Building Capacity Workshop at the Museum of Arts and Design, October 26, 2021

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

I write from the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. The twenty-five museum professionals with us are bouncing energy around the room. My heart is filled with joy to be here among such passionate, and dedicated people. In this fall’s Forums, we are learning how partnerships help museums reach new audiences, grow resources, and interpret collections. Today, the New York City Building Capacity program participants are sharing their successes, challenges, and hopes for the future.

I am beyond grateful for those of you who have let me know that our virtual programs helped you remain connected and informed. I apologize for my frequent tears in response to your thanks, but when we closed the Zoom on Friday afternoons, it sometimes felt like all the air had been let out of the room and I could do nothing but nap. Other times the momentum kept me going for a week. But if the pandemic raised doubts in my mind about the importance of being with colleagues in creative, actual spaces discussing our work, today silenced every doubt.

While we finish our fall workshops and prepare for the grant opportunities announced last week, we have begun planning for our 2022 annual conference “Envisioning Our Museums for the Seventh Generation.” The Seventh Generation is a core value among the Indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora peoples. The principle, which is rooted in the preservation of Indigenous culture, underscores the importance of the human continuum. It advocates for informed, long-term decision-making that recognizes and draws from the past while laying the groundwork for the future.

We invite you to connect with colleagues and consider this concept from April 10th through the 12th in Corning, NY, on the ancestral lands of the Seneca. Conference plans include visits to unique museum spaces, Saturday Workshops, Conference Capstones, special events, and more than a dozen sessions that will advance your professional practice.

Our call for proposals to New York’s museum professionals are for sessions that address the theme, that are engaging and interactive, and offer multiple perspectives.

Watch for an email and MANY social media channels in the coming weeks for the Call for Proposals and the schedule for submitting Awards of Merit nominations.

With tears of gratitude and joyful hopes for the spring of 2022, e

Located about an hour north of New York City, the Katonah Museum of Art is a non-collecting institution producing three to four exhibitions each year that cover a range of art and humanities topics. The Katonah Museum of Art’s bilingual family literacy program, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether promotes school readiness for preschool children. It fosters social inclusion through parent engagement and access to informal learning experiences. Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), ArteJuntos/ArtTogether empowers parents to become resourceful facilitators of their children’s learning while encouraging families to enjoy museums together. Since its inception almost 15 years ago, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether has strengthened and grown with its partner organizations for Westchester County’s growing Latino community.

The exterior of the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY

ArteJuntos/ArtTogether

“ArteJuntos/ArtTogether started as a response to the museum wanting to be better connected to the changing demographics of our area and to our communities in general,” said Margaret Adasko, Katonah Museum of Art’s Curator of Education. “Over the years, this program has taken many different forms. We’ve worked with school and community organizations, but the main goals of the program are to work directly with parents and their young children so that we are sharing all the ways you can use museums and art to learn together.” ArteJuntos/ArtTogether uses artwork from the museum’s exhibitions as source material for inquiry-based discussions and collaborative art-making activities. 

“It was the museum’s former director of education who had a relationship with a family literacy program based in Tarrytown funded by Even Start, which no longer exists.  The museum was seeking ways to support the parent community and started offering some programming in partnership with this group,” said Helena Vidal, Program Manager. Even Start was funded by the US Department of Education and offered grants to support local family literacy projects that integrated early childhood education. “This collaboration between the KMA and Even Start was so successful that word got out in Tarrytown and then in Ossining. Eventually, there was a desire and interest when the Even Start program ended for the Museum to continue working with a family literacy program in Ossining. This led to the original IMLS grant application that laid the groundwork for the curriculum, the community partnerships, and refining the program’s objectives and outcomes,” said Vidal. The museum was awarded an IMLS Museums for America Grant in 2010 for just over $115,000 for the development of ArteJuntos/ArtTogether.

“In every iteration of the ArteJuntos/ArtTogether we’ve tried to stay connected with our partners to be flexible and  to support their needs,” said Vidal. “We see it as part of our primary objective of the program– to support what our partners are trying to do and what they offer their constituencies.”

How the program works

Each ArteJuntos/ArtTogether program includes ten sessions that take place at partner site classrooms and at the museum. It begins with a parents-only session with a discussion about cultural institutions as informal learning resources. The goal of this first session is to support New Americans who don’t yet feel that museums are a space created for them. 

A parents-only session is designed to support immigrants who may not yet feel that museums are a space created for them. This session includes a discussion of cultural institutions as informal learning resources, the role of parent support at home, and the use of dialogue to develop observation, critical thinking, and emergent literacy skills in preschool children. The Katonah Museum of Art educator models inquiry-based teaching, giving parents tools to engage children in discussions about works of art, books, and the world around them. The parents also participate in an art activity that will later be introduced to their children. In the activity pictured here, connections between line and emotion are explored.

“An important component of the program is parent-only sessions.” said Vidal. “During these workshops we talk about the value of museum learning and ask the caregivers to share their own experiences in museums.”

The program also includes a discussion about the role of parental support at home, the importance of play, and the use of dialogue to develop observation, critical thinking, and literacy skills. Museum educators model an inquiry-based teaching methodology, giving parents tools to engage children in discussions about works of art, books, and the world around them. “We’re modeling conversations with works of art and demonstrating not only how to engage a child with a work of art but with the art-making,” said Vidal. To support parents at home, the museum models collaborative, open-ended art activities and provides bilingual “Art at Home” activities and art supplies.

Father and daughter display their series of portraits made with a variety of art materials in connection with the exhibition Matisse Drawings: Curated by Ellsworth Kelly From the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation Collection.

“It’s all part of sharing strategies for how we look at art, how we talk about art, and how you can engage your children in a discussion about art and art-making that is also supporting their school readiness,” said Vidal. “We support the idea that a parent is their child’s most important teacher, which is an objective of effective early childhood programs. ArteJuntos is aligned with our partners goals of supporting parents’ development of this role.” 

