Exploring ideas and engaging in conversation

Month: June 2011 (Page 3 of 4)

Museums in the News: The Stanley Cup Roundup

Welcome to our weekly museums in the news roundup!

As everyone in Boston knows, the most important news is that the Bruins play tomorrow night to stay alive in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Metropolitan Museum raising suggested admission fee (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York)

Museum receives $1 million (proposed US Marshals Museum, Fort Smith, Arkansas)

Autry Center could lose grant over Southwest Museum (Autry National Center of the American West, Los Angeles, California)

National Civil War Museum curator’s 2-week journey back to 1863 reaches end (National Civil War Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)

‘Avatar’ and its blue moon land at Seattle’s EMP (Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Seattle, WA)

In museum fight, Armenian-American Group Refuses To Leave Disputed Site (proposed museum, Washington, D.C.)

Museum dedicated to fashion designer Balenciaga opens in Spain (The Balenciaga Institute, Getaria, Spain)

Smithsonian’s ‘Made in America’ gift shop opens (National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.)

Tazewell County Museum looks to leave Pekin (Tazewell County Museum, Pekin, Illinois)

Squeezing 4-Wheeled Masterpieces Into the Museum (Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon)

Will Children’s Museum of Los Angeles ever open? (proposed museum, Los Angeles, California)

Weekly Jobs Listing

Every week, we round up all the jobs posted and collect them here. Don’t forget, you can still get jobs as soon as they come out by checking the job announcements page.

  • Museum Educator and Reservations Manager [Bruce Museum]Museum Educator and Reservations Manager, Full-time Bruce Museum Greenwich, Connecticut The Bruce Museum promotes the appreciation and understanding of arts and sciences to enrich the lives of all people. An art and science museum located in Green…
  • Assistant Curator of Education for Visitor Engagement [Birmingham Museum of Art]*Birmingham Museum of Art* JOB TITLE: Assistant Curator of Education for Visitor Engagement REPORTS TO: Curator of Education JOB PURPOSE: This position is responsible for helping create a museum environment where visitor learning can reach fu…
  • Museum Manager [Children’s Museum of Eastern Oregon]Museum Manager Overview: The Children’s Museum of Eastern Oregon is a not-for-profit play place, offering a wide range of educational exhibits and activities for children of all ages. The Children’s Museum is located on Main Street in downtown Pend…
  • Program Evaluator [Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies]The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies (SCEMS) is currently recruiting a Program Evaluator. The Program Evaluator is responsible for identifying and implementing pan-institutional evaluation strategies to determine the effectiveness of…
  • Public Education Manager [Echo Lake Aquarium and Science Center]*Position Title*: Public Education Manager *Location: *ECHO Lake Aquarium & Science Center at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont *Reports To:* Director of Education *FLSA Status*: Exempt *Summary:* ECHO¹s mission is …
  • Community Engagement Assistant [Historic New England]Position: Community Engagement Assistant Classification: Part Time (approx. 20 hours per week) Location: Otis House, Beacon Hill – Boston, MA Description: The Community Engagement Assistant provides administrative and research support to the manag…

Nonprofits Losting Tax Exemption

Quick post of an article that caught my eye from the recent newsletter from the Center for the Future of Museums:

275,000 Groups Lose Tax Exemptions After Failing to File Paperwork With IRS

The CFM estimates that’s about 1,000 museums. Some of those museums, of course, haven’t existed for years. You can actually see the full list here. (There are at least five or six museums in Massachusetts, for example.) Organizations were given three years to comply with the new regulations, so you can’t really argue that this was a surprise.

For some of the nonprofits that are still active, and didn’t get their paperwork together, this could be a devastating blow. They’ll be allowed to re-apply for charity status, but not all of them will make it.

