risk tabling the project for a long while rather than have a tainted donor experience.

VAM Voice Newsmagazine Sneak Peek: Museum Program for Alzheimer's Patients

2011-05-15T21:56:00.002-04:00

Here we are in mid-May, and I am working on putting together the next installment of our VAM Voice member newsmagazine. If you read the Voice, you know that we pull together topics and issues affecting Virginia and D.C. museums and synthesize them for you. We also do our best to highlight some of the amazing things going on throughout our state's (and D.C.'s!) museum community.

I have been corresponding with Sharon Celsor-Hughes, docent coordinator for the University of Virginia Art Museum in Charlottesville, about an incredible project - and partnership - they've been working on. The program is called "Eyes on Art" and it is geared towards people with early or mid-stage Alzheimer's disease. Below is a short excerpt - a "whistle-wetter" if you will - of the interview I conducted with her. Learn more about how museums are engaging underserved, special-needs audiences in the Summer 2011 VAM Voice newsmagazine. It'll arrive in member inboxes in early June.

HW: Tell us a little about the "inquiry method" you use to elicit discussion around the art.

SC-H: The Inquiry Method is based on docents asking questions that are aimed to involve the viewer in gaining visual literacy. As this method lends itself to starting conversations and engaging the viewer, it works well with programs designed for people with Alzheimer’s. However, the goal for our Eyes on Art visitors has less to do with gaining visual literacy and more with the use of art as a means for engaging and stimulating conversation. Visitors who are in the early or middle stages of the disease are limited in their ability to recall information, especially those everyday details such as what they ate, who visited them, or what they just watched on television. Frustration often occurs when asked these types of questions—both to the person with the disease and their caretaker(s). However, by stimulating conversation based on what is in front of them at that moment and knowing there isn’t a specific answer being sought, allows the person with Alzheimer’s a venue for positive interaction.

HW: What advice would you give other museums considering programs for special needs audiences?
SC-H: The best advice I have for other museums interested in developing a program for any special needs group is to reach out to other museums with like programs. Ask to observe a program and learn what has worked for them, as well as, what their challenges have been. Find out if their program has undergone changes and if so, why. No two programs I researched were exactly alike. Some used themes and others chose to go without themes in favor of choosing works they felt would elicit the most responses. Some held these visits during regular museum hours, while others scheduled them for non-public hours. Most included caretakers; however one museum sent caretakers to the coffee shop. Many decisions will be based on the uniqueness of the institution. Finally, start small and see what works before expanding and involving more partnerships. Recognize that no two groups will have the same dynamics.

- Heather Widener
Communications Director, VAM
http://www.vamuseums.org/

Question from a Member: Is Their Situation Unique?

2011-05-06T10:33:00.000-04:00

The Princess Anne County Training School / Union Kempsville Museum in Virginia Beach wants to know:
Are we the first museum in the county or in Virginia to exist in a public school (a fully functioning, staffed site)?

If you have any feedback, please email hwidener@vamuseums.org.

Here's a little background on the site:
Princess Anne County Training School was the first high school for African Americans in Princess Anne County, now known as Virginia Beach. The African American community, in the 1920’s and 1930’s, worked together to raise money to build a school so their children could receive a proper education.

The initial money raised was used to purchase four acres of land on Witchduck Road. The land and $2000 were given to the school board but no attempt was made to build a school. In 1934, a temporary school was established on the property of the Union Baptist Church. In 1938, a four-room high school was built.

Between 1949 and 1962 several additions were added to the school. In 1962 the name changed to Union Kempsville High School. In 1969, the school closed due to city-wide integration.

Today the legacy of the school continues with the establishment of the Museum that shares stories of family, community, sacrifice, and the importance of education.

The American Civil War in Britain - A VAM 2011 Tour

2011-05-03T23:01:00.001-04:00

To view a slideshow "tour of the tour", along with pictures of many of the sites, click here.

Here's a look at our expanded itinerary:

Friday, 21 Oct. London Walking Tour of Civil War sites in Belsize Park:

Following an independent lunch at the Spaniard’s Inn in Hampstead Heath, this tour includes sites significant to the pro-Confederate, British Society for Promoting a Cessation of Hostilities in America. The emphasis of this tour will largely be about the roles of numerous Church of England clergymen who actively supported the South in the American Civil War, and includes stops such as a church where numerous meetings involving Confederate agents and naval officers and Anglo-Confederate leaders about intervention into the war. This same church was attended by Jefferson & Varina Davis in 1868. We will return to the hotel to experience a British Tea. You are on your own for the evening – if you have fully recovered from jet lag, you may wish to sample London nightlife or the theatre.

Saturday, 22 Oct. London Walking Tour of Marylebone’s & City’s Civil War Sites
This tour includes sites and discussions pertaining to the political & social activities of the Southern Independence Association, Confederate Emissary to London James Murray Mason, key British citizens contributing to the Southern war effort, US Minister to London Charles Francis Adams and his son/secretary Henry Adams, and the Confederate States Aid Association. In the afternoon, we will visit sites in the City (Square Mile). This tour includes sites and discussions pertaining to the propaganda war waged between the Union & Confederate journals published in London (The London American and The Index) in addition to their strategies, arguments, subscribers, and effectiveness; the London Emancipation Society, pro-Southern street campaigning, and the interesting lives lived by numerous ex-Confederates who fled American after the war to London, including former Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. You are on your own for dinner, but VAM will lead those interested to The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe. It was from a Rotherhithe quayside, near a pub called the Shippe, that the Mayflower set sail for America in the spring of 1620. The pub dinner will be followed by an evening walk along the Thames Path along the South Bank to Westminster Bridge for a look at the London skyline at night.

Sunday, 23 Oct. London Walking Tour of Piccadilly & Mayfair’s Civil War Sites
This tour includes sites and discussions pertaining to the British Government’s activities relating to the American Civil War, Confederate Emissary to London William Yancey, Anglo-Confederate activities, the London Emancipation Society, the Confederate Commercial Agency, and the Society for Promoting a Cessation of Hostilities in America. Our final stop for the morning will be at the East India Company for a tea-tasting session. The event starts with a talk by Jane Pettigrew, a tea specialist, historian, writer and consultant. Afterwards you will have the opportunity to try many different types of teas exploring ranges of black, green, flavoured and rare teas. The afternoon will be spent at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where we will have the opportunity to meet with museum staff. In the evening, following an independent supper in Brick Lane, there will be a candlelit tour of Dennis Severs House in Spitalfields – an amazing step back in time to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the home of a London family. As their website states, “the house’s ten rooms harbour ten ‘spells’ that engage the visitor’s imagination in moods that dominated the periods between 1724 and 1914.” (See more about this unique experience at http://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk/.).
Hardy souls will wrap up the evening with drinks at The White Hart pub in Whitechapel.

Monday, 24 Oct. Liverpool City Centre’s Civil War Sites and The Beatles
Once in Liverpool and settled, we will take a break from the Civil War for a bit to spend some time at The Beatles Story, a museum and visitor attraction recreating the 1960’s experience. We will be back in the 1860’s for an early evening walking tour of Liverpool City Centre. This tour includes the headquarters of Fraser, Trenholm & Co, the Charleston-based mercantile firm which orchestrated most UK-based blockade running and Confederate naval shipbuilding, to include the Alabama and Florida. Also stops at the US consulate, from which the war's largest espionage network was orchestrated (a result of Fraser, Trenholm & Co's activities). We will see the elaborate, commanding St George's Hall where the Confederate Bazaar occurred, raising money for Southern prisoners in the North. We will also see the site where the CSS Shenandoah officially lowered its flag, the last Confederate military unit to surrender, ending the war in November 1865. The evening is on your own. For those interested, we will have dinner and drinks at The Cavern where The Beatles became club favourites in the early 60s.

Tuesday, 25 Oct. Liverpool Bus Tour of Civil War Sites
This tour includes numerous sites outside of Liverpool City Centre, such as the sites of the CSS Alabama's and CSS Florida's construction. Also the wartime home of Confederate Navy shipbuilder James D. Bulloch (visited frequently by his nephew Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt), sites significant to Confederate Navy captains Raphael Semmes and John Maffitt. Bulloch's grave will also be seen on the tour, as will the beautiful Allerton Hall, where the party occurred to celebrate the Alabama's successfully evading British authorities and sailing out of the Mersey to prey on the Atlantic's US merchant fleet. Also, a stop at Claremont House, the wartime home of John de Costa, who was a key witness for the United States in the case making claims against the British government for UK-built Confederate warships' damage to the US merchant and whaling fleets. The afternoon tour goes inside the home of Charles K. Prioleau, the chief Confederate financier in Europe. His home still contains the most significant period artwork and architectural features that is authentic to the Civil War era of Southern history. We will also see the home of James Spence, a British merchant who wrote The American Union, a very popular pro-Confederate propaganda book which was well-received in British society. Other sites include the home in which famed Confederate Navy shipbuilder James D. Bulloch died in 1901. You are on your own for dinner, but for those interested we will be having supper followed by drinks at Ye Olde Hole in Ye Wall, Liverpool’s oldest public house dating back to the start of Liverpool’s maritime heyday in 1726.

Wednesday, 26 Oct. Liverpool Merseyside and Magical Mystery Bus Tour
This morning, we will visit two of the National Museums of Liverpool: the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum. At the Maritime Museum are collections reflecting the vitality and importance of the port of Liverpool and its role in world history – objects associated with nautical archaeology and the social and commercial history of the port. Highlights of the collections include ship models, maritime paintings, and galleries that tell the history of emigration, the Battle of the Atlantic, and tragedies at sea, such as the Titanic and Lusitania. A series of special displays and a gallery with fascinating archives, objects and paintings relating to Liverpool’s role in the American Civil War will be open to commemorate the Sesquicentennial from 2011-2015. The International Slavery Museum explores both the historical and contemporary aspects of slavery, addressing the many legacies of the slave trade and telling stories of bravery and rebellion amongst the enslaved people. Liverpool was a major slaving port - about 1.5 million enslaved Africans were carried by its ships. The museum is on the third floor of the Merseyside Maritime Museum building and is divided into three galleries: Life in West Africa, Enslavement and the Middle Passage, and Legacies of Slavery. After an independent lunch, we will end the official tours by taking the Beatles “Magical Mystery Bus Tour”, a 2-hour tour on the colorful Magical Mystery Tour bus to places associated with John, Paul, George and Ringo as they grew up, met and formed the band that would take the pop world by storm. We will see their childhood homes and places that inspired some of their most memorable songs like Penny Lane and Strawberry Field, as well as other places of interest along the way.
A Special Farewell dinner is planned for this evening, included in your tour package.

Thursday, 27 Oct. Departure
Group transfer to Manchester Airport for the return flight home.
ADD-ON TRIP TO SCOTLAND: Oct. 27 – Oct. 30 Glasgow and Inverness
For details, contact Margo at mcarlock@vamuseums.org or 804-788-5821

Learning Science Outside the Classroom

2011-04-27T22:44:00.001-04:00

I attended a webinar, sponsored by Education Week, entitled, “Learning Science Outside the Classroom.” I’ve been meaning to share a few points that were made for museum folk who work in science museums, zoos&aquariums, botanical gardens, and any other museum where scientific discovery takes place – and I’m fully aware that this occurs in history-based museums on a regular basis as well. The webinar opened with a question: “When and why do people learn science and what sources do they use?” The answer is increasingly driven by technology and accessibility of information, and the answer to that question has changed greatly over the last 20 years. Some points that were made:

• 3-5% of our time is spent in “formal” education
• Learning is lifelong.
• Traditional ‘gatekeepers’ of knowledge hold less control as access to information widens.
• The boundaries between when/where/why we learn is disappearing.

Why do people learn science? Perhaps you can add to this list:

• Curiosity
• Necessity / satisfy a need
• To educate children
• Job
• Hobby
• Training

One particularly encouraging fact is that the probability of a person entering a career in the sciences is heavily correlated to that person’s expectation of entering such a career as the of the 8th grade (this correlation was stronger than any correlation between test scores and future science careers. The webinar also pointed out that after-school programs make a significant impact on science learning, and that impact is most pronounced for high-risk youth involved in such programming. This has implications for museum programming and partnerships with community organizations and school systems.

The second section of the webinar focused more specifically on informal learning centers, including science museums. It pointed out that there are now 350 science museums in the US alone, with several new ones opening each year. This represents 177 million visits in the US per year. Additionally, a large number of teachers visit such centers for professional development each year. If your museum is involved in science education, know that you are making an impact. Also, if you are not reaching out to special audiences such as teachers, and seeking community-based partnerships, you are missing an opportunity to magnify your impact.

Additionally, you may want to check out the following websites that were shared:

Science Inquiry on the Web

www.tryscience.org: Find just about every science museum on the planet; dozens of vetted activities from science museums for use on or off-line; in 9 languages

www.citizenscience.org: Proof of the democratization of knowledge! Individuals, families, students do data collection and analysis for real science research

www.nobelprize.org: Exquisite simulation activities of real experiments, inspiring stories, and more

www.sciencebuddies.org: Hundreds of inquiry science fair projects, way beyond that model volcano; career advice and more

www.pbskids.org/designsquad/: The TV show is cool, but even better are teens doing engineering for delight at school or at home

www.Sciencefriday.com: The tagline reads Making Science User-Friendly. Millions listen, but even more get it through the Web, Podcasts, Blogs, Tweets ….

Why Join VAM's (newly expanded!) Certificate Program? Watch and Find Out!

2011-04-25T13:46:00.000-04:00

Museum Take Over (guest blogger Ginny Reynolds)

2011-04-10T22:04:00.000-04:00

It’s about time museum folks brought others – individuals and communities – into the conversation. This year’s VAM conference addressed how museums can further promote community engagement and participation. While the conference focused on local Virginia institutions, issues relating to communities and authority are relevant for museums across the country.

And that’s where I come into the picture. My conference nametag listed “Cooperstown, NY” as my address, but I attended this year’s annual conference semi-incognito. I am originally from Greenwood, VA (a vague geographic area outside Crozet), and will graduate in May with a M.A. in Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program. Like me, I’m sure many of you continue to digest content from the conference. Sessions were jam-packed with examples of Virginia institutions encouraging broader public participation through community partnerships, innovative programming, collaborative interpretation, and social media.

What’s going on beyond the Commonwealth? I hope you’ll forgive me for sharing a brief upstate New York example. For a second year, the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown installed a “blog-curated” exhibition. You read it right: blog-curated. Online readers of American Folk Art @ Cooperstown and this year, the Fenimore Art Museum Blog, determined the exhibitions’ content by selecting their favorite paintings or objects. Using social media, the Fenimore encourages community participation virtually and intellectually, ultimately sharing the authority.

In closing, to remain important to visitors today, museums across the country are finally focusing on “being for somebody.” Engaging communities is essential to this equation, whether you’re in Virginia or beyond.