Through this program, the museum wants to create multiple entry points by eliminating barriers such as language and transportation, and by giving parents the tools to support a positive museum experience. “I like to talk to them not just about the Katonah Museum of Art as an entity that we want them to visit but we really want them to feel comfortable visiting any museum,” said Vidal.

Reaching Community

Student artwork is displayed in an annual exhibition at the Ossining Public Library, where families, friends, and members of the community can view it. A combination of students’ individual artworks, families’ written descriptions of the artworks, collaborative class projects, and photos of the program are included in the exhibition.  

In order to reach the Latino community, the museum started with an internal committee that was tasked with reaching out to different organizations. “We talked with teachers, and we talked to community organizers,” said Adasko. “Recently, Helena [Vidal] and I went on several listening sessions and identified many organizations that were responding to these immigrant communities. We had meetings with all of them.” Through these community-based organizations, Adasko and Vidal were able to speak directly with organizational leaders and asked what they needed most, what they wanted, and to better understand what were the opportunities for collaboration. “From these listening sessions, we were able to develop a few target partners that we’ve continued working with to today.” 

Through the Pandemic

The ArteJuntos/ArtTogether program continued through the pandemic virtually utilizing Zoom and drop-off art kits that partner organizations delivered directly to families. “Early on in the pandemic, spring 2020, we started making take-home packets that included art materials, books, and online and written materials for parents to continue the program on their own,” said Adasko. The museum distributed 350 packets in the first year and slightly more in the second. “It didn’t make up for not being able to work with families in person in the museum but we were happy to provide resources that supported parent and child engagement at home.”

The take-home packets were given to families even if they were not directly involved in the program. “We were able to expand our reach significantly through the distribution of these resources to families that were not engaged specifically in the ArteJuntos program and hopefully provide some support during those difficult months.

The museum also used funding from existing grants to purchase larger screens and update technology for classrooms so that the program could be presented virtually.

At the conclusion of the 2020-2021 program, after an almost entirely virtual year, parents and children visit the Katonah Museum of Art together to view the art they had learned about virtually and practice their new art-looking skills. Photo courtesy of Margaret Fox Photography.

Measuring Success

Since the program began, nearly 1500 families have participated. The Katonah Museum of Art grew its partnerships with organizations including First Steps Early Literacy, Neighbors Link, Mount Kisco Child Care Center, Head Start of Mount Kisco, and the Community Center of Northern Westchester. The  museum further engaged with these community partners in correlation with the current exhibition, ARRIVALS, which explores American origin stories through five centuries of art. “Neighbors Link in Mount Kisco is an important anchor organization that we’ve worked with over the years with ArteJuntos ,” said Vidal. “As a result, we were able to engage the organization and participation of their constituencies in aspects of this exhibition.”

The museum measures success in other ways too. “Sometimes we will be in the Learning Center and  will see a family that has previously participated in the  program and it’s rewarding to see that they have come back,” said Vidal. “A lot of the families that we work with have multiple children that go through the program When these families return, the parents often talk about things that their older children remember from the program and it’s exciting to hear the impact.”

Photo courtesy of Margaret Fox Photography.

What’s Next

The Katonah Museum of Art just completed a two-year $50,000 IMLS Inspire! Grant for Small Museums that increased the total number of sessions and increased the number of partner organizations. In 2021, the museum was awarded $25,000 from the NEA, its second NEA grant for ArteJuntos/ArtTogether.

“We’ve experienced how drastically things can change in the past two years,” said Vidal. “As a result, we have learned that  listening and being responsive to what the community needs is essential to the success and impact of this program”

Learn more about the Katonah Museum of Art: http://www.katonahmuseum.org/

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is honored to receive a $20,000 SHARP grant from Humanities New York (HNY) to support New York’s museums.

HNY awarded a total of $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to 120 NYS cultural nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan) Operating Grants focus on organizations with a core humanities mission and ranged from $1,000 to $20,000. Grants will be used to cover day-to-day activities or ongoing expenses such as staff salaries, utilities, and rent, as well as for humanities programming and professional development. 

"HNY is delighted to support MANY's work advancing the museum field. We are excited that the SHARP grant will help MANY provide tools and resources to cultural organizations seeking to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,” said Sara Ogger Humanities New York Executive Director.

HNY reviewed nearly 200 applications from cultural organizations requesting over $3 million in funding. Just over 60% of applications were funded. HNY prioritized equitable grantmaking by considering geographic location, mission, and the importance of reaching underrepresented communities in its funding decisions.

“Humanities New York has been an incredible partner to us and our museum colleagues helping us deliver in-person and virtual programming including our fall Partnership Forums,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “We thank HNY for their continued support of the Museum Association of New York and their dedication to cultural nonprofits.”

"MANY's virtual and in-person workshops, as well as their annual conference, are valuable opportunities to learn and connect with museums from around the state,” said Scarlett Rebman, Humanities New York Director of Grants. 

Learn more about other NYS museums awarded HNY SHARP grants here: https://nysmuseums.org/MANYnews/11130581 

Read the full press release from Humanities NY: https://humanitiesny.org/humanities-new-york-awards-1-2-million-in-arp-act-funding/ 

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About MANY

The Museum Association of New York inspires, connects, and strengthens New York’s cultural community statewide by advocating, educating, collaborating, and supporting professional standards and organizational development. MANY ensures that New York State museums operate at their full potential as economic drivers and essential components of their communities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums 

About Humanities New York

Using dialogue, reflection, and critical thinking, Humanities New York applies the humanities to strengthen democratic society. Established in 1975 as the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities New York is a private 501(c)(3) organization that may receive federal, state, and private funding.

About SHARP: HNY SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan) is made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities via the federal American Rescue Plan Act. 

Visit Humanities New York online:

https://humanitiesny.org 

https://twitter.com/humanitiesny

https://www.youtube.com/humanitiesny 

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is excited to announce a new regrant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to distribute 100 grants of $5,000 to assist New York museums with capacity building. 

