Those of you who don’t listen to NPR regularly might not know that the public radio organization has been in quite a bit of hot water lately. Most recently, its former head of development was caught on tape saying some rather…ill-advised things. He believed he …
First: sorry for missing last week’s museum’s in the news roundup! I am not always as on top of my intrepid blog editor persona as I’d like to be. As a bonus, this week’s news roundup will be twice as long. I know you’re excited. …
If you haven’t been following the AAM’s Facebook feed – or any of their other communication methods – you might not know that today and tomorrow are designated as Museum Advocacy Days. The AAM, through its website Speak Up For Museums, is promoting a number of ways to get in touch with your local representatives and make a case for why museums are vital in their communities.
There will be a number of events down in Washington, D.C., but for us students who might not have the resources to jet down there to participate in the workshops, what can be done at home?
Lots!
– You can catch up on your reading by leafing through the AAM’s Advocacy Materials website – it’s a great collection of PDFs with highlights of the how and why of advocating for museums.
– You can watch the archived webinar about museum advocacy that the AAM did a few months ago. (And read our own Kris Bierfelt’s highlights overview if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing.)
– You can also watch the live feed of the programming in Washington, D.C. through the AAM’s website here.
Come on back tomorrow, and we’ll have even more ways you can participate in standing up for museums.
Welcome to the weekly museums in the news roundup! Without a doubt the weirdest story of the week is this one: Desperate museum guard holds Renaissance masterpieces for ransom, only to have them stolen from his car (Museum of Fine Arts, Corsica, Italy) Worcester Art …
Up next is a very specialized, very important group: the Visitor Studies Association. The VSA, in its own words, is today’s premier professional organization focusing on all facets of the visitor experience in museums, zoos, nature centers, visitor centers, historic sites, parks and other informal …
This isn’t exactly a professional organization, so we’re spinning information about this great organization off into its own post.
National Arts Strategies is a group that helps with “organizational leadership for arts and culture.” They provide advice, training, and general information about best practices in arts and culture organizations. Right now that means they’re putting out a lot of great content helping those organizations weather the current economic storm. (As their President and CEO, Russell Willis Taylor says in a recent speech, “There are no crises, only tough decisions.”)
The Vice President of NAS, Jim Rosenberg, recently did a terrific interview with The Foundation Center on their podcast about “Arts Management in Uneasy Times”; listen to it here. That’ll give you the overview. Spend a lot more time looking around on the website, though. There are some really interesting ideas and initiatives there. Their videos, reading list, and publications sections are especially good. They also offer a number of in-person workshops and events on a variety of management and strategy topics.
(For those of you thinking “But I’m going to be a curator/educator/collections manager/registrar, I don’t need to know any of that”…well, forewarned is forearmed, right? You just might find yourself in a position to be thinking hard about strategy and management someday, and every scrap of learning and experience will come in handy!)