- Ginny

Virginia Reynolds

reynoldsve[at]gmail[dot]com

M.A. Candidate, Museum Studies

Cooperstown Graduate Program

Copper Thieves & Historic Properties

2011-04-04T11:38:00.000-04:00

A VAM member (Preservation Virginia's Mary Washington House) was recently the victim of copper thieves. The video below tells the story. Has your site experienced anything similar? VAM is researching the issue in the hopes of shedding some light and offering advice for historic house museums. Please comment in this space or email Heather if you've had experiences such as this!

Historic Home of Mary Washington, Mother of George Washington, Hit With Copper Thefts: MyFoxDC.com

Community Engagement: Is Your Museum Plugged In?

2011-03-30T14:45:00.001-04:00

As I write this blog post, there is a lot going on in Richmond, VA. This Saturday morning, 40,000 (yes!) runners will make their way down Monument Avenue in the annual Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10K race. Also on Saturday (and hopefully again on Monday!), Richmond's own VCU Rams Mens' Basketball team will be competing in the NCAA Final Four (Monday would be the Championship)! This made me start thinking, are the museums in the Richmond region plugging in to the enthusiasm (and FOOT TRAFFIC!) that this weekend will surely bring?

When the VMFA opened it's renowned Picasso exhibit recently, businesses around Richmond responded and plugged in immediately, offering Picasso-themed menu items, discounts to folks bringing their Picasso ticket stubs, and more. Clearly, when a business person sees an opportunity to bring customers, he or she takes advantage!

Can we say the same for our museums? With Richmond in the spotlight this weekend, what will your museum do to make sure it shines your way - at least just a little? Will you engage with the community? There are a lot of opportunities here for creative (and even not so creative!) community engagement. The lead article in our Winter 2009 VAM Voice Newsmagazine focused on museums innovating to survive - and it highlighted creative programming and partnerships that museums have forged throughout Virginia to remain relevant and to become active players in their communities. I'd love to add to our list of great innovations some ways that Richmond-area museums are plugging in to this weekend's "madness" or ways that museums in other parts of the state have done the same when community opportunities present themselves. If you have an example to share, please leave us a comment!

- Heather

Heather Widener
Communications Director
Virginia Association of Museums
http://www.vamuseums.org/

The Museum Employee Song (lyrics)

2011-03-24T16:12:00.000-04:00

by Scott Harris
(With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan, though they’re dead anyway)

SCOTT:

I am the very model of a Modern Museum Employee,
I have a very nice gift shop and charge a small admission fee.
With grants I pay the staff and all the bills for the utilities,
If the South had won the Civil War, instead of “Grants” we’d apply for “Lees.”

When I became a Director I worked all day and never tired,
But now it seems most all the time that with minutia I am mired.
With deficits and budget cuts I worry that I might get fired,
But if I’m canned at least I won’t have “other duties as required.”

When children come from local schools they run amok and shout with joy,
They don’t bring many chaperones and so my staff they do annoy.
Because they don’t read “please don’t touch” it’s no use trying to be coy,
For the last time I’m telling you, THAT CANNONBALL IS NOT YOUR TOY!

CHORUS:

For the last time I’m telling you, that cannonball is not your toy!
For the last time I’m telling you, that cannonball is not your toy!
THAT CANNONBALL IS NOT YOUR – NOT YOUR TOY!

SCOTT:

I cite places, dates, and facts, and other things historical,
And I know waistcoats, corsets, spats, and other terms sartorial.
Show me two Picassos and I’ll tell you which of them’s for real,
Because I know precisely what is meant by “CURATORIAL.”

I think Margo, Jennifer, and Heather to VAM heaven sent,
They run this conference, hold workshops, and make sure our dues are well spent.
The Council watches over all and makes sure nothing’s turbulent,
Joe Gutierrez just might be the handsomest VAM President.

When I’ve learnt that a replica of a chamber pot never really sells,
When I present the budget and the trustees don’t have fainting spells,
In short, when I’ve a got smattering of elementary SOLs,
[“elementary SOLs,” hmm, that’s tough—GOT it!]
You’ll say that Museum Employee should have a job just like Ford Bell’s.

CHORUS:

You’ll say that Museum Employee should have a job just like Ford Bell’s.
You’ll say that Museum Employee should have a job just like Ford Bell’s.
SHOULD HAVE A JOB - A JOB - JUST LIKE FORD BELL’S!

SCOTT:

For my knowledge of museums, though it’s still imperfect all can see,
No one has a finer cabinet of curiosities.
And while I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to join the cast of “Glee,”
I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MUSEUM EMPLOYEE!!

THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE (OR CRICKETS . . .)
(download a .pdf version to keep forever)

Thank You to All Who Exhibited at Conference 2011 - If You Missed the Conference, Check out this Virtual Exhibit Hall

2011-03-24T11:25:00.000-04:00

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MUSEUM EMPLOYEE

2011-03-15T12:10:00.000-04:00

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL

2011-03-14T16:50:00.001-04:00

A Message from Our President

2011-03-11T12:56:00.001-05:00

The following message is from Joe Gutierrez, VAM's president. It will appear in the upcoming VAM Voice member newsmagazine (release date will be Monday, March 14th):

Dear friends and colleagues,

The National Advisory Council on Continuing Education reports more than twenty-three million adults participate in continuing education annually. According to some sources this represents as much as 13% of the United States workforce. Reasons for participation are diverse, but studies indicate that maintaining and enhancing job skills, career advancement, and personal satisfaction are prime motivators. The world of work has changed dramatically in the last century. One source notes that in 1900 only one out of every 10 workers was in a professional, technical, or managerial occupation. By 1970 that had doubled and today these types of jobs account for nearly 1/3 of our workforce.

How does this relate to museums and in particular to the Virginia Association of Museums (VAM)? The mission of the VAM is to serve as the resource network of the Virginia and District of Columbia museum community through education, technical assistance, and advocacy. VAM has a long history as a leader in providing opportunities for continuing the development of professional skills of all levels of museum practioners. When I began my career the workshop series and the annual conference were tools that helped me see and understand the successes some institutions had. It was very clear to a new professional that the knowledge, skills, and abilities of a museum’s staff were the reason for success. Today, as the world has changed, so has VAM and there are more tools than ever before to help you.

Among the most popular are:

• Virginia Certificate Programs for Museum Professionals

• Workshop Series

• Technical Assistance Program

• Annual Conference

Experienced staff and colleagues just starting on a career may chose to participate in the Certificate in Museum Management Program. Utilizing workshops sponsored by VAM, SEMC, AAM, AASLH, college and university partners, as well as independent study participants provide the opportunity to learn the “ins and outs” of museum operations through a structured and systematic process.

For those interested in the specifics of selected operational issues, VAM also offers an annual workshop series for professionals in the field. These workshops conducted by successful practioners, develop new and strengthen existing skills. From conservation to special events these workshops provide principles and successful models which can be replicated.

Perhaps the most important aspect of VAM’s commitment to those of us in the field is the technical assistance program. Just by filling out a form, VAM can match your institution with an available advisor with expertise in one of many key areas of museum operations. Essentially this provides a one-to-one training program focused on a specific project that small museums in particular can benefit from, and the support can last up to six months.

From my perspective, perhaps the greatest resource for staff development is the annual conference. Hundreds of professionals from all areas of the Commonwealth converge to share successes and challenges, to inspire and communicate, and help one another. We all experience similar challenges and more than one career has been helped by learning what did and didn’t work at another institution. If you didn’t make the conference this year, I urge you to make it a professional priority in 2012. Learning can be fun, and that is particularly true at the conference.

I hope as you read this newsletter, you will carefully consider all the professional resources available through VAM. Take time to carefully read the information online at http://www.vamuseums.org/. Also consider where our field might be without VAM’s voice and what would be missing. I also hope you will continue to financially support VAM and that you might find an opportunity to give back more than the membership fee. VAM is a critical partnership not only in professional development but in educating decision-makers about the importance of museums. We need your support.

Sincerely,

Joe
Joe Gutierrez, President
Virginia Association of Museums

Virginia on iTunes U and Apps for Learning

2011-03-10T17:21:00.001-05:00

Through iTunes U for K-12 education, students, teachers, and other interested users can “learn on the go" by downloading audio and video content onto an iPad, iPod, iTouch, or iPhone from any computer with Internet access. The Virginia on iTunes U portal is part of a larger effort by the Commonwealth to harness the power of digital media and mobile devices to expand and supplement classroom -based education. “Mobile communication devices are an integral part of the lives of thousands of Virginia students,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Patricia I. Wright. “We can choose to ignore them or we can leverage them as powerful, personal learning devices.” http://www.doe.virginia.gov/news/news_releases/2009/apr07.pdf

To access Virginia on iTunes U directly:

Virginia on iTunes U may be accessed at here if iTunes is downloaded on the computer (PC or Mac). A free download of iTunes is available.

As of March 1, 2011, the following list of courses is available on Virginia on iTunes U:

A Moment in Time
Academic Literacy
African American Trailblazers in Virginia
BackStory with the American History Guys
Civil War in Virginia Series
Creative Learning in the Classroom
Data Driven Decision Making
Discovering Jamestown
Diving Deeper
Dr. Patricia I. Wright, Superintendent
Economics and Personal Finance
English as a Second Language
Family Connections Pre-K
Focus on Virginia: The James River
Fun with Physics
Highlights from George C. Marshall Foundation
Innovate
Internet Safety in Virginia
Introduction to Comics
ITRT Connection
Jamestown: A Fruitful Soil
Learning without Boundaries
Making Waves
McGlothlin Awards for Teaching Excellence
Net Files
Net Safety
Parent Involvement: Keys to Success
Reading Comprehension Strategies
Shaping the Constitution: Resources from Library of Virginia and Library of Congress
Shaping the World: Conversations on Democracy
Share the Skies
Shortie Awards: Student Film & News Festival
Teachers and Teaching
Teaching Mathematics
Tech Tutorials
Technology Integration
Teens in Between
The Empire of Mali Series
The Forest Files
The Story of Virginia
Thinkfinity in Virginia
Three Countries You Ought to Know About
Virginia Currents
Virginia Holocaust Museum
Virginia Pathways
Virginia Trekkers
Virginians at War
With Good Reason

Previous Background Information on Virginia Department of Education

(Press Releases Related to Apps for Learning)
Superintendent Announces SOL Apple Apps Challenge Seeking Apps to Enhance Learning in History, Civics &; Geography

SOL Apple Apps Challenge Winners Announced: Apps Designed to Enhance Learning in History, Civics and Geography Apps for Learning

With nearly 350,000 apps—over 25,000 in the Education category—available in the Apple App Store, the Office of Educational Technology at the Virginia Department of Education is leveraging these mobile technologies to expand learning opportunities for students and families. Mobile devices are an integral part of children’s lives and the majority of children in the United States have access to a mobile device. Virginia is tapping these devices to deliver standards-based, engaging content to meet the specific needs of Virginia’s learners.

Several initiatives are adding to the growing collection of apps. A Virginia Mobile Learning Apps Development Challenge has been conducted for the past two years focusing on social studies and mathematics. Based on the Standards of Learning (SOL) and an analysis of student performance by question test data, apps on key social studies and mathematics priorities have been developed to motivate students and enhance their learning. Internet safety apps have been developed to complement the Professor Garfield Internet Safety and You lessons. Competitive grant recipients through the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program have used a portion of this funding to develop apps to promote student-directed learning and enrichment beyond the classroom. Finally, the Beyond Textbooks initiative is resulting in apps that challenge our thinking about textbooks.

All apps are available as free downloads from the Apple App Store.

Early Jamestown
Beyond Textbooks 2010: American History Games
Beyond Textbooks 2010: American History Test Prep
Beyond Textbooks 2010: World History Games
Beyond Textbooks 2010: World History Test Prep
Westward Expansion
Pass the Past
Governomics
C2C! (Coast to Coast)
European Exploration: The Age of Discovery
Nation Creation
Number Line
Freddy Fraction

Fraction Factory

iCatchSquares

Math Stacker
Professor Garfield - Cyberbullying
Professor Garfield - Online Safety
Professor Garfield Fact or Opinion
Professor Garfield Forms of Media
Computer Carl
Grammar Dragon
Opposite Ocean
Same Meaning Magic
Same Sound Spell Bound
Sticker Shop
History Line
Spelling Cat

Beyond Textbook Initiative

For additional information, please contact:

Betsy S. Barton
Specialist, History and Social Science
Office of Standards, Curriculum, and Instruction
Virginia Department of Education
Email: Betsy.Barton@doe.virginia.gov

Who's Who List....

2011-02-24T23:35:00.001-05:00

I normally wouldn't make a list into a blog post, but I'm so blown away by the list of organizations that'll be represented at #VAM2011 next month, that I just couldn't resist. We hope to see YOU represented there too - we'll have lots of rollicking laughter, networking, fun (and we'll sneak some top-rate professional development in there to boot). What's not to love?

- Heather

Museums and allied organizations represented at VAM's 2011 Annual Conference in Portsmouth, VA

A.T. Johnson High School Museum

African-American Historical Society of Portsmouth

Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society

Aldie Mill Historical Park

Alexandria Black History Museum

Allen E. Roberts Masonic Library & Museum

American Civil War Center At Historic Tredegar

Association for the Preservation of Henrico Antiquities

Black History Museum and Cultural Center

Blacksburg Museums

Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre, Prince William County

Bristoe Station Battlefield / Ben Lomond Historic Site

Carlyle House Historic Park

Chevra T’helim Synagogue - Jewish Museum and Cultural Center

Children's Museum of Virginia

Chippokes Farm and Forestry Museum

Christiansburg Institute

Chrysler Museum of Art

College of William & Mary

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Colvin Run Mill Historic Site

Contemporary Art Center of Virginia

Cooperstown Graduate Program

Courthouse Galleries

DAR Museum

Danville Science Center

Daura Gallery

DEA Museum & Visitors Center

Economic Development Authority, City of Lynchburg

Edgar Allen Poe Museum

Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum

Fairfax County Park Authority, Sully Historic Site

Fairfax Station Railroad Museum, Friends of the Fairfax Station

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond: The Fed Experience

Francis Land House

Fort Monroe Authority

Fredericksburg Area Museum & Cultural Center

Gadsby's Tavern Museum

Garden City Cultural & Historical Society

Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont

Genex Showcase Miniature Museum

George Washington University

George Washington's Fredericksburg Foundation

Hampton History Museum

Hampton Roads Naval Museum

Henrico Co. Recreation and Parks Historic Preservation and Museum Services

Henricus Historical Park, Henricus Foundation

Heritage Farm Museum

Heritage Preservation

Hermitage House and Gardens

Historic Crab Orchard Museum

Historic Smithfield Plantation

Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

Ker Place, ESVA Historical Society

Legacy Museum of African American History

Library of Virginia

Lightship PORTSMOUTH

Longwood University

Lynchburg Museum System

Mariners' Museum

Mary Ball Washington Museum

Marymount University

Maymont

Military Aviation Museum

Monticello

Montpelier

Morven Park

Mosby Heritage Area Association

Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William & Mary

Museum of Culpeper History

Museum of the Confederacy

Museum of the Virginia Horse (proposed)

National D-Day Memorial

National Museum of the Marine Corps

National Parks Service

Nauticus, National Maritime Center

New Market Battlefield State Historical Park

Newtown History Center of the Stone House Foundation

Norfolk Botanical Garden

Office of the Secretary of Education, VA Dept. of Ed.