Grants will be awarded for museums to respond to pandemic-related challenges, help build financial stability, strengthen board and community engagement, update technology, support leadership, and change systems to address diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and justice. 

"The economic struggles resulting from the pandemic have impacted arts institutions especially hard, threatening many of the organizations and partnerships that play such an important role in our state's vibrant, healthy communities," Governor Hochul said. "These grants will provide the critical funding arts partnerships can use to access public support and bolster creativity in local communities."

“Museums and art institutions are some of our best tools for preserving New York’s rich history and folk traditions, and for highlighting communities whose narratives have been marginalized or erased,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Over the last year this industry has suffered tremendously in the wake of the pandemic, which is why I fight every year in the Senate for Institute of Museum and Library Services funding. NYSCA’s $575,000 investment in the Museum Association of New York will ensure our communities can continue learning from New York’s many wonderful museums and storied history of art, music, dance, language, and literature. I will always fight to support these essential community institutions and to make educational and cultural opportunities more accessible for all.”

“We are excited to partner with NYSCA to distribute this state funding,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “This is an incredible opportunity to help support New York’s museums and increase access to NYSCA funding.”

“NYSCA supports local artists and non-profits by administering vital funding to regrant partners across all regions of our great state,” NYSCA Executive Director Mara Manus said. "Our Fiscal Year 2022 strategic goals prioritize expanding eligibility and increasing access for the full and richly diverse ecosystem of artists and arts organizations of New York. Museum Association of New York regrants are critical to NYSCA's mission to develop and support the diverse spectrum of artists living and creating in New York State."

"We are grateful to Governor Hochul and the Legislature for their recognition of the critical role the arts play in the health and vitality of New Yorkers and our economy. This historic Fiscal Year 2022 investment in the arts is essential to New York's multi-year recovery, our collective spirit, and the revival of local economies," NYSCA Chairwoman Katherine Nicholls said. "Since NYSCA announced their opportunities for Fiscal Year 2022, they have deployed critical funding and hosted numerous virtual convenings on an expedited timeline to reach the outstanding arts organizations and artists of New York State. On behalf of the Council, I am proud of their dedication to reach new applicants - including new partnership grants - which in turn will inspire artists and the communities in which they create."

“This is an amazing accomplishment for the Museum Association of New York,” said MANY Board President Suzanne LeBlanc. “What we are about to do for a hundred museums across the state with the support from NYSCA, is far-reaching and will make a huge impact on museums and museum professionals in New York State.”

This grant program partnership with NYSCA was developed in direct response to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Partners for Public Good (PPG) study “Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment of Museum Capacity Building Programs” report published in March 2021.

“Advancing and supporting America’s museums through our research efforts is core to IMLS’s mission,” said IMLS Deputy Director of Museum Services Laura Huerta Migus. “That this report inspired direct action and success on this scale is inspirational and an important model for the field.”

Guidelines will be available on the MANY website in January 2022 and the application portal will open in February with applications accepted through April and announcements made and funds distributed in May. 

For more information email info@nysmuseums.org or call 518-273-3400.

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About MANY

The Museum Association of New York inspires, connects, and strengthens New York’s cultural community statewide by advocating, educating, collaborating, and supporting professional standards and organizational development. MANY ensures that New York State museums operate at their full potential as economic drivers and essential components of their communities. Visit www.nysmuseums.org and follow MANY on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @nysmuseums 

About the New York State Council on the Arts 

The Council on the Arts preserves and advances the arts and culture that make New York State an exceptional place to live, work and visit. The council upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development, and quality of life. Through its core grantmaking activity, the Council on the Arts awarded more than $40 million in FY 2021. Through the statewide grants and regrants program, the council supports the visual, literary, media and performing arts and includes dedicated support for arts education and underserved communities.

The Council on the Arts further advances New York's creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the council is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch. For more information on NYSCA, please visit www.arts.ny.gov, and follow NYSCA's Facebook page, Twitter @NYSCArts and Instagram @NYSCouncilontheArts

Partners with Museum Hue to Produce “Museums Support Democracy” series

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is pleased to announce Museums Support Democracy, a series of six virtual programs created in partnership with Museum Hue and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (ARP). 

Programs will explore Museums and Civil Rights, Visual and Performative Protest, Environmental Justice, Healing Historical Legacies, Ethical Collections, and Multiplying Interpretive Lenses. Each topic will be presented and discussed by museum professionals from a broad range of locations and disciplines featuring the work of culturally responsive museums. 

“Museums serve vital roles as educational, cultural and historical resources for our communities,” Congressman Paul Tonko said. “This pandemic shuttered museums across the nation and—without strong federal support—threatens to close many facilities permanently, endangering tens of thousands of jobs and risking the loss of treasured heritage. Since the beginning of this crisis, I have pushed for critically-needed relief for these cultural sites. I am ecstatic to see funding delivered through our American Rescue Plan and congratulate the Museum Association of New York on this deserved award that will give voice to diverse perspectives and enable museums to continue to educate and inspire those in our Capital Region and beyond.”

“With NEH ARP funding, the Museums Support Democracy virtual program series will allow us to partner with Museum Hue and combine expertise to inspire museum professionals across the nation as we approach the US Semiquincentennial,” said MANY Executive Director Erika Sanger. “We are honored to be able to share the exceptional work being done in museums  who work with communities, audiences, and stakeholders to promote democracy."

“Many of our museums' approaches and pedagogy places people and community care at the center of their practice and makes meaningful connections between their constituencies' experiences and their offerings (exhibitions, programs, and social services). They provide the framework and thought-leadership needed today more than ever to push forward racial, cultural, and economic equity,” said Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham, Executive Director of Museum Hue.

These programs will bring together like-minded people who are separated by geography, discipline, and the size of their institutions but joined together by similar issues and passions.