Is this kind of accountability a good thing? I’m not sure the IRS is going to recoup vast amounts of taxes from this exercise, and you could argue that targeting nonprofits, who don’t always have the resources to hire tax lawyers and accountants, isn’t entirely fair. Especially since big corporations, who are in theory taxed at as much as 35%, often find all sorts of loopholes, and in the end pay less in income tax than anywhere else in the world. In fact, lost of them don’t pay taxes at all.

One of the AAM advocacy points is the argument that museums actually can be economic boosters in their neighborhoods. Cultural centers often are – see this great report from NPR about an arts center in Omaha, Nebraska, that’s bringing $100 million to its neighborhood.

No real conclusions, here, just lots of questions and things to consider – which is exactly what one hopes for from a newsletter about the future of museums.

PS – if you’re not on the mailing list for the CFM, you’re missing out. Go, run, and sign up.

Online Learning Reviews: Seattle Art Museum

As mentioned, we’re doing occasional reviews of museum online learning opportunities written for the Spring 2012 class “Museums and Online Learning.”

Seattle Art Museum

Whenever I heard about the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), the first thing comes into my mind is the city of Seattle. I like Seattle! Although I have never visited it, by exploring its website I like SAM, too. SAM has a great, varied collection and when it comes to presenting it online, SAM does a good job but needs to improve some of its some online features.

In general, the SAM website is well organized and it is easy to navigate. It is very informative yet the reader is not overpowered by information. The main colors of the website (white, blue and green) are subtle and it relaxes the eyes.  It has a clear design which does not overwhelm the content. But the use of small fonts is a problem. Although I was not inconvenienced it might be uncomfortable for some visitors with sight problems.

In the age of web 2.0, where participation is the key, databased and digitized collections are not sufficient. Online collections should be more than that. SAM‘s “create your own collection” feature works great in that sense. Users can register via their e-mail addresses, select the art they like and create their own virtual exhibits. As well as promoting participation, this feature gives a sense of ownership to the users and engages them with the museum’s collection better.

I believe that “encouragement to explore more” is another important element of participation. But this part is insufficient in SAM’s online collections. The “permanent collection highlights” section successfully gives the visitor a general idea about the collection at a first glance. The “close ups” section on the other hand provides detailed information about the 100 selected artworks. This is the only section which is supported by audio content and offers related pieces to discover.  But, for a museum having more than 23,000 pieces in its collection, the number of the selected artworks should be increased. Also, by adding more “learn more about” or “see related pieces” features, SAM’s online collections would be more engaging.

To reach more people, SAM has to develop its search facilities, too. The only way to search through SAM’s collection is typing keywords. The database is enormous but only experts will know how to pull up information about specific pieces. This would limit the variety of visitors using this feature.

Those are my observations in less than 400 words. What do you think?

Making it Meaningful: Interpreting Unique Places and Experiences

Passing this along to all who might be able to go – this workshop sounds amazing. One of the speakers is Kathleen McLean, co-author of the great new book The Convivial Museum. McLean and her co-author, Wendy Pollock, recently wrote about their work on Nina Simon’s Museum 2.0 blog.

Here’s the summary; check out their website for more details and registration info. And if you go, please let us know so we can do a write-up!

Making it Meaningful: Interpreting Unique Sites and ExperiencesDate: Friday, June 17, 2011
Time: 09:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Registration: $50.00
Location: Bernard Osher Foundation Auditorium and Museum Galleries

The Portland Museum of Art is pleased to host a day-long discussion focused on innovative strategies for creating meaningful experiences for visitors to unique sites such as the Winslow Homer Studio. The program features presentations by Kathleen McLean, Gail Davitt, Sandy Goldberg, Dinah Mack, and Kate Way. Lectures, discussions, and workshops will explore recent innovations in museum interpretation and offer ample opportunities for exchange among colleagues. Lunch at the Museum and a concluding reception at the Black Point Inn and the Winslow Homer Studio at Prouts Neck are included in the registration fee. For more information, please call Vanessa Nesvig at (207) 775-6148, ext. 3227.

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