Ohef Sholom Temple Archives

Old City Cemetery Museum & Arboretum

Old Coast Guard Station

Patrick County Historical Society & Family Research Center

Paul’s Catholic Church (1804)

Petersburg Museums

Petersburg National Battlefield

Portsmouth Historical Association

Portsmouth Museums

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum

Preservation Virginia

Prince William County Historic Preservation

Princess Anne County Training School / Union Kempsville High School Museum

Reedville Fishermen's Museum

Richmond County Museum

Robert Russa Moton Museum

Sargent Museum, Louisa County Historical Society

Smith College Museum of Art

Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Postal Museum

SR Historical Society

Stone House Foundation

Stonewall Jackson House

Stratford Hall Plantation, Robert E. Lee Memorial Association

Sweet Briar College Tusculum Institute

Taubman Museum of Art

The Heritage Museum / Harrisonburg-Rockbridge Historical Society

The Montpelier Foundation

Thomas Jefferson Foundation

Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest

Tidewater Community College’s Visual Arts Center

Town of Blacksburg

Tradoc Military History Office

Trinity Episcopal Church

U.S. Army TRADOC

U.S. Army Transportation Museum

University Collections of Art & History, Washington & Lee University

Valentine Richmond History Center

Virginia Air & Space Center

Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

Virginia Beach Historic Houses, Francis Land House

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts

Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Conservation Association

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Virginia Historical Society

Virginia Holocaust Museum

Virginia Living Museum

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Virginia National Guard

Virginia Sports Hall of Fame

Virginia Tech Department of History

Virginia Tourism Corporation

Warren Heritage Society

William King Museum: Center for Art & Cultural Heritage

William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library, Hampton University

Wilton House Museum / NSCDA-VA

Workhouse Arts Center, Lorton Arts Foundation

Conference Sponsors

A Touch of Technology, Inc.

Armada Hoffler

Brutti's

Capitol Exhibit Services, Inc.

Chrysler Museum of Art

Cinebar Productions, Inc.

Courthouse GalleriesFlower Guild

Creation Station LLC

Creative Company, Inc.

Curtis Group

Design 3 / Museum Rails

Dorfman Museum Figures, Inc.

Ecorite Imaging

EXPLUS

Friends of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum

Glave & Holmes Associates

Gropen, Inc.

HealyKohler Design

Hollinger Metal Edge

Lynchburg College Continuing Education Dept.

Markel Insurance

Pace Collaborative

Peninsula Museums Forum

Plumeria Flowers & Gifts

PortsEvents

Portsmouth Historical Assoc.

Portsmouth Museums

Portsmouth Museums Found.

Riggs Ward Design

Seaber Turner Publications

Sterling Brownell Travel

StudioAMMONS

Stumpf and Associates

The Curtis Group

The Design Minds

VAM Council

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Virginia Sports Hall of Fame

Visual Arts Center, TCC at Olde Towne

Volunteers of the Courthouse Galleries

Conference Exhibitors

Accelerando-The CounterPoint Solution

Biscotti Goddess

Capitol Exhibit Services, Inc.

Charlotte Van & Storage, Inc.

Cinebar Productions, Inc.

Citie of Henricus

Creation Station LLC

Creative Company

Curatour

Design 3 / Museum Rails

Design Masters

Dorfman Museum Figures

Ecorite Imaging

EXPLUS, Inc.

Gaylord Bros.

Glasbau HAHN

Glave & Holmes Associates

Gropen, Inc,.

HealyKohler Design, LLC

Highway Information Media LLC

Hollinger Metal Edge

Howell Creative Group

IBS - Museum Management Softward

Keith Fabry, Inc.

MBA Design & Display Products Corporation

Manask & Associates

Mark Lencke, Registered Investment Adviser

Markel Insurance Company

National Trust Insurance Services

Navis Pack and Ship

OnCell Communications

Optima Health

Peninsula Museums Forum

Quatrefoil Associates

Re:discovery Software

RiggsWard Design

Rudinec & Associates

Seaber Turner Publications

Spacesaver Corp.

Sterling Brownell Travel

Stories Past

Studio Displays, Inc.

StudioAMMONS

The Design Minds, Inc.

The Donning Company Publishers

U.S. Art Company

Visual Impressions

Westmoore Pottery

Business Representatives Speaking

StudioAMMONS

Charles H. Bentz Associates

Glave & Holmes Associates

The Curtis Group

CJMW Architecture

National Trust Insurance Services, LLC

Williams Mullin

Williamsburg Art Conservation

Curtis Group

WWW.MUSEUMMOVEMENTTECHNIQUES.COM

Business Participants

Sarah Brophy, BMuse

Jeanne Niccolls (consultant)

(as of February 24, 2011)

Children’s Museum of Virginia - New Education Classroom Opens Soon

2011-02-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

The Children’s Museum of Virginia is just about finished with its long and full renovation and expansion to their site in Olde Towne Portsmouth. When you come to the VAM Conference in March you can take a “sneak peek” and see what we are so very excited about. For instance our new education space on the second floor, “Imagination Classroom,” is just what the educators on the staff have been waiting for.

To assist them in their efforts to help visitors learn and understand science in the world, the education staff is very pleased to have a dedicated space devoted to educational programming. Primarily the room will be used for class visits and field trips and is also well suited for a variety of activities including Family Fun Days and other special events.

Coupled with strong pre and post visit materials for their classroom at school it is our desire that we become a strong contributor to the classroom instruction experience.

The picture (below) shows the size and general layout of the room. Furniture and equipment will be added before we open and our education staff is eager to get started. Be sure to take the tour on Monday evening and imagine the possibilities with us!

* Editor's note: Read our conference update and find out more about sessions for educators at the conference!

Christyne Matyseck, Museum Educator
Al Schweizer, Site Manager
Children's Museum of Virginia

Time to Connect and Grow

2011-01-26T17:38:00.001-05:00

Michael Dowell, Jennifer Thomas, and Bill Obrochta
enjoying time with colleagues at the
VAM Conference at The Homestead, March 2008.

Our Annual Conference is all about connecting - connecting to colleagues, prospective employers or employees, and connecting with old friends. Beyond that, it's about forging new beginnings. Last week's conference update was focused around the value of networking and staying connected with YOUR professional community. Our first FREE white paper to members focused on building your museum resume (a career-long process that cannot occur in a vacuum!) Here's a personal story of two colleagues and friends who accomplished quite a bit after reconnecting at our 2008 VAM Conference at The Homestead:

(the following is excerpted from emails from Martha Katz-Hyman, with permission)

"I am pleased to report that World of a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States, edited by Kym Rice and myself, is now available! Kym started working on this in 2007; she recruited me in 2008 at the VAM meeting at the Homestead, and it's now done!

I've actually known Kym for a long time: she was the guest curator for the Bruton Heights School exhibit on the history of African American education at Colonial Williamsburg, and I worked closely with her on that. We've stayed friends ever since.

I had no idea that she had even been asked to do the encyclopedia until she talked to me at the Homestead, told me about the project... [after some discussion we decided] that we'd do it together.

We both agree that it was the best decision we both made for the project, as we have complementary knowledge sets ... and because we know different, though intersecting, groups of scholars in the field."

VAM would like to congratulate Martha and Kym for this accomplishment! They can now sit back and relish the fruits of their labor, or perhaps they'll sign on for VAM's Conference 2011 and stir the soup a little more! (sorry folks, it's dinner time as I type). Find out more about their project in the NY Times - the antiques column features the encyclopedia!

After Virginia Museum Advocacy Day - What You Can Do

2011-01-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

If you were able to join us for Virginia Museum Advocacy Day, don’t forget to send a brief, handwritten note (on your museum’s letterhead or notecard) to the legislators you met thanking them for their time and support. If you are having trouble remembering those you spoke to (there was quite a crush at our legislative breakfast!) let me know and I can help you recall. Addresses are available for the House of Delegates online as well as for the Senate.

If you were not able to join us, but want to help our legislators realize how important museums are to the Commonwealth, send your House of Delegates and State Senate representatives a letter or email – or call them! To help you, we have a full array of informational handouts and talking points on our website you can use or even send to your legislators. Don’t know who your legislators are? Go to the General Assembly website and use Who’s My Legislator? to enter your address and find out.

Here's the scoop on our results of advocacy day:

21 legislators, including Speaker of the House William Howell attended, as well as staff members representing a score of others.
Museum reps paid visits on members of the House Education and Appropriations committees, as well as members of the joint Tourism Caucus and the Senate Finance and Education committees.
The VAM contingent was introduced in the House chambers by Del. David Nutter (R) 7th District and in the Senate by Sen. Richard Saslaw (D) 35th District.

Virginia Museum Advocacy Day 2011

We hope you'll correspond with your Legislators during this General Assembly session, and we hope that you'll join us for future advocacy events!

Sincerely,

Margo Carlock

WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND VA MUSEUM ADVOCACY DAY

2011-01-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

A Note for Museum Educators: Changes to the History and Social Sciences ...

2011-01-03T08:07:00.000-05:00

“What’s that you’ve got there?”

2010-12-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

Way back in my early career as an organizer of museum-held stuff, I trolled through boxes of one museum's permanent collection looking for objects appropriate to include in an exhibition. I had a truly wonderful time, because there were tags saying things like, "blades of grass taken from Stonewall Jackson's grave." My thought then was, "Wow, those folks were serious about Stonewall Jackson..." my thought now is, "are you SURE this is what it claims it is?"

I'm not cynical - much :) - but do feel it is important to double-check the true history of the works in your collection. The simplest reason to do so is that truth about an object is what your visitors expect to hear from you, and what your donor has told you may not be the actual truth. Case in point from our collection: We received a be-grimed portrait which was reputed to be painted by Rembrandt or Charles Wilson Peale. In fact, this was written on a label, attached to the back of the work, by the great-aunt of the donor. While the work was being conserved, it became pretty evident that not all of the painting was expertly painted, and that the technique was not all that Peale-ish. So, back to Square One. We called the painter of this work "Unknown American," hung it in storage, and started checking in with our colleagues who were expert in early 19th-century painting. The eventual concensus was that the painting was in the style of Jeremiah Paul, an itinerant painter who worked in the mid-Atlantic region. So we say on the label, "Attributed to Jeremiah Paul" when we exhibit it.

I do not think the great-aunt was a liar, but I do think a story passed down several generations can work awfully like a message-passing game. Have you ever played one? You start out whispering a phrase into someone's ear, they whisper it to someone else, and so on around a group. The end person then repeats the message they got... which is often ridiculously different from the original. I guess we're lucky that the main confusion was "Peale" for "Paul" and we could sort it out.

Now, that example of grass from Stonewall Jackson's grave -- that's a toughie. How could you determine the real origin of that grass? For instance, has the cemetery documented the species growing there in the mid-1860s? I'm not betting on that... but you've still got the story of someone thinking that blades of grass which could possibly have come from Stonewall Jackson's grave are sufficiently significant to give a Civil War repository, and for the late 19th- early 20th-century caretakers of that collection to accept the donation. That says a great deal about the culture of the time. However, if you were offered those blades of grass today, how would you feel about accepting them? Do you think there's a strong enough story there to counter-balance the uncertainty of the grass's origin? Just asking... and you should as well.

Mary LaGue
Collections Manager

Taubman Museum of Art

Very Funky Holiday Wishes, from Your Friends at VAM

2010-12-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

We hope that this holiday season provides you with peace, laughter, and good times. Here's a little somthing to get it started off on the right (platform-shoed) foot:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

The Lights Are Much Brighter There; or, “These are a few of my favorite things…”

2010-12-03T12:02:00.000-05:00

In my memory, the holidays and downtown are inseparably entwined. Every trip downtown, whatever time of year, brings the song “Silver Bells” to mind:

For me, Petula Clark’s “Downtown” will always be a Christmas carol:

My grandfather drove a Yellow Cab, and I began riding with him as a preschooler. During the holidays, Papa (known to some as “Corn Willie”) and I would make the rounds together to share holiday cheer with his many friends of all classes and colors (and sometimes deliver a little bootleg liquor). The entire city was decorated inside and out; crowds were bustling everywhere from the train and bus stations to the downtown stores and restaurants. On cabstands and in his (numerous) favorite neighborhood bars, I’d sing Christmas carols in return for loose change, Cokes, and sweets.

My mother ran (was!) the back office for the big flagship store of the Raylass Department Store chain on East Broad Street until just before I went away to college. For many of those years, my brothers and I watched from the store’s fourth floor windows to see The Real Santa Claus arrive downtown at the end of the Christmas Parade. Later, as a Boy Scout, I marched in the parade dressed as a holiday clown, carrying one end of a big banner announcing the next float or band. My favorite Christmas movie will always be (the 1947 original) “Miracle on 34th Street.”

At age thirteen, I became a weekend “change runner” between Raylass and the other stores during the Christmas rush, leaving our store with my coat pockets stuffed with big bills and returning weighed down with rolls of coins and much fatter due to bundles of small bills as we all helped each other out on Saturdays when the banks were closed. The first presents purchased with “my own money” for family and friends came from Broad Street’s five-and-dimes.

At fifteen, I got my first “management job,” running Raylass’s toy department. That year, and for the next three, I waited on Christmas Eve with the store manager until long after all the stores were closed, hoping that every last toy and gift layaway would be picked up, then nearly cried as I walked to my car because some never were.

The department stores and movie theaters are gone now, but after some sad years, the arts and entertainment are bringing downtown alive again. Holiday lights twinkle from outlined office buildings to apartment windows above the old storefronts.

In the midst of your busy holiday schedule, treat yourself with a trip downtown. Visit with the reindeer at the James Center, take in a play, shop the galleries, have a great meal, or just stroll the streets listen for the sounds of the season. “The lights are much brighter there…”

Thomas Singleton Driscoll

Wanderer, Wonderer
4200 Stuart Avenue
Richmond, Virginia, USA 23221-1943
804-353-0810
Tom@Chleire.com
http://www.chleire.com/

Making the Case for a Conference

2010-11-30T10:30:00.000-05:00

Take ONE Minute to Be Counted: Act Now for Advocacy

2010-11-18T10:06:00.000-05:00

From time to time, I get calls from members wanting up-to-date economic impact information for the museum industry in Virginia. I also get these requests from news reporters, state and federal agencies, and others trying to get a handle on just how important museums might be in the scheme of things.