This is the second MANY virtual program series produced in partnership with Museum Hue. In 2020, “Essential Work in the Cultural Field” a five-part virtual discussion series featured museums working with their communities to address urgent needs exacerbated by the national health and economic crisis. That series reached hundreds of museum professionals in 31 states. 

Museums Support Democracy programs will be held January - March 2022, participation free, advance registration required. 

For more information email info@nysmuseums.org or call 518-273-3400.

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About MANY

The Museum Association of New York inspires, connects, and strengthens New York’s cultural community statewide by advocating, educating, collaborating, and supporting professional standards and organizational development. MANY ensures that New York State museums operate at their full potential as economic drivers and essential components of their communities. Visit https://www.nysmuseums.org 

About Museum Hue

Museum Hue is a nationally recognized organization that works to paint a larger portrait of the arts and culture field by providing greater support and recognition for Black, Indigenous, and people of color throughout museums and other cultural entities across the United States. Founded in 2015, Museum Hue has partnered and collaborated with arts and culture entities throughout the nation. Visit https://www.museumhue.com/ 

About the National Endowment for the Humanities

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov 

Outside The Rockwell Art Lab on Market Street in Downtown Corning, NY

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters,

I write from Great Camp Sagamore on day two of the Museum Institute. It is sunny and  cold by the lake. By the end of the week, most of the green leaves on the trees will turn red and gold. The remarkable presenters are challenging us to believe in our power to create positive change in partnership with our fellow arts, history, and cultural organizations and with our community. 

The extraordinary historic structures, the fabulous food, and the collaborative nature of the Museum Institute makes coming here to learn together a unique experience. Twice a day we hear the shuffle of feet on the road and a Sagamore staff person talking about the Vanderbilt family, the architect Durant, and how this National Historic Site was created and maintained. The tours reminded me that Great Camp Sagamore is more than a site for learning and gathering. It is a tourist destination that helps fuel the Adirondack economy. 

Many of our state’s museums are tourist destinations that continue to operate in the face of enormous challenges as we approach the end of the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Museums that before the pandemic created programs and spaces for interdisciplinary conversations, partnered with schools and libraries to promote civic education, and encouraged multi-generational learning through family programs were equally devastated, but are perhaps recovering a bit faster because of their deep roots in their communities.

Grants from federal and state agencies through the American Rescue Plan funds are helping museums on the road to recovery by funding programs and operations. I believe that the future financial sustainability of our organizations will go beyond tourism and destination marketing to capacity building programs that emphasize the ways in which museums engage with their community, steward their historic structures, and tell stories that reflect everyone who calls our state and our nation home. I also believe it is time to go beyond data, charts, and graphs and use images to show the ways that museums work with people who pass through our doors and interact with digital media.

Steve Seidel, the Director of the Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education once asked me to consider taking pictures as part of a program evaluation. He challenged me to photograph what learning looked like. With this letter I extend that challenge to you who work in and with museums. What does audience engagement look like in your museum? 

Do you have images taken before March of 2020 of galleries filled with school students? University students? Do you have pictures that show docent training? Art making? Continuing education programs? A citizenship ceremony? A behind-the-scenes photograph that shows all the people it takes to produce an exhibition? An image of your cafe where visitors are finding respite? Volunteers helping at a festival? These are only suggestions - I know you know where to find the folder with your museum’s favorite images.

We will begin collecting these images on October 1 to share with the field, with funders, with stakeholders, and with municipal, state, and federal legislative representatives. We will share the images on MANY’s social media feeds that now reach more than 20,000 museum professionals. We want to remind everyone of the important role that museums played in our community before March of 2020 and how we can work together in the future to educate, to enrich lives, and to serve as places of healing. 

Send your pictures to Megan Eves at meves@nysmuseums.org. Include a caption of 100 words or less with the name of your museum and text that describes the activity in the picture. We look forward to sharing the joy and the hope that these images will bring for the future of our state’s museums.

With thanks, e

The Rochester Institute of Technology’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science is developing an affordable imaging system to help museums and libraries preserve and expand access to their collections. Funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities, this project aims to create low-cost spectral imaging systems and software to recover obscured and illegible text on historical documents. This past summer, RIT’s Imaging Science Department partnered with RIT’s Museum Studies department to bring this system and software to three cultural organizations: the Rochester Public Library, Rochester Museum & Science Center, and Genesee Country Village & Museum. Students scanned 50 documents and artifacts and provided feedback to the Image Science Department. 

Working with scientist Tania Kleynhans, Ph.D. (Imaging Science) system, Courtney Barber and Katie Keegan, class of 2021 museum studies graduates, are testing a multispectral imaging system created at RIT and intended to expand access to materials by revealing content that may not be immediately visible due to damage, deterioration, or erasure. This project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette-DeVito, courtesy of RIT Museum Studies Program.

 

Spectral Imaging 

Spectral imaging collects images of objects across the  wavelengths of light and is an effective way to reveal fading text on historic documents undetectable to the human eye. “If you take a photo with your cell phone, the camera only captures three wavelengths of light–red, blue, and green. Any normal photograph has those three colors because that’s how our eyes work. It’s what we see,” said Tania Kleynhans, Associate Scientist at the RIT Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. “But there are a lot of colors that also have what we would call information. So if it’s a red shirt, only the red light is reflected off of it. What we do with our system is capture the in-between red and green and in-between green and blue and then also further into the shoulder of wavelengths of colors from the ultraviolet to infrared,” explained Kleynhans. “It captures the colors that our eyes can’t see.” Kleynhans and her team developed the software for this system to be able to capture 16 different colors. “Normal software programs like Photoshop are not really geared towards working with pictures that aren’t in three colors.” 

Using spectral imaging, the process of capturing images of objects in many colors or wavelengths of light, to reveal obscured or illegible text and drawings, museum studies students are imaging historical documents to reveal content that may not be immediately visible due to damage, deterioration, or erasure. The images are acquired by lighting the object with sixteen narrow-band LED sets that are used to illuminate the object, one set at a time. Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette-DeVito, courtesy of RIT Museum Studies Program.

