It’s a week for new occasional series! This spring, students in the Museums and Online Learning class, taught by Cynthia Robinson, wrote short reviews of various online learning opportunities. We are lucky enough to be publishing them here on the TMSB. They’ll appear over the …
We’re starting a new occasional series here at the TMSB (yes, that’s what I’m calling it now). We’ll be sharing some of the great internships that Tufts students are heading off to this summer, and over the following year. First up is Rebecca Barber, who’s …
We’re always happy to showcase useful, interesting blogs for those interested in museums. Here’s a roundup of a few you might want to add to your regular reading list.
(There are a couple of great ways to easily follow blogs you like, including ours; this post sums up your options.)
ArtDaily – Pointed out by Tufts alum Henry Lukas, this is a really good overview of…well, everything! Lots of information on lots of topics.
NEMA – Everyone’s favorite museum association has a blog! Only a few posts so far, but it promises to be a useful and interesting reading venue.
American Enterprise – This is a blog and a participatory experiment. The National Museum of American History is writing about its research process for a big new exhibit while inviting visitor comments on shaping that exhibit. Should be interesting to see how it goes!
Museum Audience Insight – We already knew these guys were fantastic – Susie Wilkening has been generous about sharing her time and brilliance with classes at Tufts for some time now. This blog is a cut above. They’re doing important, useful research about issues that matter to museums, and they’re sharing it with us!
I know some of you out there at AAM, and I’m trying very hard not to be jealous. Bring some fun stuff back for the rest of us, eh? In the meantime: lots of fun and interesting news out there about museums this week! Hands-down …
Want some fun for a Friday afternoon? Stephen Colbert confessed to the 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum a few days ago. Yes, you read that right. Just watch the clip. The Colbert Report Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video …
We all get a great education in the classroom through Tufts – but how to continue that process once we’re out in the big, bad real world? And how to apply the great lessons that we’re getting from the theory to the practice?
One of the best ways to keep learning and keep a critical eye is to keep visiting museums. Collect all the information you can – brochures, gallery guides, and photographs of labels, object placement, gallery layout, everything you can think of. (I once took a picture of where a bathroom door was located relative to a column as a sort of “don’t try this at home, kids” bad example.)
So you get home from a museum trip and you’ve collected everything. Now what? That’s where I’m hoping you will help out – or at least start to think about for yourself.
Do you file everything by museum, or by type of literature? (A folder of gallery guides, or everything ever from the MFA?)
Do you cull through your photographs, or just dump them on your hard drive? Then do you file them by museum, or by example?
How do you flag your best and worst examples?
Do you put things online? Do you worry about copyright and privacy and exposing yourself if you do so, and develop a not-so-flattering opinion of the museum in question?
Talk about it here in comments, and at the very least – think about it. Developing your arsenal of examples is key to both your ongoing critical eye and your future career prospects.