The truth is, I have nothing to give them. The last reliable survey on museum economic impact and visitation was published in December 2000 – the “The Economic Impact of Arts and Cultural Organizations in Virginia” prepared by the Wessex Group, and commissioned by Virginians for the Arts in collaboration with VAM. Prior to that, VAM had surveyed its members and published its own economic impact study roughly every three years.

Since that time, VAM has tried three times to conduct another economic impact survey: 2003, 2005 and 2007. In each case, we received only 60-75 responses – way too few to make a study valid (there are over 1,000 museums in Virginia).

Why the lack of response? It is commonly acknowledged that such studies are important information and vital ammunition in an advocate’s arsenal. Are people just too busy? Don’t care? Think someone else will surely do it? Or – reluctant to reveal that information for fear of comparisons?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know this: Virginia museums have got to get over it and get counted. Yesterday, VAM sent out a trimmed-down, easy to complete economic and visitation survey to the directors of all Virginia museums. The deadline for submission of input is December 15, but late responses will be welcomed (they may not make it into the official printed report if received TOO late).

The results of this survey will be distributed to the Virginia General Assembly at Virginia Museum Advocacy Day on January 20, 2011. It is absolutely imperative that we make the case for Virginia’s museums – certainly no one else is going to do it for us. And we have recent examples of what can happen when museums are undervalued – think of the Coeburn amendment and the attempt to specifically exclude museums from the economic stimulus.

Has your museum responded to the survey? Ask your director – offer to fill it out if he or she doesn’t have time. If you have your visitation figures for the past year and your operating budget, it will take you less than 2 minutes – I filled it out as a test in 52 seconds.

Need a link to the survey? HERE IT IS! You can always email me at mcarlock@vamuseums.org if you have any questions or concerns. Please help us to make the case for museums – it is time for Virginia museums to stand up and be counted!

Sincerely,

Margo Carlock
Executive Director
Virginia Association of Museums

A Mission to High River - A MEST Story

2010-11-08T22:19:00.006-05:00

I had the privilege and pleasure of sitting down last week with Louis Bowman. Louis is an active member of the Richmond MEST (Museum Emergency Support Team) and holds a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and amateur radio operator license. As a retired professional who spent years of his career at Morgan Stanley, Louis now has some time and flexibility to help out as a MEST member. But more importantly - he cares.

So much so that when the Museum of the Highwood, in High River, experienced a devastating fire, Louis showed up to help. He spent several days organizing and cataloging items in boxes that had been saved from the fire. Refrigerated 18 wheelers and a school auditorium had been enlisted to help house the items that had been damaged by smoke, flame, and water. Without volunteers who make themselves available quickly and act fast, those items would have been lost forever. Items of local importance ranging from a Superman II VHS tape to an 8x10 photograph of the Duchess of Windsor w/ a local class of students.

That there are people who care enough about others to make the time to get trained on what to do in various emergencies, and then who actually put the knowledge to use is heartwarming. I failed to mention one fact - if the name of the museum and the town don't ring a bell - Mr. Bowman traveled from Richmond, VA to Calgary (that's Alberta, Canada) to pitch in what he could. Think about that. An airline ticket, a rental car, several nights in a hotel room - for folks he had never met in a town he didn't know.

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Why did he help? Mr. Bowman relayed a story to me from the month after the World Trade Center bombings on 9/11, when he was in New York City. He stopped in to a nearby fire station to thank the firefighters who had lived through so much horror and given so selflessly. The first man he spoke with was a firefighter who had done just what Mr. Bowman would do nearly nine years later - he had flown out from Los Angeles to help in any way he could. The staff of that small fire station in New York City had lost 15 of their own. Louis never forgot his visit, his gratitude, or the firefighter from L.A.

Similarly, the folks from the Museum of the Highwood in High River will never forget Louis Bowman. At first, when they found out he was coming they asked, "What does he want?" But they came to realize that the trip was selfless and borne of a sincere desire to help and a heart full of gratitude - one that they now share. Says Louis, "There will always be a soft spot in my heart for the town of High River." We learn so much about ourselves - and gain so much - when we give of ourselves.

*If you are interested in joining a MEST team in Virginia, Contact VAM.

Heather Widener
Communications Director
Virginia Association of Museums

Connections from the Past Nurture Ties for the Future

2010-11-01T20:26:00.005-04:00

VAM and its members continue to reach beyond Virginia to make connections and connect common threads. As you may have seen in the news, a group of African-Nova Scotians visited Virginia last month to attend the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Nova Scotia Best Practices Trade Mission Forum and to visit sites in Virginia that interpret African American and American slave history. The group was hosted by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in partnership with Nova Scotia's Black Business Initiative, which seeks to foster the growth of business and cultural sites owned by Nova Scotia's black community.

The trip was the first in what will likely be an ongoing exchange and dialogue between Virginia and Nova Scotia on the challenging subject of interpreting African history in the Americas. In fact, Virginia museum professionals have already been invited to Nova Scotia for a follow up exchange program based on African history.

Most people do not realize the links between black history in Virginia and that in Nova Scotia, where Halifax has been called the “birthplace” of the black Canadian population. Whether they were loyalist refugees at the time of the American revolution or escaped slaves on fugitive ships, many of Nova Scotia's African-Nova Scotian community have ancestral ties to Virginia.

In addition to the VFH, VAM took an active role in the VFH Forum (ED Margo Carlock gave a presentation on Best Practices and Standards in Museums). Several of its member museums were highlighted in the Canadian group’s tour around sites in Virginia that interpret African American history (museums involved, included Monticello, Colonial Williamsburg, the Robert Russa Moton Museum, Legacy Museum of African American History, Alexandria Black History Museum, Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond, Virginia Historical Society, and the Christiansburg Institute). We all look forward to a developing dialogue and relationship with our Nova Scotian colleagues. Planning for a reciprocal exchange visit to Nova Scotia by VAM members is just beginning – let us know if you would like to be involved!

VOTE NOW FOR OUR 2012 CONFERENCE SITE

2010-09-30T11:03:00.001-04:00

Every year as fall approaches, the VAM staff begins the process of determining where our next conference is going to be. Making this decision is a balancing act, as we need to travel around the state, make sure different museums and communities get the chance to serve as local hosts, and keep to a very tight budget and a very specific need for space. In the past couple of years, many members have asked us how we choose a community or a hotel, and so we decided to show you "behind the scenes" of our decision process.

There are several things we need to keep in mind as we look at hotels:

Do they have enough meeting space to provide our participants with ample classrooms and our exhibitors with a large enough exhibit hall?
Is the hotel able to provide us with a room rate for our participants that fits into their tight budgets, and conference food prices that fit within VAM's tight budget?
What does the area around the hotel look like in terms of museums--how far is it to area museums, and is there a good variety of museums for our participants to see?

When VAM was "younger," we were small enough to be able to spread our meetings across many of the communities in Virginia--Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, Staunton, Charlottesville, even Alexandria. As we have grown into the largest state association in the country, our choices for hotel and location have shrunk. There are now only eight cities in the state that have hotels with appropriate meeting space in which to hold our meeting--Richmond, Roanoke, Hot Springs, Reston, Crystal City, Williamsburg, Portsmouth and, with a brand new hotel, Newport News.

With a goal of going to Roanoke in 2013, 2012 gave us the opportunity to look into Northern Virginia for a conference site--we haven't been to this part of the state since 2004. At the same time, the new hotel in Newport News, as well as the museums in Newport News, offered us a wonderful chance to try that site.

Let us know what you think. Because the 2011 conference is in Portsmouth, we do not want our members in other parts of the state to feel slighted by returning to the Tidewater two years in a row, and we also want to do what is best for VAM and for our members.

We'd love to have your opinion on 2012 VOTE NOW!

Welcome to the 2011 VAM Conference

2010-09-28T13:35:00.004-04:00

Welcome to historic Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia, site of the 2011 Virginia Association of Museum’s annual conference. Known for its charm and central location in Hampton Roads, Olde Towne Portsmouth is visited by travelers and residents alike for its abundance of museums and attractions, restaurants, specialty shops, and arts and antiques galleries. Its pedestrian-friendly atmosphere offers visitors a chance to stroll its streets to view scenic waterfronts, historic homes, beautiful churches, lush gardens and more. Conference planning will take VAM participants through this cultural locality during the four-day conference period.

Evening Socials
“Ain’t we got fun?” Three evening events beginning on Saturday will allow you to explore beyond your interim stay at The Renaissance.
• Evening 1: This year’s scholarship reception will take place at the Hill House, headquarters of the Portsmouth Historical Association and the only historic residence in Olde Towne that is open to the public. This 1825 four-story English Basement type home contains all the belongings and furnishings of the Hill family who lived here for over 150 years.
• Evening 2: Enjoy food, fun and frolic along the historic Seawall where events will take place at the Lightship, Naval Museum, Skipjack Nautical Wares and Riverview Gallery. Pirates, music, naval and maritime history, art and “The Colonel” will be featured. For sports lovers, Selection Sunday will take place at the Sports Hall of Fame.
• Evening 3: Relax and have fun strolling from the Courthouse Galleries to the Visual Arts Center, Children’s Museum of Virginia and Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. This progressive event includes hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dessert and musical entertainment. And, if you need further enticement, bring your loot—all the venue gift shops will be open.

Daytime Activities
Whether you enjoy art or history, two concurrent afternoon events on Saturday will keep attendees engaged.
• Event 1: On the roof of Tidewater Community College’s Visual Arts Center, Ed Francis, Chair of the Glassblowing Department, will demonstrate the glassblowing process and work with attendees in the creation of a paperweight.
• Event 2: Author and historian Dean Burgess will take a group on a Steeple-to-Steeple Church and Synagogue Tour that will feature the unique architecture and interiors of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Trinity Episcopal Church and the Jewish Museum and Cultural Center.

Remember VAM's last conference in Portsmouth?

Shelley Brooks, Co-chair, Local Arrangements Committee, VAM Conference 2011

Visitor survey work: What did our visitors think? (3 of 3)

2010-09-22T21:45:00.000-04:00

In my first two blogs, I wrote about our recent work with surveys and visitor tracking. In this column, we’ll take a look at what the data had to say about customer satisfaction.

In our first quick exit survey, we simply asked for an overall judgment from our visitors about their experience that day. We gave them a scale running from outstanding to dissatisfied and asked them to select one of the 5 gradations on the scale. Pretty shallow, but it provided a snapshot. The AASLH survey, however, asks many questions from a variety of angles to get at visitor satisfaction, value of the visit, quality of education and entertainment, the difference the visit made. We received valuable feedback, and much of it is also useful for marketing purposes and for donor/grant appeals. In 2009-10, we re-asked some of the AASLH questions on an on-line survey. Here’s some of what we learned from visitors to the National Museum of the Marine Corps:

When is came to overall satisfaction with their visit, 76% reported that the Museum was outstanding; 22% excellent; and less than 1% reported satisfactory, marginal, or unsatisfactory each. This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum a 9.5 as an overall rating.

When it came to visitor satisfaction with staff and volunteers, 71% reported it to be outstanding; 21% excellent; 5% satisfactory; less than 1% marked marginal and unsatisfactory each; 2% had no opinion. This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum’s staff and volunteers a 9.3 rating.

When asked if they would return for another visit, 81% indicated that it was very likely that they would do so; 15% said it was somewhat likely; while 4% said no. This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum a 9.3 rating for a return visit.

When asked if they would recommend the Museum to others, a very high 98% said that it was very likely that they would do just that! This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum a 9.6 rating when it came to making a recommendation to others.

Other AASLH data points of interest include a rating of 9.4 out of 10 for its unique learning environment and a 9.3 for the positive impact it had on visitors. We also learned that our “brand name” wasn’t very familiar yet; that people had difficulty once inside the Museum navigating from one gallery to the next and within the galleries; and most people heard about us by word of mouth (so is all that expensive advertising, rack card distribution, and other marketing efforts worth it?).

The on-line survey was by invitation as explained in an earlier blog, and we were not consistent in how we passed out our keepsake postcard invitations to Museum visitors. Our first game plan was for docents to hand out the card to every 5th visitor every day during mid-day hours until 250 cards had been passed out. Because of the variations in docent schedules and assignments, there is a revolving door of docents, students, and Marines at the information desk. It proved impossible to stick to our plan. For two early months, we under-executed our invitation give-aways. And then we ran out of cards because we weren’t paying attention to our stock, resulting in another few weeks in which we had little data. We spent most of the year-long cycle, passing out our daily allotment along with the Museum brochure as folks entered. And sometimes, over-zealous information desk staff passed cards out all day long, not just to the first 250. Thus, the exercise was not as scientific as we had planned.

And I was disappointed in the small number who responded on their computers once they got home, although our statically minded colleagues tell us that capturing feedback from even 2-3% of our visitors is “statistically relevant.” We did much better than that, but I was hoping for a 10% rate, not the 5 to 8 that we got.

The survey is still active on our site; we’re letting folks who find it on our home page take it, so that we continue to get a trickle of feedback around the clock. Survey Monkey is not expensive; the reported data is usefully presented; it leaves the heavy lifting to others (but we did have staffing support from the institutional assessment team at Marine Corps University, and it would have been much more labor intensive without them). You also have to know how to write the questions and portray the answers, so you get the data you’re looking for. I think this automated tool has much promise. Next time, I want to use terminals in our Museum itself for the survey, along with trained staff and volunteers who will direct traffic to the stations. But I think we’re asking the right questions. Take a look for yourself on www.usmcmuseum.org and tell me what you think.

And our visitors are not shy. I bet yours on just as vocal. On both the AASLH survey and the on-line instrument, we left opportunities for folks to give us their comments. And comment they did! And while the stats are valuable, the staff made greater use of these comments. We have gone over them periodically, spotting trends and repeat suggestions. Senior staff members are taking the lead on being responsive to these comments. We’ve tried new approaches to signage and way-finding based on the surveys; we’ve added benches; we have altered some of our information desk procedures to be more helpful to guests with special needs; and we have a growing list of suggestions for new exhibition topics (in spades!!). We definitely want to keep those comments coming (in addition to the comments cards available at the desk).

What have you done in the way of on-line or in-house computer-based surveys? What was the most useful suggestion you ever received? What was your worst mistake, one that we might learn from and avoid ourselves? I’ll let you know more as we continue at the Marine Corps Museum to get to know our visitors better. We are in the education business. But we are also in the business of providing customer service, and we’ll keep on trying to get better and better at both.

—Lin Ezell, Director, NMMC, and VAM Council Member.