 

Testing the System 

Once the system and software were developed, RIT worked with its Museum Studies undergraduate program and travelled with the system to the Rochester Public Library, Rochester Museum & Science Center, and Genesee Country Village & Museum.

“I choose these three institutions specifically because I wanted to have three different types of institutions like an AAM accredited science museum, a library that may have massive documents, and then another collecting museum that has a lot of assorted materials,” said Dr. Juilee Decker, Professor and Director of the RIT Museum Studies program. “Part of what the students were doing was not just testing the software to help the system become more efficient and user friendly, but also tasked with instruction writing for building and breaking down the system.” 

The imaging science team was able to build something that was relatively low cost. These systems normally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, this new system costs between $5,000 and $20,000.

Large institutions, like the National Gallery in the UK have conservation labs with systems like this for use on-site. They are usually framed within the construct of conservation and conservation science. “For me I see this as preventative conservation because discoverability was our goal with the grant, but you can also use the system to see if there are initial stages of wear or deterioration,” said Dr. Decker.

“A big part of what helped by having this system travel to different sites was to show the curators that it’s not something to be afraid of and that it is something easy to do,” said Kleynhans. “It is possible if you need to use it, use it.”

Kleynhans noted that while the system has had some great success, it’s also not magic. “Sometimes the [faded or illegible text] is just not there but we can enhance certain areas of a document or can make changes to the color of the document that can make it easier to visualize which does help a lot.”

“Our goal for this project primarily was discoverability and accessibility. I think that RIT was well-positioned with having both the image science program as well as the undergraduate museum studies program that is predicated around collections, hands-on-experiences, and the intersection of technology. I think this was the perfect match for us.”

 

Partner Experience and Discoveries

For Brandon Fess, Librarian at the Rochester Public Library participating in this project was a “no brainer.” “I’d known Juilee [Dr. Decker] for a number of years and she put me in touch with Tania Kleynhans and the rest of the team from the image science department,” said Fess. The library has a fairly modern collection but Fess identified a number of historical documents about which they had questions. 

One of these historical documents is an 1816 pamphlet about a proposed canal project. “There’s seemingly a blank page and we’ve been trying to figure out if this page was intentionally left blank, missed by the printer, or since it’s iron gall ink, did that page fade?” said Fess. He hasn’t seen the final images yet, but imaging thus far did reveal text on the page but it is still to be determined if it was faded text or reverse text burn from the page underneath.

Another document was a 1792 manuscript map that shows the modern town of Irondequoit in the northeastern part of the city of Rochester. “The map interested us because it was rediscovered in our collection three years ago. It’s a manuscript piece on valium and it's been hard for me to tell if the map had been an actual draft or if it was a manuscript copy,” said Fess. “Because of the work of the students and Tania [Kleynhans] it is now clear that it is a manuscript copy which helps us contextualize it because we know it is not the only map showing this exact area of that time period. It appears that several of these maps were drawn by the same draftsman for the partners involved with the division of land in that township.”

The Rochester Public Library also has a large Sanborn map collection. “With Sanborn maps there’s always the issue of having paste-ins.  I have yet to see an unpasted Sanborn map. So I kind of tossed it out there to the team to see if we could read what was underneath the paste downs,” said Fess. “The team said sure we’ll give it a try–not thinking that it’ll work . But when I saw the preliminary results, the team and I were surprised because you could actually see through the paste downs and in fact you could see them quite well.” For Fess and the Rochester Public Library it was an unexpected but appreciated opportunity. “We definitely want to follow up on the 1816 canal pamphlet and would almost certainly want to do a digital reconstruction of the whole pamphlet to make it available.”

Genesee Country Village & Museum provided a few objects, maps, and journals to the team. “There wasn’t anything that was quite shocking or revealing. I think one coolest things was we were able to see one of the diaries that had a lot of cross outs. It was difficult to read and the imaging allowed us to read what was underneath those cross outs,” said Amanda Wilck, Collections Manager at GCV&M. “We were able to find out that this woman who owned this diary had actually reconstructed her entire list about spinning and the different types of spinning so instead of having ten points there are nine because she crossed one out. It was really interesting to see that in real time and to just read out loud together with the researchers what was being said and learn new information.”

The RIT team also experimented with scanning a 3D object at GCV&M, a medicine bottle from the mid-1800s. “It is a black medicine bottle that is maybe the size of a liquor bottle today,” said Dr. Decker. “It was really dirty and the label was barely visible but when we imaged it you could really see the imagery on the label pop out and reveal a lot of the details.” Wilck and her colleagues found a reference image online to confirm the label on the bottle. “It was also a case to say that we can actually image 3D items,” said Decker.

“It was really amazing to see these students get out in the field and do the work,” said Wilck. “They put the whole machine together by themselves. It’s really encouraging to see RIT and its museum studies program move towards that technological route and give their students the agency to get a project like this done.”

 

Students examine a medieval document from the Cary Graphic Arts Collection. Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette-DeVito, courtesy of RIT Museum Studies Program.

What’s Next

RIT hopes that in the next year and a half of the NEH grant to have as many different universities, museums, and libraries using the system and software. “We want to show people what’s available and how it works,” said Kleynhans. At the end of the grant, the documentation for the system and software will be open source and available online for other institutions to use. “A museum or library likely won’t build it themselves, but there are many universities that have engineering departments and their students are often looking for projects for their senior capstones and with information that we supply can be built in-house.”

RIT wants more museums to come to their imaging science team with their historical documents and use the system and software. “We’re trying to find objects to see what the limitations are with the system,” said Kleynhans.

“The capacity and the ability that we have as an education system to share this tool and to make it more accessible to institutions across the state is really important to me because part of what we do at RIT and our programs is to provide opportunities for our students who are emerging professionals to work in this space and learn how to use this technology,” said Dr. Decker. “So I feel like we have a real commitment to try to share the knowledge and the capacity that we have here. I don’t want anyone to feel that this is beyond their reach because part of what we’re trying to do is to make this accessible.”

