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House Appropriations Letter Supporting Office of Museum Services

March 14, 2011 / / 0 Comments

This is a move-fast kind of alert. I just completed the process outlined here by the AAM, and it took two minutes and twelve second. (Yes, I used a stopwatch.)

That two minutes and twelve seconds included composing the following paragraph, which I offer here for you to cut-and-paste into the relevant section of the email form (it requires you to type something in there):

As a member of the Tufts Museum Studies community, I am keenly aware of how necessarily IMLS support is for the future of museums in America. The availability of public funding for innovative, community-based educational outreach of the kind provided at museums is crucial. The IMLS has a longtime track record of providing just such support.

Representative Mike Capuano has not yet signed this appropriations letter. This is an opportunity for Tufts students to really make a difference. I know you can take less than two minutes out of your day to do this!

Instructions as provided by the AAM below:

Act Now! Ask Your Representative to Join House Appropriations Letter Supporting Office of Museum Services

Great News!  Once again in conjunction with Museums Advocacy Day, U.S. Representatives Paul Tonko (D-NY), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Leonard Lance (R-NJ) are circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter in the U.S. House of Representatives encouraging Members of Congress to join their bipartisan letter to the House Appropriations Committee urging $35 million for the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

**The deadline to sign on to this letter is this THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2011. **

CLICK HERE to ask your Representative to SIGN THE TONKO/SLAUGHTER/LANCE APPROPRIATIONS LETTER Today!

“Members of the House of Representatives are most likely to sign on to a Dear Colleague letter when asked by a constituent,” said AAM President Ford W. Bell.  “We have already seen a number of attacks on cultural agencies and programs this year, and we need to ensure enough Members of Congress sign on to this letter to protect the IMLS Office of Museum Services from funding cuts.  I applaud the leadership of Representatives Tonko, Slaughter and Lance on this issue.”

The letter highlights the many educational and other vital services museums provide in their local communities every day and asks the Appropriations Committee to support $35 million for FY12 for OMS.

Thanks to advocate visits during Museums Advocacy Day, the following Representatives have already agreed to sign the letter:

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), lead co-signer
Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ), lead co-signer
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), lead co-signer
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA)
Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
Rep. Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU)
Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK)
Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA)
Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN)
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT)
Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD)
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN)
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA)
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY)
Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI)
Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA)
Rep. Michael Michaud (D-ME)
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)
Rep. James Moran (D-VA)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)
Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA)
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA)

The Office of Museum Services received just over $35 million in the last completed funding cycle (FY10). President Obama has requested an 8.2% reduction in his FY12 budget proposal. Congress is currently completing work on its FY11 budget, and the House is already beginning to work on funding for FY12.

To get involved in more advocacy for museums visit www.speakupformuseums.org today!

Audience and the Future

March 14, 2011 / / 0 Comments

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 was talking to representatives of a potential donor; he was actually talking to political activists. As part of the fallout of those revelations, NPR’s board of trustees asked for and received the resignation of NPR’s CEO, Vivian Schiller.

What does this have to do with museums?

Well, a lot, actually. One of the hot-button issues in public radio right now is whether or not it should receive government funding. Museums are also in danger of losing their public funding; indeed, they already have lost quite a bit in recent budget revelations. Public radio and museums both find themselves juggling many of the same difficult issues: relevance, money, appeal, and message, among others.

One subject that has been talked about a lot in the museum community is audience: who is our audience now? who should it be in the future? how should we best identify, communicate with, and appeal to our audience? (should we do these things?)

For these and many other reasons, a recent commentary by Sue Schardt, executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio, really struck a chord with me. Among the really interesting things she said was this:

We have built an extraordinary franchise. It didn’t happen by accident. It happened because we used a very specific methodology to cultivate and build an audience. For years, in boardrooms, at conferences, with funders, we have talked about our highly educated, influential audience. We pursued David Giovannoni’s methodologies. We all participated. It was his research, his undaunted, clear strategy that we pursued to build the successful news journalism franchise we have today.

What happened as a result is that we unwittingly cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite. “Super-serve the core” — that was the mantra, for many, many years. This focus has, in large part, brought us to our success today. It was never anyone’s intention to exclude anyone.

But we have to accept — unapologetically — that this is the franchise we’ve built.

Read the whole thing. It’s extraordinary.

Happy (?) Museums Advocacy Day!

February 28, 2011 / / 0 Comments

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.

National Arts Strategies

February 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

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!)

Museums and Historic Preservation in FY 2012

February 14, 2011 / / 0 Comments

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is live-blogging their analysis of President Obama’s proposed budget for next year. They’ll be updating throughout the day as they discuss areas of the budget that relate to historic preservation and public funding for the arts. If you want to do your own research, there’s an interactive breakdown of the budget on the White House website.

For those who have been following the buzz about the budget through other news sources, this budget is an attempt to drastically scale back federal spending in the face of an escalating deficit. Not twenty minutes ago on NPR I heard what seemed like a good summary of where it will go next: essentially, Democrats think it’s way over the top and Republicans think it doesn’t go far enough. Which is to say, this document is still due for a lot of debate and revision.

Either way things shape up, it probably doesn’t look good for federal funding for museums. We’ll be posting wrap-ups this week, as well as some interesting thinking about new business models for museums. The future isn’t looking so bright for the traditional public money dependence that got a lot of museums through the 20th century.

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