Three Scholarships Available

2010-09-22T12:11:00.001-04:00

The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is offering three free tickets (normally $575 each) to edUi 2010 for cultural heritage organizations serving Virginia. edUi is a conference on web design and development specifically aimed at web professionals serving institutions of learning happening November 8-9 in Charlottesville, VA.

Preference will be given to small museums, cultural heritage organizations, historical societies and similar organizations serving Virginia with budgets that make attending edUi impractical. Additional consideration will be given to individuals or organizations poised to put what they learn to use on specific projects that will forward VFH's efforts to discover and share untold stories, encourage lifelong learning, and promote civil discourse through:
Commonwealth Outreach
Public events, seminars, exhibitions, educational resources, and long-term initiatives statewide.
Scholarship Serving the Public
Opportunities for scholars to reach broad audiences in Virginia, the nation, and world.
Digital and Media Initiatives
Culturally relevant content produced for public radio and Internet distribution.

Application deadline is Friday October 8th. Apply online at http://eduiconf.org

Visitor survey work: Who are our visitors? (2 of 3)

2010-09-13T22:58:00.002-04:00

In our first discussion, we looked at the National Museum of the Marine Corps’ first experiment with visitor tracking within one of its exhibit galleries. Now we look at data collected during a quick exit survey and the Museum’s participation in a more formal program. In 2007-08, the Marine Corps Museum signed up for what is now called “Visitors Count!” with the American Association for State and Local History. Their survey has been used by a wide range of museums across the country during recent years; the instrument is tried and true, statistically proven, and allows for museums to compare their results with other organizations in their field or region. Participants have the option to include a few questions of their own, specific to their needs, but the instrument is provided by AASLH, the results are analyzed by AASLH’s statistical partner, and AASLH provides very specific guidelines on its execution. Institutional members get a discount on the survey program’s fees.

Our third major initiative was to use Survey Monkey, inviting our visitors to go to our web site upon their return home and answer some questions about their recent visit. We used an attractive keepsake-quality 5x7 postcard as our invitation, which we handed out to visitors either as they entered or as they exited. Most of the questions were similar to our earlier survey work; others were tailored to help our foundation partner gather data about visitor satisfaction in the museum store and food venues. We added a question about family income for the first time at the suggestion of our development team, who kept seeing that question come up on grant applications. And we ran the survey for a full year (June 2009-May 2010) to see if there were seasonal differences (there were not many). And we looked at zip code information gathered by the store. We learned a lot!

Male:female visitor ratio ave = 64:36 (for the on-line survey it was 67:33).

Of visitors surveyed on-line, 22% were in the 26-45 age group, 47% were 46-65, 17% were 66-75. While the age categories were slightly different, this data coincided with that collected during the AASLH survey: 34% were age 19-34, 25% 35-54, and 25% 55+. Surveys generally did not include the large numbers of active duty Marines, who are generally younger than 26, nor organized school and youth groups. These percentages reflected the general adult visitor population.

Overwhelming percentage of our visitors was white (89%). Again, surveys generally did not include the large numbers of active duty Marines and school groups, whose ethnic backgrounds are more diverse than our general adult visitor population.

Many of our visitors hailed from VA (21%), followed in decreasing order by PA, MD, FL, NC, NY, CA, NJ, and TX. Most of our visitors traveled from nearby Mid-Atlantic states and from those states with the largest overall populations and largest populations of retirees. These numbers coincided with zip code data collected by the Museum Store.

Of the visitors surveyed, 36% reported being Marines, past or present. Again, surveys generally did not include the large numbers of active duty Marines who visit the Museum in organized groups. Slightly fewer visitors reported being Marines during the first half of the year.

In 2009-10, 41% of visitors reported staying in area hotels and campgrounds; in 2007-08, the number was 22%, a marked change.

Our visitors were generally equally distributed across all income levels, with a small increase of visitors reporting an annual income of $46-75K in January-June and a slight increase of those reporting $100k+ in September-December.

Our visitors spend several hours at the Museum: 1% was here less than 1 hour; 21% spent 1-2 hours; 34% spent 2-3 hours; 25% spent 3-4 hours; and 19% were at the Museum for 4+ hours!

In 2009-10, 64% of our visitors were first-timers. (The reported number in 2007-08 was 79%; we would expect this number to be highest shortly after opening and decrease thereafter if the Museum is attracting repeat visitors.) In 2009, 16% of those surveyed were on their 2d visit; 11% on 3d visit; and 10% reported having been at the Museum 4 times or more!

61% of visitors surveyed indicated that they had visited NMMC’s web site.

37% of visitors surveyed indicated that they had eaten in one of the restaurants on their visit, and 70% reported buying something from the Museum Store. Both these numbers are significantly higher than the reported capture rates reported by both revenue-generating venues; capture rates are based on total visitation, to include Marines, students, and other populations not surveyed.

You’ll recall from my first blog that we first used a quick 6-question exit interview. Of our 6 questions, we wasted one. Obviously, having just opened, most visitors would be there for their first time. No need to ask that one. Age ranges differed a bit from survey to survey. We recommend using the AASLH breakdown so that all data meshes; they came up with this breakdown based on years of research; no need for us to try something different. Our interns should have been trained more thoroughly; a mix of older docents working with the interns may have also netted us more validity with our older visitors, some of whom seemed not to take them seriously. And we believe that we could have gone up to 10 questions and still remained within most subjects’ comfort zone with a stand-up interview.

For the AASLH survey, we needed a relatively quiet space where our visitors could take this longer, more complex survey. Randomly selected guests fill out this multi-page questionnaire themselves; it takes several minutes of careful reading; many of the questions require a sliding scale answer; some questions are asked more than once from a different perspective. We chose to use one of our restaurants for the survey site; about 25% of our visitors visit one of the two restaurants on the second deck. Visitors, especially during the first 18 months or so perceived the Mess Hall to be over-priced. By conducting our survey upstairs, we biased the results toward visitors who could afford the prices and the time to eat at the Museum. It was also hard to be completely random, and we may have gravitated to visitors who seemed more receptive and friendly. It’s hard not to, because you’re asking for a valuable commodity: their time. If they appear cool or unhappy, you believe your chances of success are not good. We will repeat this survey next year, and we’ll find another physical place for the interviews and work on our objectivity. And our little appreciation gift—a laminated bookmark—is definitely a gift not appropriate for all age groups. This survey was also executed on weekends and weekdays, primarily mid-day, over two seasons.

Who has exit survey experiences they would like to share? Check out AASLH’s site for more information on “Visitors Count.” Next blog will look at how we measured visitor satisfaction and the National Museum of the Marine Corps’ experiences with an on-line survey.

—Lin Ezell, Director, NMMC, and VAM Council Member.

Visitor surveys work: How many and who are they? (1 of 3)

2010-09-08T16:38:00.000-04:00

Whenever museum staff get together, one of the first topics of conversation that comes up is visitor counts. Even if we’re a free attraction, like the National Museum of the Marine Corps, we live by the numbers, or so it would seem. Grant applications ask the question of us; so do donors and marketers and our boards and bosses. For that question, there is an easy answer. We count electronically at Quantico; many use the clicker method or count sales if they have paid admissions. After last year’s rough economic times, the Marine Corps Museum’s numbers have picked up. Since we opened in late 2006, we had the best ever months in 2010 for May through August, and we welcomed visitor # 2 million this summer. But the “who” question is much harder to answer!

Visitor research and analysis is a specialized art in which I, for one, have had no formal training, and that is now high on my professional improvements to-do list. But we didn’t let that stop us from trying to find out who was visiting the National Museum of the Marine Corps, where they were coming from, why, and anything else we could glean from survey data. And we’ve probably made mistakes at everything we’ve tried. The good news is that even with the learning curve, the data we’ve collected since summer 2007 have all meshed and have been validated from one survey to the next. Here’s what we’ve done and what we learned—and what we could have done better.

Part 1. Using summer college interns during our first season, we did a quick exit survey and then some visitor stalking because we wanted to know what was going on in our galleries. The exit survey work was pretty straight forward: where from, age, military background or not, first visit or not, length of stay, level of overall satisfaction. And we observed the sex of the respondents. Our interns interviewed every 10th person as they left the Museum, over a combination of mornings, afternoons, weekdays, and weekends. And then with clipboards in hand and with signage in place advising visitors that we would be observing them in the WWII gallery, we tracked how long our guests lingered in various locations, whether they seemed to be reading labels or not, if they looked up at the aircraft and other visuals overhead, how long they watched videos, and how much conversation was taking place among visitors who were mingling with others. That was all a lot harder than is sounded!

In part two of this series, we’ll look at the exit survey data as it compares to a more formal collection of visitor information. The visitor observation work we did in 2007 is the only exercise of this kind we’ve tried. We followed visitors over a combination of mornings and afternoons, weekdays and weekends. Over 40% of our visitors spend 3+ hours in the Museum; that year we had three historical galleries in place, including WWII. Of the visitors we tracked, they spent about 25 minutes in this gallery, our largest. Videos, some of which run as long as 8 minutes, kept visitors engaged for 90 seconds. Very few folks picked up the headsets to listen to oral histories; fewer seemed to look up and notice the artifacts and signage above them. Our guests did seem to read labels and share their reactions with others around them. They “socialized” the experience. Apparent families and assumed veteran groups discussed the exhibitions with the most animation.

Because we were in the midst of tweaking the design of three new galleries at the time, we used this information right away. We shortened new videos; angled aircraft hanging in the ceiling as much as possible, dramatically lit them, and included engine audio; “dressed up” oral history stations and shortened run times; and made the new galleries more navigable for groups where we could. We left text length alone.

We need to do more visitor-tracking, but our “stalkers” need more training to develop their powers of observation. The form on which we record our observations needs to be more streamlined and more inclusive (we made observations at a limited number of “stations”). We need to engage the subjects as they exit the area to capture actual data about them, rather than make assumptions. And we need to plan on observing for longer periods of time; it is a labor intensive exercise. We seriously underestimated the time factor. Young college students clearly stood out; we should consider using a combination of older and younger observers. We did not see any significant variations in the observations based on time and day.

Who has experience and advice on visitor tracking? What training aids have you used that were especially helpful? What did you do as a result of the data collected? Next time, we’ll look at visitor demographics.

—Lin Ezell, Director, NMMC, and VAM Council Member

Save the Date!

2010-08-19T19:17:00.000-04:00

'Ask a Curator Day' on September 1st 2010 will open the door to field experts with a unique worldwide question and answer session which will let interested members of the public put questions to museum and gallery curators. Check it out at http://www.askacurator.com/about.html.

- Heather

Curating up a storm…

2010-08-06T23:43:00.001-04:00

I curated up a storm this week. There was a film series, several music playlists, and an exhibition.

Wait. I think I heard a chorus of voices – crying out in the museological wilderness. Are they trying to tell me I didn't curate anything but an exhibition?

See – This is my problem with the curatorial profession right now. There is a certain jealousness about the title that needs to be overcome. And there is a redefinition that must be acknowledged if museums are to (in the grand old words of Freeman Tilden) be relevant to their visitors.

We need to allow those who may not be traditionally be thought of as 'curators' to co-opt the title. And we need to look at what they are doing. Because I think we might just learn something.

I remember when I first assumed the mantle of 'curator' a few years back. A dear friend of mine called to congratulate me. She was effusive about my new job and very happy for me. But she paused during the call – and asked, quite sincerely – 'so, what exactly *is* a curator, anyway?'

Funny thing was – I really couldn't answer.

Oh – I could tell her what the dictionaries said, and what other curators told me. And I knew how I thought others would define it. But as I thought about her question later – I realized that I needed to codify it for myself. And what I wrote and said was not what many curators believed. Yet I steadfastly hold to my definition, despite the heartache and thousand natural shocks that the profession is heir to. To do otherwise is tantamount to treason in my book.

Curators need to be open to possibilities beyond their collection of watercolours, arachnids or (in my case) bits of Civil War ironclad. And they need to get out of the collective snit that the profession has adopted about the way that other people have coopted the title. Personally, I LOVE the fact that musicians curate music festivals. I LOVE the fact that designers curate collections of shoes or clothes or whatever. I LOVE the fact that people think enough of the title to take it for their own. We should be happy about this – not crying out that we deserve the title and they do not. As our colleague N. Elizabeth Schlatter from the University Of Richmond Museums wrote in a recent AAM article about the rapper/DJ Ludacris curating a show: "So if Ludacris is a curator, perhaps curators should become DJs."

I love you, Elizabeth. You've hit it on the head.

Heck – I think I was a curator before I even knew what one was – principally because I was a DJ. And no matter what you have done in your museum world – whether you are a curator, conservator, educator or custodian – chances are you have performed a curatorial act at some point in your life. Let's dissect it, shall we? A 'curator' researches things in the collection, cares for things in the collection, and ultimately chooses things from the collection which have meaning for an exhibition. Then creates a forum in which those things have context. Have meaning.

Hmmm. I researched songs, cared for the records, CDs and now mp3s in mine and others' collections, and then carefully chose those musical moments for a particular radio show. And I gave them meaning and context by juxtaposing one song against another. I was connecting one artist or song with another in that same way a paintings curator places two works of art in proximity to one another. Curators write labels. Good DJs speak them.

So I ask you - Have any of you or your friends or your families ever carefully crafted a mixtape, CD or iTunes playlist for someone or some event? Then have you not curated it? Is it any different than an exhibition when you really look at the bones of What. It. Is?

I know not everyone out there will agree with me. And that's ok because you don't have to. But I do welcome the discussion that this post may bring.

So what did I curate this week? Well – you'll just have to come to my museum to find out. I can tell you that it involved some bits of Civil War ironclad, arachnids, watercolours, radioactive dinosaurs and Blue Oyster Cult.

Yeah. I curated up a storm this week.

What Types of Fundraising are in Opposition to a Non-profit's Status?

2010-07-21T11:39:00.001-04:00

This is a question from a member—I have made it anonymous, at their request. Any collegial comments, suggestions, advice would be greatly appreciated!

For many years our museum has held quilt raffles, contests with prizes, and challenges to raise funds. We now have a new president who opposes such activities, saying they are not compatible with being a museum and with non-profit status. Does anyone there have an opinion, or can you direct me to resources to help find the answer? I have looked at other museums’ web sites, and many do these activities, but it is not clear if this is a museum activity or a “friends of” sort of thing. Thanks for any advice!

Heather

Governing Council Retreat 2010

2010-07-09T13:18:00.000-04:00

The VAM Governing Council met in Luray from Wednesday, July 7th - Friday, July 9th to discuss strategic planning, opportunities, and challenges for the organization over the next couple of years. We will soon be looking for feedback from our membership at large to help guide and inform our decision-making. Look for more on that soon!

Richmond Tourism Summit, July 28th

2010-07-06T23:25:00.000-04:00

Registration is now open for the Richmond Tourism Summit, hosted by the Virginia Hospitality & Travel Association (VHTA). The Richmond Tourism Summit will take place on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon at the Virginia Historical Society.