 

Learn more: https://www.rit.edu/science/spotlights/rit-students-discover-hidden-15th-century-text-medieval-manuscripts

Humanities NY awarded a total of $1.2M in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to 120 NYS cultural nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan) Operating Grants focus on organizations with a core humanities mission and range from $1,000 to $20,000. Grants can be used to cover day-to-day activities or ongoing expenses such as staff salaries, utilities, and rent, as well as for humanities programming and professional development. HNY awarded $710,000 to 67 NYS museums located in every REDC region. Other organizations funded include the Greater Hudson Heritage Network who received a $10,000 grant, New York Folklore who received $20,000 and the Museum Association of New York who were also awarded $20,000. 

 

List of NYS Museums Awarded HNY SHARP Funding

Albany County Historical Society, Capital Region, $17,000.00

Chapman Historical Museum, Capital Region, $15,000.00

Children's Museum of Saratoga, Capital Region, $5,000.00

Columbia County Historical Society, Capital Region, $10,000.00

Historic Cherry Hill, Capital Region, $20,000.00

Irish American Heritage Museum, Capital Region, $5,000.00

Rensselaer County Historical Society, Capital Region, $15,000.00

Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Capital Region, $15,000.00

Underground Railroad Education Center, Capital Region, $10,000.00

Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Central NY, $15,000.00

Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum, Central NY, $5,000.00

Erie Canal Museum, Central NY, $10,000.00

Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, Central NY, $8,500.00

Oneida Community Mansion House, Central NY, $5,000.00

Onondaga Historical Association, Central NY, $10,000.00

Seward House Museum, Central NY, $20,000.00

Friends of Ganondagan, Finger Lakes, $20,000.00

Genesee Country Village and Museum, Finger Lakes, $20,000.00

Geneva Historical Society, Finger Lakes, $10,000.00

National Women's Hall of Fame, Finger Lakes, $15,000.00

Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion, Finger Lakes, $5,000.00

Preservation Long Island, Long Island, $20,000.00

Three Village Historical Society, Long Island, $5,000.00

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, Long Island, $10,000.00

The Whaling Museum and Education Center, Long Island, $20,000.00

Committee to Save the Bird Homestead, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

D&H Canal Historical Society, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

FASNY Museum of Firefighting, Mid-Hudson, $10,000.00

Gomez Mill House, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

Historical Society of the New York Courts, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Hudson River Maritime Museum, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Huguenot Historical Society, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Mid-Hudson Heritage Center, Mid-Hudson, $5,000.00

Mount Gulian Society, Mid-Hudson, $10,000.00

Putnam History Museum, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Sing Sing Prison Museum, Mid-Hudson, $15,000.00

Historical Society of Woodstock, Mid-Hudson, $3,000.00

Iroquois Indian Museum, Mohawk Valley, $10,000.00

Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, NYC, $5,000.00

Coney Island History Project, NYC, $5,000.00

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, NYC, $11,000.00

Alice Austen House Museum, NYC, $10,000.00

Historic House Trust of NYC, NYC, $5,000.00

King Manor Museum, NYC, $5,000.00

Morris-Jumel Mansion, NYC, $15,000.00

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden, NYC, $15,000.00

Museum at Eldridge Street, NYC, $20,000.00

Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, NYC, $5,000.00

Museum of Music & Entertainment in NYC, NYC, $2,000.00

Old Merchant's House of NY, NYC, $5,000.00

Queens Historical Society, NYC, $13,500.00

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, NYC, $10,000.00

Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford Stuyvesant History, NYC, $10,000.00

Waterfront Museum, NYC, $5,000.00

Fulton County Historical Society, North Country, $5,000.00

Historic Saranac Lake, North Country, $20,000.00

Fort Ticonderoga Association, North Country, $15,000.00

Chemung County Historical Society, Southern Tier, $5,000.00

Chenango County Historical Society, Southern Tier, $5,000.00

Corning Painted Post Historical Society, Southern Tier, $10,000.00

The History Center in Tompkins County, Southern Tier, $20,000.00

The Buffalo History Museum, Western NY, $10,000.00

Fenton Historical Society of Jamestown, Western NY, $5,000.00

Niagara County Historical Society, Western NY, $5,000.00

Old Fort Niagara Association, Western NY, $5,000.00

Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, Western NY, $10,000.00

HNY reviewed nearly 200 applications from cultural organizations requesting over $3 million in funding. Just over 60% of applications were funded. HNY prioritized equitable grantmaking by considering geographic location, mission, and the importance of reaching underrepresented communities in its funding decisions.

“To ensure that recovery funding reaches diverse institutions, HNY provides its resources to smaller organizations,” stated Sara Ogger, HNY Executive Director. “These partners are creative, nimble, and responsive to the needs of their audiences because their leadership reflects the demographics they serve. SHARP funds will help sustain them as they chart a way forward.”

“Historic Cherry Hill has launched so many game-changing projects over the past couple of years, from the interpretive planning to digital initiatives to a new teen guide program and collaborative educational initiatives,” said Deborah Emmons-Andarawis, Executive Director of History Cherry Hill. “Our HNY SHARP grant will provide general support as we continue this important mission work. We are so honored to have received the highest level of funding.”

“This HNY SHARP award will support our organization’s ability to present humanities programs, which are in response to our community’s evolving needs and interests,” said Jamie Smith, Executive Director at FASNY Museum of Firefighting. “As the only Museum in Hudson and the only humanities entity open year round, this community and beyond rely on us to bring them programming such as this, and to be a safe space for the community discourse.”

“This grant is a tremendous help as we build back our organizational capacity during this time of ongoing pandemic-related disruptions,” said Amy Catania, Director of Historic Saranac Lake. “The grant also supports stipends for Humanities Scholars to host public programs in the coming year associated with our next exhibit, ‘Pandemic Perspectives.’”

