Welcome to our weekly museums in the news roundup! New York’s Museum of Sex Launches Comic Book Exhibition (Museum of Sex, New York, New York) Most beautiful museum gardens around the world (Various Museums) [yes, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is in there!] On a …
We talked about Guidestar not that long ago, and remember at the bottom of that post shared some of Guidestar’s resources for nonprofits? Well, there’s another one coming up soon. Guidestar is running a free webinar called “The Compensation Checklist for Nonprofits: Are You Prepared …
Just reminding everyone that there will be a NEMA informal meetup at O’Connor’s Restaurant and Bar in Worcester next Monday.
4:00 – 6:00 p.m on Monday, January 24, directly following the Orphans in the Collections Workshop at the Higgins Armory.
Any Tufts students planning on going? Let us know, and we’ll coordinate for a carpool.
In early December, AAM sponsored a webinar on social media and museum advocacy. Led by Stephanie Vance of Advocacy Associates, the presentation provided basic lessons in how to use newer tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to cultivate supporters and engage elected officials. Here are …
Next up in our series of know your professional organizations, we have a sub-category of last week’s featured organization: the AAM’s Emerging Museum Professionals. Now, not all of you are just emerging. Some of you have been out there in the ranks for years. But …
Today’s New York Times reports that a spanking new museum, Go Fish, is reaping criticism. Some residents think that the 14 million dollar institution in Georgia is a boondoogle; an out-of-scale extravagance for a poor state during a recession. Others defend the museum, explaining that it was built to lure tourism and lucrative fishing competitions (which had previously ignored Georgia)… and it is working.
This new museum reveals some of the underbelly tensions in the museum world. Many museum directors spend time trying to convince state purse-string holders that their institutions significantly contribute to luring tourism dollars. Aquariums, like sports arenas, have long been considered economic assets, and some cities have built them for the express purpose of drawing visitors to the area. So is Go Fish any different? Would people be complaining if it was a sports arena?
But perhaps Go Fish does cross that shifting line in the sand of inappropriateness. Maybe it is more like the Creation Museum, founded on ideology rather than a collection or an educational mission. Would it make a difference if this museum emerged from a fish-related collection? Or if it was dedicated to exploring environmental issues in Georgia’s waterways? Here’s one more test: would you work there if offered a job?