The Richmond Tourism Summit will provide an opportunity to highlight the economic contribution of tourism. Industry experts, policy makers and members of the tourism community will foster discussion on recent industry trends, forecasts and how federal and state policy affects all tourism large and small. Participants will hear from the American Hotel & Lodging Association; National Restaurant Association; Greater Richmond Convention & Visitors Bureau; Virginia Film Office; Carrie Cantrell, Assistant Secretary for Policy to the Secretary of Commerce & Trade; The Honorable Delores McQuinn (D-Richmond); and The Honorable Chris Peace (R-Mechanicsville).
The Richmond Tourism Summit is hosted by the Virginia Hospitality & Travel Association (VHTA) at no cost to participants. All are encouraged to attend and bring a colleague. Please make your reservation today by filling out and returning a registration form to Veronica Briggs by email, veronica@vhta.org, or fax, 804.285.3093.

Great Marketing Opportunity for VAM Members!

2010-06-26T16:38:00.002-04:00

We have partnered with Highway Information Media, LLC to bring you a great marketing opportunity, right when you need it most! We have heard wonderful feedback thus far on this program. Many of our members are wasting no time taking advantage. But act fast - we are only offering this great program through July 2010. Find out more.

VAM's Mission and "About Us" Statement as a Word Cloud...

2010-06-22T17:14:00.001-04:00

created at TagCrowd.com

Fundamentals Forum - Day 2

2010-06-17T16:42:00.016-04:00

I'm a bit late getting yesterday's information up - it has been very busy here in Blacksburg!

Day 2 (Wednesday, June 16) started early - Scott Harris talked me into getting up for a morning constitutional (walk around campus). It did wake me up, and got my appetite roaring for breakfast in the dining hall. Hmm - French toast, omelet to order, belgian waffle or just good old eggs and bacon?

The first session was a general session on Museums and Boards presented by A.T. Stephens, Mike Henry and Doug Harvey. Breakout sessions followed for the rest of the day, 2-3 at a time: Daily Museum Operations, School Programs, Basic Marketing: Working with the Press, Outreach and Partnerships, Collections Management 101, Annual Fund and Membership, Technology and Social Media in Small Museums, and Administration: Personnel Issues.

We ended the day with another general session that basically provided an opportunity to explore some of the things that had come out of earlier sessions, get questions answered and to talk about our "aha moments" so far.

The faculty have been great - all the sessions have been outstanding, and they have provided a wealth of information and tips, referral to other resources, and generally the benefit of their years of experience in the museum world. They have made themselves available during breaks and mealtimes to answer questions, suggest options for specific situations our participants bring up, and have gone out of their way to be helpful.

After dinner, we had a special treat. Terry Nicholson, Museum Manager for the Town of Blacksburg, and Terri Fisher, Executive Director of the Giles County Historical Society, led the group on a walking tour of the Virginia Tech campus. Particularly moving was the memorial to the students and professors lost during the terrible shooting tragedy a year ago.

We also got to see the preserved Odd Fellows Hall, a museum celebrating the history of the African American inhabitants of Blacksburg,

and the GeoSciences Museum (thanks to Lyn Sharp, the Outreach and Collections Manager) where the highlight was the black light room showcasing the fluorescent and phosphorescent rocks.

Far out, man!

After our hike around campus, many folks came back to the dorm and headed for bed - it had been a long and full day. But there were a couple dozen folks who decided to continue the conversations from the night before in the Third Floor Lounge. On tap this evening was the movie "The Magnificent Seven", with contributed commentary. Quick - name the seven hired guns.

Did you remember Horst Bucholtz???

Margo Carlock

At the Museum Fundamentals Forum in Blacksburg

2010-06-16T11:15:00.006-04:00

Fundamentals Forum - Day One

One of VAM's most popular programs is taking place this week in Blacksburg, Virginia on the campus of Virginia Tech. The Virginia Museum Fundamentals Forum, otherwise known as "museum boot camp" is a three-day, intensive seminar on every aspect of running a museum. Cost of the program is an incredibly low $85 per person, and that includes three days of instruction, a reference manual that will be an invaluable resource for the rest of your career, PLUS all meals, lodging and linens for the duration. This low cost makes it really affordable for just about everyone, and is made possible through a generous grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

Yesterday, June 15, was the first day. After the flurry of "move-in", with everyone unloading their bags and pillows, finding their dorm rooms, and in some cases meeting their roommates (a single room was available for an extra $40), we launched right into the meat of the matter. A general session on museum history, issues (past, present and future), and ethics kicked things off, followed by breakout sessions on: Starting a Museum; How to Plan for a Disaster; Public Programming 101; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Financial Management; Volunteer Management; and Family Programming. Faculty teaching these sessions included John Verrill (museum consultant), Mike Henry (Colvin Run Mill), Scott Harris (New Market Battlefield), Jeanne Niccolls (collections consultant), AT Stephens (Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh-Durham), Linnea Grim (Monticello), and Lori Blackwood Robert Russa Moton Museum).

What people really like about the Forum is the casual atmosphere and the focus on interaction - getting questions answered and learning from real-life situations. The ethical conundrums we were asked to explore really elicited a lot of back and forth, and it was clear why determining just what is the ethical position to take can be tempered by different factors. I sat in on the Starting a Museum session because we help a lot of museums with these issues (and forms!!) at VAM, and a refresher course is always a good idea.

Dinner in the dining hall was a bit unreal. I say that because there were so many choices, and all of the food was definitely restaurant-quality. Everyone was looking at each other and saying the same thing - we never ate this well when I was in college!! I chose the Pan Asian station, and had won ton soup, an egg roll, and Szechuan Beef with rice. Coconut cake for dessert, and that was a real tough choice because they also had German Chocolate cake and apple crisp. I can see why freshmen gain weight - I'll have my own "Freshman Fifteen" when I leave I'm afraid.

In the evenings we like to get everyone together to socialize, network, continue the day's discussions, and generally let off some steam and relax. The dorm lounge was packed, and as I looked around the room every single person was engaged in a deep conversation with their colleagues - just what we were hoping for!

But there was plenty of silliness, too. We discovered there was no microwave but A.T. and I rummaged around the kitchenette and found a beat-up skillet and a cake pan - and "cowboy popcorn" was born. Rip open a package of microwave popcorn, put it in a skillet with the cake pan as "lid", and voila! A little smoky but definitely popped corn.

Which came in handy for the movie. Mike had brought a copy of the remastered "Story of a Patriot" from Colonial Williamsburg (longest running film in history, it was filmed in 1957). With the sound not great from our laptop speaker, the group contributed running dialog that I suspect was not actually what the actors were saying. I did say silliness, right?

Well. lights out at 11pm and with the group all tucked away in their dorm beds time to look forward to tomorrow! I'll try to blog each night to let you all have a peak into the Forum experience.

Margo Carlock

Executive Director and Interim Hall Monitor, VAM

Check out this Blog Post from Stratford Hall...

2010-05-13T15:40:00.002-04:00

They participated in our workshop on planning digital projects and have this to say about it...

Check out my @constantcontact newsletter

2010-04-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs031/1101444444299/archive/1103342383579.html

NEW DISCUSSION: Outreach Programs

2010-04-06T12:52:00.002-04:00

During the VAM conference session on Outreach to Underserved Audiences several session participants began sharing about the structure of their outreach programs and questions were posed about how do you get the word out, funding, cost, etc. Please share your experience or knowledge about outreach programs so your colleagues can develop resources to start their own. Also, feel free to ask questions about outreach programs.

Bambi Godkin, Head of Community Education, Taubman Museum
bgodkin@taubmanmuseum.org

Heather Anderson, Head of School-Based Education, Taubman Museum
HAnderson@taubmanmuseum.org

Jennifer Foley, Paul Mellon Collection Educator, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Jennifer.Foley@vmfa.museum

A Grand Finale!

2010-03-16T20:58:00.001-04:00

Day 3 topped off another successful VAM Conference!

Show 'em the Money: Getting Good Data on the Economic Impact of Museums

2010-03-16T20:10:00.011-04:00

Today I attended the Leadership Forum at the end of the Conference. The panelists spoke on "Heritage as a Catalyst for Community Revitalization." In the Q&A section, you could hear the frustration--and the opportunities--in the need for all of us who work in cultural institutions to demonstrate the tangible, economic impact to our communities. Michael Loveday made the same point in his keynote address this morning.

As was noted in the discussion at the Leadership Forum, we are often very good at sharing our passion for the importance of our respective missions but we aren't as good at expressing the economic benefits of our institutions. If that's true of individual institutions, it's even more so of museums in the aggregate. AAM has done done an admirable job in providing data for the national economic economic impact and encourages museums to complete an economic impact statement for members' respective institutions, all found here.

But what about for Virginia? Or for regions of Virginia? Do we have the kinds of economic impact studies that would give us the ability to "show the money" to legislators, county boards of supervisors, city councils, and the like? VTC has data that shows the economic impact of tourism, and you can break this down by county or city, but I can't find any data that would parse that information with regard to museums. You can see what they offer here. It's good stuff, in the aggregate, but not exactly what we need to create a set of talking points.

Is it time for VAM, VTC, VCA, VFH (or V-somebody else?) to commission such an economic impact statement? The most recent ones I could find, after a brief online search, are ten years old (or nearly ten years old). There are probably newer ones for specific regions or for specific institutional types (i.e., art museums, science centers, etc.) but we need to have economic impact statements for all types. If one way that we can be more successful in our advocacy is to speak with one voice about our economic influence, then we need data that can be aggregated for localities, regions, and for statewide.

Any thoughts on where this data is or how we can go about getting it? Can you show me where I can see the money?

I plan on raising this issue to my fellow VAM Council members for discussion at our May meeting.

Pix from Day 2 of Conference 2010 - We Are Racing Right Along!

2010-03-15T22:28:00.001-04:00

Thank You Exhibitors!

2010-03-15T22:11:00.001-04:00

Without these folks, Conference 2010 wouldn't have been nearly as wonderful! Be sure to check out their products and services, support them and let them know you appreciate their support for Virginia's museums.

Conference 2010 Day1

2010-03-15T08:05:00.000-04:00

SO FAR, SO GOOD!!!!

2010 VAM Scholarship Reception a Success!

2010-03-13T22:38:00.000-05:00

Question

2010-03-05T20:57:00.000-05:00

Hello VAM Folks –

I have a question from a board member and hope someone out there can help me. I am looking for the names of Mechanical Electrical Plumbing Design firms in Virginia that have recently (in last five years) done work on smaller museum jobs (not Smithsonian-sized, in other words). If you know of any MEP firms please pass their names along to me.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you in Richmond next weekend!

Tracy

Tracy J. Gillespie
Director of Historical Operations
Morven Park
Leesburg VA
703-777-6034

Update on Slavery Museum in Richmond

2010-03-04T23:48:00.001-05:00

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/SLAVGAT04_20100304-192201/328396/

New Media and the Presentation of History

2010-03-04T18:37:00.001-05:00

My son saw this in his fourth grade social studies class today. I like it.

A Moving Piece

2010-03-03T22:33:00.001-05:00

Paulnack is the director of the Music Division of The Boston Conservatory. This was a welcome to parents of incoming students. A friend flagged it for me and I wanted to share. I found it powerful.

Karl Paulnack, Sept. 1, 2004, Boston Conservatory

One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, "you're wasting your SAT scores!" On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940.
Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January
1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music?
There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."

In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome". Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had.
Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music.
And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why?
The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?"

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life.
Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."

Update from Robert Vaughan

2010-03-02T17:07:00.002-05:00

A message from the VFH.

- Heather

Advocacy Alert:

2010-03-01T15:11:00.000-05:00

You are probably aware of the serious threat to the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities – the House of Delegates has voted to eliminate all funding for it as of July 1, 2011 – just over a year from now. What you may not know is that VAM’s operating support comes from the VFH, and without that support... VAM will be a far different organization than the one you have come to rely upon for professional development, resources, technical assistance, networking and leadership opportunities. Please take a moment today to call or email your state Delegate and Senator and urge them to continue funding the VFH. If you do not know who they are, go to Who’s My Legislator? on the Virginia General Assembly website.

Critical Advocacy Alert & Call to Action

2010-02-27T15:46:00.001-05:00

Can You Come to Richmond Next Week?

Advocacy Alert - Call to Action! February 26, 2010
As Feared - Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Virginia Commission for the Arts are both eliminated from the House Budget.

Both the House and the Senate passed their versions of the State Budget for the next biennium.

The House of Delegates voted to reduce, and then eliminate all-together, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

These two agencies provide the only state support for museums and the performing arts.

There is still a chance to change this course. The two versions (House and Senate) must be reconciled by the Conference Committee and submitted to a final vote by the two houses. It is vital that we make our case to the members of this committee.

Thank you so much to all of you who responded to our call to action yesterday. Although the House did not back down, believe me that your calls and emails were heard. But now we need to strengthen our approach.

Below is a list of the probable members of the Conference Committee. If you or your museum or site are located within the districts identified, we especially need you to act! If possible, we are organizing visits for next Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (March 3,4,5) to the conferees in the General Assembly building in Richmond. If you can join us, please call Margo at 804-788-5821, or email mcarlock@vamuseums.org.

If you cannot join us, or cannot pay a personal visit another day, please phone or email your legislators. And it would be helpful if the rest of you would also phone or email your Delegate even if not a conferee - ask him or her to please encourage the conferees to save these two agencies.

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

PROBABLE CONFEREES FOR BUDGET BILL

House of Delegates

Lacey Putney, Bedford, 19th district:
All of the City of Bedford; part of Bedford County comprised of the Stewartsville, Hardy, Otter Hill, Cove, Big Island, Sedalia, Kelso, Boonsboro, Montvale, Shady Grove, Thaxton, Goode, Liberty High School, and Sign Rock Precincts and parts of the Forest and Jefferson Precincts; and part of Botetourt County comprised of the Amsterdam, Asbury, Town Hall, Blue Ridge, Rainbow Forest, Mill Creek, Roaring Run, Buchanan 301/Springwood 304, Courthouse, Eagle Rock, Glen Wilton, Oriskany, and Troutville Precincts

Kirk Cox, Colonial Heights, 55th district
Part of Hanover County comprised of the Ashland, South Ashland, Ashcake, Beaverdam, Blunts, Wilmington Parish, Goddin's Hill, Clay, Chickahominy, Shady Grove, Atlee, Cool Spring, Courthouse, Rural Point 502/Newman 503, Village, Mechanicsville, Farrington, Montpelier, Rockville, and Elmont Precincts

Steve Landes, Weyers Cave, 25th district
All of the City of Waynesboro; part of Albemarle County comprised of the Crozet Precinct; part of Augusta County comprised of the Verona, Crimora, New Hope, Weyers Cave, Fort Defiance, Lyndhurst, Dooms, Fishersville, and Wilson Precincts; and part of Rockingham County comprised of the Mill Creek, Grottoes, Elkton, McGaheysville, and South Fork Precincts.