“Thanks to the financial support we received, the future of our organization looks to be very promising,” said Jessica Moquin, Executive Director at Chenango County Historical Society & Museum. “As the premier cultural organization in Chenango County whose primary purpose is to offer inclusive and relevant humanities programs, receiving this grant has ensured sustainability for our museum, while allowing us to respond to the needs of our communities.”

“The HNY SHARP grant will provide “bridge funding” to help us weather the uncertainty of this post-pandemic transition. It will help us maintain staff; this staff will enable us to build upon our hard-earned virtual program success and resume on-site humanities programs when COVID is behind us,” said Eva Brune, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at the Museum at Eldridge Street.

The objective of the 120 awards is to help organizations mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic by providing budgetary relief while visitation and school trip numbers remain below normal. Operating Grants also aided partners seeking to implement “hybrid” programming that is simultaneously offered in-person and virtually.

 

See the full list of grants awarded here: https://humanitiesny.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/HNY-SHARP-Operating-Grant-Awards-List.pdf

 

Learn more about HNY: https://humanitiesny.org/

The Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Inspire! Grants for Small Museums is a special initiative of the Museums for America program. It is designed to support small museums of all disciplines in project-based efforts to serve the public through exhibitions, educational/interpretive programs, digital learning resources, professional development, community debate and dialogue, audience-focuses studies, and/or collections management, curation, care, and conservation. 

Projects are expected to focus on a key goal identified in the institution’s strategic plan, reflect a thorough understanding of current practice and knowledge about the subject matter, and generate measurable results. 

Inspire! Grants has three program categories and goals. Prospective applicants should align their proposed project with one of these three goals and one or more of the associated objectives. 

Inspire! Project Categories

Lifelong Learning supports projects that position museums as unique teaching organizations. The goal is to empower people of all ages and backgrounds through experiential and cross-disciplinary learning and discovery. 

Objectives: 

1. Support public programs, adult programs family programs, and early childhood programs

2. Support exhibitions, interpretation, and digital media

3. Support in-school and out-of-school programs

The Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History was awarded $40,512 to create, pilot, and evaluate field trips and in-class lessons for over 500 2nd and 8th grade students. The Reher Center’s programming will connect students to immigrant experiences form local Mid-Hudson Valley communities, past and present as well as work with educators, teachers, and an evaluator to generate age-appropriate tours and digital lesson plans on the topic of present day and historic immigration in the Hudson River Valley. This will inform the Center’s development of future education programming. 

Institutional Capacity builds the capacity of small museums to serve their communities by supporting institutional planning and policy development, supporting recruitment, training, and development of museum staff, and supporting technology enhancements. 

Objectives

1. Support institutional planning and policy development

2. Support recruitment, training, and development of museum staff

3. Support technology enhancements

The Old Stone House and Washington Park was awarded $20,000 to help expand its permanent exhibition to include a digital component that acknowledges the museum’s presence on Lenape land. The museum will develop, implement, and assess the impact of the digital exhibition and corresponding exhibition programs. 

Collections Stewardship and Public Access supports the role of museums as trusted stewards of museum collections. This program category focuses on the desire to improve long term collection care. It funds conservation treatments, rehousing projects, cataloging, and increasing collection access via digitization.

Objectives

1. Support cataloging, inventorying, and registration; collections information management; and collections planning.

2. Support conservation and environmental improvement and/or rehousing; conservation surveys; and conservation treatment.

3. Support database management, digital asset management, and digitization.

The Cayuga Museum of Art was awarded $50,000 in 2020 to implement “Processing the Past: Digitizing Cayuga County’s Photographic History” which is a comprehensive inventory and digitization project that will complete an unfinished inventory of the museum’s photographic collection of approximately 7,000 still images. The project team will catalog photographs and match them with existing records. The Museum will scan and digitize this collection to maximize the long-term preservation as well as creating a database that allows for increased online access to the collection by researchers and the public.

Grant amounts are between $5,000 to $50,000 for up to two years and there is no cost share requirement.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums uses four performance measures as a basis for understanding how well the grant program is meeting its goals and how individual projects are being managed. 

Deep Dive–The Whaling Museum & Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor

Project Category: Lifelong Learning

The Whaling Museum & Education Center received Inspire! Funding for their Reach! Initiative project that helped the museum expand educational programs to youth in underserved communities on Long Island.  IMLS funding helped the museum reach a new audience and increased community impact.

This was the first IMLS grant The Whaling Museum has received since 2000. Executive Director Nomi Dayan said that the museum was waiting for the right type of funder for this project.

“I felt like this worked because when we looked at their priorities it just seemed to align, even though their [IMLS] priorities are broad...they put a spotlight on reaching underserved communities. When I looked at past funded grants to see are they funding exhibits or are they doing more programming and I felt that this project dovetailed with a lot of previous programs that they had funded. I think the biggest change was judging small museums on their own and it makes such a difference,” said The Whaling Museum Executive Director Nomi Dayan.

Museums for America v. Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

“For many years we heard anecdotally that IMLS doesn’t support small museums, which isn’t true, but we understand that a lot of museums find it difficult to go through the process of applying for a federal grant,” said Reagan Moore, IMLS Museum Program Officer. “Small museums have been successful with Museums for America but we changed certain aspects of the process to make it simpler...like the narrative isn’t as long and the cost-share requirements isn’t required like it is in Museums for America.”

“The cost share difference is a big think,” said Mark Feitly, IMLS Museum Program Officer. “I think places not only had the correct perception that they were too small to receive federal funding but they could not come up with the cost share and that it was too much of a challenge for them. We removed that barrier for them to request IMLS funds. [These institutions] can include staff salaries or whatever for cost share and that’s fine, but it is not required and will not affect their [grant] review in any way.”

IMLS expected between 100 - 115 applications for the first round of Inspire! grants, but received over 200. They funded 30 totaling more than $1.1 million. This strong response confirmed the need for grant funding opportunities specific to small museums.