Chris Jones, Suffolk, 76th district
Part of the City of Chesapeake comprised of the Camelot, Crestwood, Oscar Smith School, Geneva Park, Georgetown, E. W. Chittum School, St. Julians, Sunray I, South Norfolk Fire Station, Carver School, Providence Church of Christ, Westover, Sunray II, and South Norfolk Recreation Precincts and part of Deep Creek Precinct; and part of the City of Suffolk comprised of the White Marsh, John F. Kennedy, Airport, and Hollywood Precincts and part of Cypress Chapel Precinct.

Johnny Joannou, Portsmouth, 79th district
Part of the City of Chesapeake comprised of the Taylor Road Fire Station Precinct; part of the City of Norfolk comprised of the Larchmont Library and Larchmont Recreation Center Precincts and parts of the Canterbury, Titustown Center, and Zion Grace Precincts; part of the City of Portsmouth comprised of the Ten, Eleven, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Thirty, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, and Thirty-Seven/Thirty-Eight Precincts; and part of the City of Suffolk comprised of the Yeates Precinct and parts of the Harbor View and Nansemond River Precincts.

or possibly Roslyn Dance, Petersburg, 63rd district
All of Dinwiddie County; all of the City of Petersburg; and part of Chesterfield County comprised of the Ettrick and Matoaca Precincts and part of the Branches Precinct

Senate

Chuck Colgan, Manassas, 29th district
All of the Cities of Manassas and Manassas Park; part of Prince William County comprised of the Brentsville, Armory, Nokesville, Parkside, Jackson, Linton Hall, Woodbine, Park, Saunders, Enterprise, Coles, King, Dumfries, Graham Park, Pattie, Washington-Reid, Montclair, Evergreen, Haymarket, Loch Lomond, Sinclair, Stonewall, Sudley, Westgate, Catharpin, Bull Run, Plantation, Mullen, and Kerrydale Precincts and part of the Quantico Precinct.

Ed Houck, Spotsylvania, 17th district
All of Culpeper, Louisa, Madison, and Orange Counties; part of Spotsylvania County comprised of the Grange Hall, Maury, Plank Road, Frazers Gate, Belmont, Brokenburg, Todd's Tavern, Holbert, Salem, and Brent's Mill Precincts; and part of the City of Fredericksburg comprised of the District 1, District 3, and District 4 Precincts and part of the District 2 Precinct.

Richard Saslaw, Springfield, 35th district
Part of Fairfax County comprised of the Bristow, Chapel, Heritage, Kings Park, North Springfield #1, North Springfield #2, North Springfield #3, Ravensworth, Wakefield, Belvedere, Lincolnia, Masonville, Parklawn, Sleepy Hollow, Saint Albans, Westlawn, Weyanoke, Columbia, Brook Hill, Poe, Whittier, Walnut Hill #1, Bren Mar, Edsall, Graham, Greenway, Pine Spring, Shreve, Timber Lane, Woodburn, Merrifield, and Walnut Hill #2 Precincts; and part of the City of Alexandria comprised of the Hermitage, Southern Towers-Stratford, James K. Polk School, Patrick Henry School, Landmark Center, Charles E. Beatley Jr. Library, John Adams School, William Ramsay School, and South Port Precincts.

Janet Howell, Reston, 32th district
Part of Fairfax County comprised of the Reston #1, Reston #2, Dogwood, Hunters Woods, Reston #3, Glade, South Lakes, Terraset, North Point, Aldrin, Chain Bridge, Chesterbrook, Churchill, Cooper, El Nido, Great Falls, Haycock, Kenmore, Kirby, Langley, Longfellow, Mclean, Pimmit, Salona, Westhampton, Westmoreland, Herndon #1, Herndon #2, Clearview, Forestville, Herndon #3, Hutchison, Stuart, Sugarland, Hickory, Seneca, Marshall, Magarity, and Tysons Precincts.

William Wampler, Bristol, 40th district
All of Lee, Scott, and Washington Counties; all of the Cities of Bristol and Norton; part of Grayson County comprised of the Bridle Creek, Flatridge, Grant, Mouth Of Wilson, Mount Rogers, Rugby, Troutdale, Comers Rock, and Elk Creek Precincts; part of Smyth County comprised of the Seven Mile Ford, Chilhowie, St. Clair, East Park, West Park, Atkins, Wassona, Royal Oak East, Royal Oak West, Adwolfe, Sugar Grove, and Konnarock Precincts; and part of Wise County comprised of the North Coeburn, Wise, Big Stone Gap, East Stone Gap, Clinch Valley, and South Coeburn Precincts.

Tommy Norment, Williamsburg, 3rd district
All of Gloucester, James City, and New Kent Counties; all of the City of Williamsburg; part of York County comprised of the Queens Lake, Yorktown, Waller Mill, Nelson, Magruder, Seaford, Harris Grove, Edgehill, Dare, and Harwoods Mill Precincts; and part of the City of Newport News comprised of the Mcintosh, Reservoir, Lee Hall, and Nelson Precincts.

Walter Stosch, Glen Allen, 12th district
Part of Goochland County comprised of the Centerville and Manakin Precincts; part of Henrico County comprised of the Dumbarton, Glen Allen, Glenside, Greendale, Hermitage, Hilliard, Hunton, Johnson, Lakeside, Longan, Maude Trevvett, Moody, Staples Mill, Stratford Hall, Summit Court, Bloomingdale, Canterbury, Randolph, Chipplegate, Cardinal, Coalpit, Crestview, Freeman, Innsbrook, Jackson Davis, Lauderdale, Ridge, Sadler, Cedarfield, Skipwith, Three Chopt, Tucker, Westwood, Causeway, Stoney Run, Byrd, Lakewood, Derbyshire, Gayton, Godwin, Maybeury, Mooreland, Pemberton, Pinchbeck, Ridgefield, Rollingwood, Spottswood, Tuckahoe, and West End Precincts; and part of the City of Richmond comprised of the 309 Precinct.

The State of Museums Today....

2010-02-27T13:46:00.003-05:00

It might seem contradictory, but according to this article at NBC Washington, although more and more museums have been forced to close their doors since the economy went south, attendance at many museums is at an all time high. What gives?
- Heather

A Question for Debate

2010-02-21T22:07:00.000-05:00

From the 2/19/2010 Washington Post... - Sean

Ted Bundy's VW goes on display at D.C. crime museum, but should it?

By Philip Kennicott
Friday, February 19, 2010; C03

Even under a thin, black shroud, the lines of a vintage '68 Volkswagen Beetle were unmistakable.

And when the cloth came off, at a bizarre unveiling ceremony Thursday at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, it took work to be surprised by what was underneath it: an unprepossessing tan Beetle, with a sunroof, looking a little worse for wear with touches of rust, fading paint and a few missing pieces of metal trim.

The tires looked as if they still had a few thousand good miles in them. Inside the cab, the interior had that quintessential old Bug smell -- like burning latex -- as if the rubber flooring was always smoking a little from the heat underneath.

But this wasn't any Beetle. This was Ted Bundy's Beetle, the car into which he lured his victims and in which he killed many of them during a terrifying serial killing spree in the 1970s.

"This was kind of like a death wagon," said Wyndell C. Watkins Sr., a retired D.C. police deputy chief, who was on hand to help introduce the latest iconic celebrity murder object joining Washington's museum collections.

The car has been stored in a private collection owned by New York-based Arthur Nash, who owns many of the most grisly objects on display in the museum's main exhibition. Also from the Nash collection: clown and serial killer John Wayne Gacy's painter's box, on display in a room dealing with the unseemly "murderabilia" trade.

Bundy's VW replaces the 1933 Essex-Terraplane car used as a getaway vehicle by John Dillinger. With Dillinger's car shipped off to the Southwest terminal of Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, where it will help present the capital region's best face to visitors, the crime museum needed a marquee object to grace its front lobby.

Of all of the notorious cars in the world -- the white Ford Bronco that O.J. Simpson rode in, the D.C. snipers' shabby Chevy Caprice retrofitted with gun placements -- Bundy's Bug may be the most notorious because it was so intimately connected to its owner's crimes. Bundy killed in this car is the frisson you're supposed to feel when looking at something that was not just a tool, but a container for death.

Compared with the D.C. snipers' car, on display at the Newseum, Bundy's VW has the edge of authenticity. The snipers' car is a mock-up, used at trial, not the actual vehicle from which John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo hunted their victims.

The Bundy car, with a brittle and faded 1976 Utah vehicle inspection sticker (No. 264924) still stuck to its dirty and cracked windshield, was not just the site of murder, but part of the strange, all-American charm and innocence that helped Bundy coerce women to get fatally close to him. It was advertising for a man who made himself an avatar of a free and unfettered age.

But it doesn't belong in a museum. Which is why Thursday's unveiling included some weirdly incongruous preaching from museum officials and others gathered to mark its unnecessary display before a bored and jaded public.

"We want to use it as a safety precaution," said Janine Vaccarello, chief operating officer of the privately owned museum (its partners include John Walsh, host of TV's "America's Most Wanted"). The museum, which opened in May 2008, announced the unveiling with a news release headlined: "Ted Bundy VW Beetle Serves as New Teaching Tool."

"We don't recommend hitchhiking to anyone," echoed Watkins, who summed up the car's didactic power this way: "This car represents a warning sign that you have to be careful."

The warnings and putative lessons seem oddly insubstantial compared with the lurid fascination of the car, as if the moral of the Titanic saga is "dress warm and always wear a life preserver." But these lessons are absolutely essential to the display of Bundy's car, because without them, it is almost indistinguishable from the murderabilia racket.

Curiously, if you pay the $12 to $20 it costs to get into the main exhibition space of the museum, you'll find a relatively well-presented panel documenting the murderabilia trade, the buying and selling of objects directly connected to infamous crimes. Objects associated with Bundy have always been hot in the trade, including a hubcap from Bundy's VW that was reportedly offered for sale for a starting bid of $3,500 in 2007.

The museum does a fair job of explaining the "passionate debate" about this strange economy of artifacts that enrages families of murder victims even as it thrives on the Internet. Is it an ugly, final exploitation of the victims and families? Or a long-standing, morally neutral trade in objects that have always exerted a dark fascination?

But no matter what you think of the murderabilia trade -- it has probably done less harm than trade in complex derivatives -- it's very difficult to distinguish making a profit selling murderabilia from making a profit displaying murderabilia. The museum has leased Bundy's car from Nash, and although one can see it for free in the lobby of the museum, it is a lure to sell tickets, and it is hardly the only object in the museum that qualifies as murderabilia.

Except, of course, that by being on display in a museum, murderabilia objects are magically transformed from suspect status into museum pieces with the power to teach.

That's a sleight of hand, and almost as risible as an attempt to claim that pornography changes status if you use it to teach basic anatomy (thigh bone connected to the hip bone). But the commercial museum business needs new products to keep visitors moving through the doors. The supposed academic or didactic value of many pieces on display is an obvious fiction. And when your kids are sick of looking at old C?zannes for free at the National Gallery of Art, of course it's tempting to silence their complaints and continue their "education" with a pilgrimage to the Bundy car.

So the car has rolled into town -- it attracted crowds on Seventh Street as it was being loaded into the museum's front gallery -- only to cause more mayhem. This time, it's mayhem in the museum world. Or it should be. Because only the professional museum community has the status and gravity to call out tawdry attempts to pass off displays such as this as educational.

A sharp and public rebuke from serious museum professionals would be salutary: It would help the public make clearer distinctions between serious museums and the rapidly evolving world of commercial museum-entertainment attractions. It would force a serious dialogue about the educational value of displaying objects purely for their iconic status, a form of intellectual laziness that afflicts the Smithsonian as much as the crime museum.

And it might help real museums make a better case for their survival in a world in which every aspect of their identity, with the exception of real educational value, has been hijacked by hucksters.

VHS Selling Museum Cases and Exhibit Furniture at Up to 90% Off

2010-01-10T19:43:00.002-05:00

Read the press release from the Virginia Historical Society, or view a slideshow of some of the items being sold:

Virginia Historical Society Selling Museum Display Cases and Exhibition Furniture at Up To 90% Off

Conference Go-ers - Need a Roomate?

2010-01-08T16:16:00.003-05:00

If you are planning on attending the VAM Conference at the Omni Hotel in Richmond in March, and are interested in finding a roommate, here is a place you can find one - simply comment on this post with whatever contact information you'd like to share, and your colleagues can find you!

We can't wait to see everyone at VAM's Annual Conference 2010: Museums Driving Change.

- Heather

Blog from National Trust for Historic Preservation

2010-01-01T13:48:00.001-05:00

Show Me The Money has a great listing of Federal grant opportunities for museums! Check it out at http://nthpgrants.blogspot.com/. Happy hunting!

Heather

Question from a Newbie...

2009-12-11T16:42:00.002-05:00

If anyone can address this question, please reply to the contact information below, in addition to commenting on the blog post! Thanks in advance!

- Heather

I am new here in the museum world. I need some inside help. We have audio-visual technology that is broken and needs replacement.
· Specifically, we have a NEC projector VT676 that has burned out and I’d like to see similar technology, but one that is activated when someone is in the gallery.
· Previously, the projector we had ran from morning to closing non-stop. We have burned out two at enormous cost.

Can you suggest any techno-museum savvy company in the Hampton Roads-Richmond area that can give us the scoop on making our museum dazzle on a shoestring budget?

Thanks,
Gaynell Drummond,
Operations Manager
Hampton History Museum
757.727.6436

A New Donor Metric?

2009-11-01T15:09:00.002-05:00

Should the effectiveness of a nonprofit be measured in terms of whether or not it is merging or collaborating with other nonprofits? An interesting concept for discussion...

- Heather

Check it Out: The Uncataloged Museum

2009-10-16T10:55:00.002-04:00

Jennifer came across this blog, the Uncataloged Museum, and thought it would be of interest to our members! Enjoy!

Heather

More Data from the AASLH Online conference

2009-08-27T15:20:00.003-04:00

There is a session going on right now about a consumer survey done in the state of Connecticut. Those surveyed were core visitors to museums in that state, making up almost 5,000 respondents. There is a lot of good information that can perhaps be broadened to the larger museum audience across the country, and some of it is good news. One bit of data that stood out for me, though, is very bad news. When asked, only 12% of respondents said that museum staff were "helpful."

What does this mean for museum staff? What exactly are museum visitors expecting of museum staff when they come to a museum? Are they looking for something they shouldn't be, or are we as museum professionals falling flat in serving our visitors?