Operating through a national lens, it is difficult for IMLS to define  “small.” A small zoo differs from a historical society -- or a museum in Kansas may differ not only in collection size but in metropolitan area population and demographics  from a museum in New York State with the same physical plant footprint. “We’re asking museums to make the case for why they are small,” said Reagan.

Museums can use the following attributes:

• staff size (paid and volunteers)

• operating budget

• collection size

• building/property size

• audience served

• size relative to other organizations of similar discipline

• geographical region

Small Museum

“We identify as a small museum...our tagline is Small Museum—Big Story and we’re the smallest whaling museum in the country,” said Executive Director Dayan. The museum also specified their budget size, staff, and collection size. “Our collection is the smallest. We have 6,000 objects and the largest whaling museum has 3 million.” The Whaling Museum also incorporated public perception into their small museum identity. “A lot of our visitors who leave online reviews will write ‘small museum but…’ or ‘this place is small but with a huge knowledge of whaling.’ In half of the online reviews, people mention our size because our physical building is small and people are surprised by how small we are when they come, but there is a lot packed in here...so not only do we think we’re small but that’s the public perception too,” said Dayan.

Funding Allocations

IMLS funding can support salaries for those working on the project. This can include existing staff or hiring new staff. A majority of applicants request funds to hire temporary staff for the project. For example, a museum could hire a curator for a two year contract position to help them execute the project.

Peer reviews will comment on the sustainability for salary costs.

"Reviewers will ask questions about the hire rate and what will happen to that person when the project is over. Successful applications discuss sustainability to keep that person on staff for as long as necessary," said Moore.

Other examples of this include travel expenses for key project staff and consultants, equipment to improve collections storage and exhibit environments, staff and volunteer training, publication design and printing, program evaluation, adaptive and/or assistive technologies and other resources and services to improve accessibility for persons with disabilities, and indirect or overhead costs. All proposed expenses must be explained in the budget justification. 

IMLS does not fund construction costs, general operating expenses, contributions to endowments, the acquisition of collections, general advertising or public relations costs, social activities, ceremonies, receptions, or entertainment, and research projects. 

Advice from IMLS for First Time Applicants

“Successful applicants are the ones who have reached out to us...it’s not always the case but those who take the time on the front end to set up conference calls or email us to get feedback are more successful,” Feitly said.

“We’re happy to help. We can’t read full narratives...but we’re happy to answer as many questions as possible,” said Moore.

Moore also suggests having someone from outside the museum read through your application. “Often the application will use insider language, museum jargon, and if it gets to the panel stage in review, those reviewers from different disciplines might not understand.”

IMLS recommends looking at their website, joining a webinar, and reading project descriptions. Reading through other successful applications is also helpful. “If you read a description and there is something that you want to know more about, you can submit a FOIA request, the Freedom of Information Act, using a form on our website to access that information,” Feilty added.

He commented that the IMLS website is dense but it has a lot of resources. “We’re sharing exactly what we’re asking our reviewers to do in their assessment. You can see at what we’re asking our reviewers to evaluate and incorporate that into your narrative as well.”

Successful Applicant

The Whaling Museum focused on a well-rounded project and looked at the needs of the community. Director Dayan was also a peer reviewer for IMLS for three years.

“I would encourage anyone to do that because it helps you get an insider’s view into the application process. When you read proposals side by side you start to see how applicants write a compelling case whether it’s the language they use or the content and approaches that they are taking," said Dayan.

Director Dayan added that judging applications improves your writing and grant planning.  Dayan also recommends looking at examples. “Under the Freedom of Information Act you’re allowed to request copies of any funded grant...Don’t go at it alone. Look at what other museums have done successfully and try to use that as inspiration in formatting your own grant.”

Other advice to a prospective applicant? “Communicating why the project matters and what community need it meets. A stranger will be reading this who has not been to your museum. For me it’s not enough to say kids will learn about whaling history but why it’s important for kids to learn about whaling history,” said Dayan.

The Whaling Museum connected its strategic plan to the project and cited data. Supporting your narrative with research also strengthens an application.

“The first thing we do when we have a grant idea is we call and pitch it to the funding organization… ‘is this something that you would fund? How can we strengthen this?’ Reaching out is so important to help you do the best job you can,” said Dayan.

Other helpful tips?

• Make sure your application components are consistent

• Place the narrative questions into your word document when answering

• Incorporate project impact throughout the narrative

• Use your supporting documents and help drive the reviewers to your supporting documents

Further Reading/Resources

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

https://www.imls.gov/grants/available/inspire-grants-small-museums

FY 2021 Notice of Funding Opportunity

https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/fy22-oms-igsm-nofo.pdf 

IMLS Apply for a Grant

https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/available-grants

Eligibility Criteria

https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/eligibility-criteria 

Sample Applications

https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/sample-applications

NYS IMLS Funding Report

https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/imls_funding_report_new_york.pdf

IMLS Webinars

https://www.imls.gov/webinars

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) is seeking museum professionals interested in serving on the Board of Directors for the April 2022 - 2025 term from the Capital, Central, Long Island, Mohawk, New York City, Southern Tier, and Western New York Regions. We are committed to diversifying the Board by geographic region, museum discipline and budget size, differing abilities, skills, race, gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, and age. We welcome applications from people who bring a range of skills and expertise. Applicants must be passionate about our mission, comfortable in leadership positions, known for innovation and creativity, constructive problem solvers, happy to share expertise with peers, and familiar with MANY programs. To nominate a colleague or yourself, send an application to the Chair of the Nominating Committee, Dr. Georgette Grier-Key via hdesmeules@nysmuseums.org by October 15, 2021. To access the nomination form click here. Applications will be reviewed by the Nominating Committee and selected candidates should expect to participate in an informational discussion with the committee as part of the application review. The committee will bring nominations for a full board vote at the December 8, 2021 meeting of the Board of Trustees. Applicants will be notified soon after.   With hope you that you can help us create a Board that reflects all of our state’s museums,  Erika Sanger Executive Director