Fun Idea for Online Community Access

2009-08-27T11:42:00.002-04:00

Is anyone in Virginia doing a project like this?

http://hold.cstx.gov

This community in Texas decided to start a program to help local folks preserve community history. They invite people to bring in photos and documents that relate to the history of the town. The program then scans the photos/documents, post them online for the community to be able to access, and then return the originals to the owners, along with archival storage folders to keep the items in.

AASLH Online Conference

2009-08-27T11:08:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting in my living room, listening with fascination to the first AASLH online conference. The very first session introduced an interesting question that I would like to throw out there: When and why did opening a museum become the default solution for local groups looking to preserve local history?

In an era when museums that already exist are having a hard time staying open, what other ways might exist for a local history organization to preserve local history without opening a museum?

VAM Survey on Fraud, Theft, and Embezzlement

2009-08-20T14:59:00.001-04:00

Take a moment to respond to this VAM Survey. Data will be used for an upcoming VAM Voice Newsmagazine article, and all responses are strictly anonymous!

Thanks,
Heather

Advice for Audio Guides?

2009-08-20T14:56:00.001-04:00

A colleague of Al’s in the Tidewater area is looking at initiating an audio guide at their site, and would like to talk to a few sites who have done this successfully (or not, as the case may be—sometimes as important a lesson). Do any of you have suggestions as to who she should talk to?

Any ideas are welcome—thanks!!

Jennifer

2009-07-05T22:32:00.001-04:00

VAM now also has a LinkedIn Group. Join us!

Also, as publications coordinator, I'd like to post a question. In your opinion, what is more useful in promoting your museum: LinkedIn? Facebook? Twitter? What about in promoting yourself as a professional? I can't wait to hear your answers!

Thanks,

Heather

To Test 3rd Grade Social Sciences' SOL's, or Not?

2009-06-18T21:35:00.002-04:00

FROM: Rich Gillespie

TO: History organizations and colleagues inclined to be fearful of the rumored drop of SOL-testing at the end of 3rd grade history class

SUBJECT: Why the Virginia Department of Education has good reason to question Grade 3 History SOL Testing

The Virginia Department of Education is considering ending the annual 44-question multiple choice SOL test at the end of Grade 3. They are not considering ending having Standards of Learning (SOLs) as guidelines for teaching, nor are they considering the dropping of the teaching of history. They are merely facing the fact that testing what has been “learned” at the end of Grades 1, 2, and 3 in social studies with a 44-question multiple choice test is inadequately informative, penalizes 3rd grade teachers not responsible for Grades 1 and 2 learning, and promotes inevitably some form of “teaching to the test.”

Making the rounds currently are circulars like this one making people fearful—drop 3rd grade SOL testing, and it will mean the beginning of a de-emphasis on history education, they say. “Pass it on to those who may have an interest in supporting history education.” I beg to disagree, suggesting that passing that idea along will continue to weaken the history classroom in Virginia, as has been going on since Governor George Allen’s Education Department instituted the program in the 1990s.

As a 30-year classroom veteran, Agnes-Meyer Teacher of the Year for Loudoun County, Virginia Historical Society Brenton S. Halsey Teacher of the Year, and as a museum educator for working with four school districts the past five years, I would strongly recommend the effort to drop multiple choice testing of the History SOLs at the end of Grade 3 go forward. Based on my experience both as a department chairman/teacher and as a museum educator working with our current crop of history educators, I would even more strongly recommend that we drop currently configured standardized SOL testing in all history classes. This is not because I am lazy, or because I do not believe that teachers need to have some form of oversight. [All of my students passed the SOL test in 11th grade U.S. History my last year of teaching when I had “learned the game.”] It is not because I want history dropped from the curriculum (it won’t be) or that there should be no Standards of Learning to guide history teachers.

Here is why this form of standardized testing should be heavily re-evaluated or dropped:

1. The huge number of tested items forces teachers to go for "coverage" rather than thinking, discussion, and depth--in short, critical thinking and learning are replaced by memorization. Rote learning impresses some, evidently—particularly those who came of age before 1900.

2. Weaker schools have to "teach to the test"; stronger schools find that good teaching has to be replaced by teaching memorizable factoids (i.e., “teach to the test.”).

3. The tests use multiple choice questions that test the simplest form of knowing. Writing is not involved, problem-solving, analysis or synthesis, application, and other higher order thinking skills are largely dodged. If you do not know this, multiple choice tests test better your reading ability than what you have learned. I found them highly unreliable unless coupled with other modes of evaluation as well. [I am lucky to be one who does very well on these types of multiple choice tests. Some of my most brilliant, learned students, however, struggled with them, while "acing" higher order essay-based testing.]
The Commonwealth has neither the grading time nor the extra funds that takes to change the current mode of evaluation.

4. Projects involving the community, field experiences, speakers in class, and other aspects that promote "best practice" historical learning take a back seat to constant factoid teaching. Administrators hate this. Teachers hate this. Parents hate this. Students hate this. If doing this kind of rote learning is so good, why do so few people ever positively remember that aspect of their history class learning? Ask any museum or historic site educator if they think this sort of emphasis through multiple choice testing has increased school interest in extending students’ learning into the community or to history beyond the classroom. You will see that, despite historic site adaptation to SOLs (programs are largely SOL-centric to allow subversive teachers to continue to really teach history), overall, students are being exposed to less real history due to the testing program, not more.

5. Dropping SOL testing of History does not marginalize history, it just refocuses our objective and our mode of teaching back to what we had learned during the educational reform movements of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. We were on the verge of the best teaching I ever witnessed when Governor Allen introduced this kind of testing. SOLs will not be dropped, a multiple choice test as the way to evaluate what students learn will. Schools will ascertain for themselves how to evaluate whether students have learned along the SOL guidelines.

6. As an 11th grade teacher (both A.P. and Academic), the sheer number of SOLs and parts of SOLs meant total control of every day of your teaching, and even then, it was hard to get them all in with any thoughtful depth.

It does seem odd that I have yet to meet a good social studies teacher (the ones I currently work with) who enthusiastically supports SOL testing in the current format. They will do what they are ordered to, but they usually feel that the current SOL-testing-based program largely forces them to go against the best practice they were trained to do by our universities. For a few marginally competent people it provides escape, cook-book like guidelines, and an escape from the more difficult question of how to make history useful, challenging, thought-provoking, and of value to our country, our economy, and our community. The most common excuse for failure to take field trips, bring community resources into the classroom, teach children better writing and thinking skills, and pursue topics in any depth is, "I can't; I don't have time due to the SOL tests we must prepare for." Overwhelmingly, the schools under the most pressure to do well on the SOLs have the most problem extending learning in depth beyond them. NOTE: The best teachers in Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier, and Clarke counties are still trying—that’s the good news!

DON'T LET PEOPLE CONVINCE YOU THAT SOL TESTING CORRELATES TO STATE EMPHASIS ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. The point was for state control of what every child would learn. In its original incarnation, this meant a sharp shift to the right in the content and away from critical thinking. [Admittedly, the SOL content has been more centered with subsequent revisions to the SOLs).

You may wish to continue support for the SOLs, though they will need both regular updating/review and culling reduce the number to the most crucial content. However, I recommend you support efforts to end multiple-choice based testing at the end of 3rd grade Our current testing does not promote the community's education (unless memorization=education) or social science education goals. It promotes “coverage” and “memorization of factoids.” Please continue to promote quality history teaching in our schools and in our communities! Be a part of the solution!

Build it and They Will Come? Or Advertise, Advertise, Advertise?

2009-06-01T23:06:00.004-04:00

I read an interesting Harvard Business Publishing blog by Don Pallotta, a leading expert in nonprofit innovation, focused around how so many not for profits do not invest in advertising. Besides the obvious lack of funding for such endeavors, I wonder why there is not more advertising in the nonprofit world? Do nonprofits eschew advertising as below their virtuous purposes? Do we think our intrinsic value is so great that we don't have a need for advertising? Is it simply a lack of money? Is it that people drawn to careers in the nonprofit world are not business-savvy enough to focus on marketing and advertising the same way an entrepreneur might? And, my final question, are we shooting ourselves in the collective 'foot' by not focusing more on spreading the word about all that we are and all that we offer????

- Heather

Top 10 Reasons to Love a VAM Council Meeting

2009-05-07T21:59:00.003-04:00

10. The beautiful venues that are kind enough to host.
9. The lively discussion.
8. The lively debate.
7. The lunch (today's brownies were especially succulent)
6. The "tangents"
5. Discussions over how best to help our members.
4. Pig pens.
3. Innovative ideas that will bear fruit and help many in our field!
2. Tea and scones

and the #1 reason to love a VAM Council meeting? Knowing they'll blog about it afterward!

Thanks everyone for allowing me to join in today - I enjoyed talking with you!
- Heather

VAM is Extending May Day for the Whole Month!

2009-05-01T22:06:00.005-04:00

In honor of May Day, VAM urges all museums to review their disaster plans in the month of May. We also encourage anyone who is a member of a MEST group (Museum Emergency Support Team), anyone who is interested in serving on VAM's Emergency Response Team, and anyone who just wants to learn more about emergency salvage and recovery, to come to one of our special workshops in May:

MAY 8th, 1 - 4 pm: Richmond, VA, VAM Offices

MAY 18th, 11 - 3:30pm: Centreville, VA, Cabell's Mill

The cost for each workshop is $15.

To register, call Bridget or Jennifer at 804-788-5820.

What are you doing in honor of May Day? We'd love to hear from you!

VAM's 2009 Conference a Great Success!

2009-03-28T23:21:00.001-04:00

Bleeding a Turnip

2009-03-10T15:32:00.003-04:00

In the VAM office we tend to get the phone calls and emails early when news breaks about layoffs in the museum world. The news is always unwelcome, and sometimes heartbreaking, and we do what we can to help. But no words have affected me like the following from the recent press coverage of the loss of 5 positions at the Taubman Museum of Art:

“(Board President John) Williamson said the staff cuts and other adjustments would save about $370,000 annually. He said there is no plan to cut services or programs.”

In the rush to reassure the community that nothing will change, what other message does it send? How can you cut five positions out of 33 with absolutely no effect on programs and services? I do not have all of the details of the Taubman situation and perhaps this was an overstatement or misquote; but we all know that in general it is possible only if the remaining staff absorb the duties of the fired staff. This is what museums routinely do in this situation. It is not the fault of the museum director; as my mother used to say “you can’t get blood out of a turnip” and the work still needs to be done.

But what the general public reads into that statement is “they must have had a lot of extra people they didn’t really need.” This is a great disservice to all museum staff who work hard and are proud of what they do. It also exacerbates the stress of those staff who remain and must now find extra hours in the day to do someone else’s job in addition to their own. If the work doesn’t suffer, then surely one’s health and family life will. Something has got to give.

The Virginia Association of Museums has been asked by the American Association of Museums to participate in a multi-phase planning process for the reinvention of the Accreditation Program. The results will help determine how AAM can best go about comprehensively reinventing the accreditation program into something that is more effective, efficient, valuable, and relevant to the field. I would like to see some guidelines on human resource management addressed in the new accreditation standards. What would you like to see?

We want to hear from you what you feel are the issues before the museum industry and how they relate to accreditation. Please feel free to write me at mcarlock@vamuseums.org. VAM’s Council members will also be gathering input at the VAM booth during the annual conference in Virginia Beach March 22-24.

It is a remarkable step that AAM is taking to re-engineer the accreditation process and requirements based on input from the field. It is now our obligation to provide that input.

What Museum Stores Need to Know about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008

2009-03-06T23:08:00.002-05:00

If your museum has a gift shop, you need to know something about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

Read the Act here.

Read more about how it may affect you.

If you have any comments about how this has affected your museum's gift shop, or advice for other museums on this issue, we'd love to hear from you!

VAM Wants to Hear from You

2009-02-13T20:59:00.000-05:00

We urge you and your staff to take a moment and use this space to share in our online conversation about how you are surviving and coping in today's economic climate. This conversation will help all of us communicate more effectively with funders, lawmakers and the media. The museum field is full of smart, creative people, so sharing our thoughts on survival can help us all - plus, by sharing your challenges, you may find others who share your challenge and can help, and VAM can learn more about the needs of the museum community we serve so that we may better meet your needs through our programming. The AAM is offering a two-day,four part webinar, Straight Talk: Museums Rising to the Financial Challenge , March 18-19. Each 90-minute session will focus on a crucial issue confronting us all: retrenchment, fundraising, managing human resources and communications strategies.

Memories of Election Day by Audrey Davis

2008-11-08T08:28:00.000-05:00

I was out of the office on Election Day. I got in line to vote by 6:00 am, and found there were already 25 people ahead of me.

The polls in Washington, DC did not open until 7 am. By the time I left at 7:30am, the line was three long blocks and had over 100 people waiting to vote.

The best moment of the day was taking my 94 year old Aunt Alice to vote. She was so excited. As a teacher in Virginia in the 1930s, she sued the state of Virginia to obtain school buses for her students. African American children in her area walked three miles to and from school each day, and were not allowed on county school buses. Her lawyer was a young Oliver Hill (later a famous Civil Rights attorney). She won the case, and her county was forced to provide buses for African American students.

Unfortunately, she lost her job and had threats to her life. Unable to work in Virginia, she moved to DC and worked for the federal government. Yesterday, I was able to take my aunt's picture coming out of the polling station. You have never seen a happier woman. Later, after Obama won, I had a chance to call her. She was in tears, never thinking she would live to see an African
American president of the United States.

I attended an election party Tuesday night. There were tears, cheers, and people coming out of their homes and into the streets to rejoice - it was an amazing night! Our intern Dennis (who was in downtown in DC), told me people stopped their cars in the street and got out to hug each other. Later, throngs of people marched to the White House to celebrate. On my way home at 2 am, people were still honking their car horns and yelling greetings to you as you passed.

Wednesday, we were out field collecting Obama memorabilia for our collection (at the Alexandria Black History Museum). The hardest thing to find were newspapers. Everyone sold out by 8 am. Even today, all the newspapers sold out in my area by 9 am. The most exciting thing today was taking to a reporter in London from the BBC. They may be sending a camera crew to the museum for an interview. Its all been a lot to take in - it still seems like a dream. I hope the next four years are good for us all.

Creating a Tool Box of Docent Training Activities

2008-11-07T20:01:00.001-05:00

“One of my favorite podcast sites is called Manager Tools (http://www.manager-tools.com/) because it describes effective behaviors rather than drowning listeners in management theory.I realized that one of my goals with both workshops that Mark Howell, Kat Spears, and I have done on interactive training techniques was to use VAM members’ collective knowledge to create a tool box for docent trainers. In place of hammers and screwdrivers, this box would contain handouts and step-by-step directions for training activities. In that spirit, here are some links to the activities (scroll down to handouts) that we demonstrated at the workshops and I hope that others of you will post yours so we can start making this a shared resource. Thanks to everyone who attended either workshop!”

Linnea Grim