NYS museums delegates with Senator Chuck Schumer, Museums Advocacy Day 2019

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,

I am writing from AAM’s Museum Advocacy Day where 300 museum professionals will be speaking up for museums on Capitol Hill — 26 are from 18 of New York’s Congressional Districts comprising the largest delegation represented. New York State Congressional Representatives are critically important to federal funding for museums. The new Chair of the House Appropriations Committee is Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY17). Senator Gillibrand (D-NY) is the author of the IMLS re-appropriation letter in the Senate and Congressman Paul Tonko (D-NY20) is one of the bill sponsors in the House.

On our visits to Congress tomorrow, we will be thanking our legislators for their support of the IMLS, NEH, NEA and other federal agencies who fund museums. We will be asking for an increase in funding to the IMLS and for changes to the current tax laws. We have an especially energetic group with us, but most museum people I know are not natural political activists. As I traveled around the state last fall, I asked a few well-spoken and passionate  museum leaders to join us and got some very blank looks, a couple of head shakes, and at least one “no way.”

So why is it that museum professionals who can stand in front of an auditorium filled with 500 peers or in a gallery with 30 kindergarteners don’t feel comfortable talking to their assembly members or congressional representatives? Is it an extrovert vs. introvert thing? I don’t have an answer because if you haven’t noticed, I really enjoy talking to anyone, anywhere, anytime about why museums are important. But I can tell you that advocacy takes assiduity, which happens to be the motto of the City of Albany and is defined by Miriam Webster as “persistent, personal attention.”

Although I wrote about this January, not everyone saw the letter, so I want to be sure to bring everyone up to speed about what happened with the Museum Education Act (MEA).The MEA would have created a grant program within the New York State Education Department that could have funded things like school groups and school buses, publishing curriculum on websites, teaching classes to adult learners, and creating exhibitions that align to New York State education standards in museums located in high need, low resourced communities.

MANY board and staff, legislators, Member of the Board of Regents, New York State Education Department Commissioners and staff, Museum professionals and supporters, worked for more than a dozen years, and we took it to farthest possible point in the legislature. It passed both houses unanimously - which I have since learned is not a common occurrence. The MEA was vetoed by the Governor with a note about how the bill would duplicate funding in already in the NYSCA budget.

Disappointed? Yes, Discouraged? No. Because whether we can speak out in Washington or in Albany, we do know how important our field is to education, to tourism, and to our community as we are the anchor institutions who tell the stories of art, history and culture in, for, and with our communities.

The more MANY has grown over the past couple of years (on February 22 we had 646 active members) the more I learned that as an organization of our size and scope, it is important for us to build an advocacy platform upon which all museums, regardless of their location, budget size, or discipline can stand on together. It is important that MANY moves forward in ways that include as many of of members as possible and help them serve as many of their constituents as possible.

You can join us as we advocate for museums in Albany March 11 and 12 at Tourism Action Day and or if you can’t make it to Albany, please let us know how you are speaking out for your museum.


With regards from our nation’s capital,

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

— William Faulkner

Shortly after my grandmother passed away, I found myself in the Old City of Jerusalem, leaving a note to her in a crevice of the Western Wall. I was there with a group of academics who had convened in Israel for the International Council of Memorial Museums conference. I’m not a religious person and neither was my grandmother but standing at the base of this ancient and venerated wall made me think about her, and about the profound impact of the past on the present. I wanted my message to her to join the countless other prayers, letters, and wishes in the Wall, to become part of an intricate but interconnected road map made up of traces of human experiences on the surface of stones that spanned empires. The gesture was one small way to honor her existence and our bond. After all, you remember life with life, as American scholar and Judaist, Dr. James E. Young had remarked in his keynote address just days earlier.

As a curator at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, I am uniquely exposed to how people choose to honor the departed at a public site of tragedy and remembrance. These gestures continue to move, inspire, and surprise me with their creativity, even as the distance between 2001 and the present deepens. From launching charities in honor of their loved ones, to leaving notes tucked into a name – one of nearly three thousand incised on the parapets surrounding the 9/11 Memorial’s twin reflecting pools -  the forms in which people remember and commune with the deceased feels as boundless as the historical continuum itself. Some of these memorialization efforts are strikingly familiar, while others are more specific to circumstances framing 9/11. Some might come to re-define the course of a person’s life, while others are quieter gestures woven into a private moment on a seemingly random day.

Additional ones, however, come to the Museum as a carefully chosen physical object, photograph, or spoken remembrance gifted on behalf of a victim. Early in my tenure at the Museum - nearly six years prior to its 2014 opening, when we only had sketch renderings of what the anticipated exhibition spaces might resemble - I was particularly struck by the donation of a pocketbook and its contents, that had been recovered at Ground Zero. The items belonged to a 37-year-old bond trader who had treated her mother and others to a birthday celebration at Windows on the World the night before. The receipt from the occasion at this renowned restaurant – located on the 107th floor of the Trade Center’s North Tower - was among the recovered pocketbook contents donated to the Museum by her mother and brother. The items were part of the inaugural display of personal effects tied to victims in the Museum’s exhibition, In Memoriam.

Everyday objects, like these, which managed to dodge destruction characterize a significant part of the 9/11 Museum’s permanent collection. Paired with stories about the individuals to whom these items belonged – contributed by those who knew and loved them - can imbue these artifacts with a very humanizing energy that undercuts the abstraction of mass tragedy. These memorial artifacts do not always bear the patina of Ground Zero, however. Sometimes, the object’s potency lies in the fact that it was left at home, or by the bedside of its owner on the morning of 9/11 and presumably could have been one of the last things they touched. Other times, it can illuminate a specific aspect of a life lived in the form of a pair of leopard print-patterned clip-on earrings that were worn by a Brooklyn-born, Staten Island-dwelling 62-year-old mother of three; an Argentina national soccer team jersey worn by a passionate fan – a young Argentinian-born firefighter killed in the line of duty; or a poetry and song-lyric journal filled with the gorgeous Bengali script of a 26-year-old woman who worked with her husband at Marsh & McLennan – both of whom perished that day.  These glimpses into the lives of people killed on 9/11 are shared with us through the offerings of the living who have chosen to nurture their loved ones’ memory at a public site of remembrance. This affirmation of our shared humanity and the transcendent sorrow of loss contribute to the resonance of such sites of collective pilgrimage, enabling them to communicate with generations across time and cultures.

I initially came to the Western Wall without the intent of leaving anything behind. However, the sight of people congregated at its ancient base, drawn there from all over the world to perform their rituals – religious or otherwise – moved me to perform one of my own and leave a piece of my story – my grandmother’s story – within the historical continuum. Dwarfed by the incredible scale of only a segment of the retaining wall that once protected the Temple Mount, the notes that fill its crevices, touched and finessed into place by the hands of many, seem delicate and ineffably human in juxtaposition with the towering and formidable limestone. The act of leaving one behind was as deeply personal to me as it was a shared experience with everyone there on that October day. The timeless and cross-cultural nature of remembrance rituals is something that I hope people find moving when they visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum and other sites of mass trauma and violence, as a testament to the irreplaceable value of each and every human life. Perhaps they might be moved to leave their own tribute behind or find an unexpected connection to an everyday item like a young woman’s pocketbook.

Photograph by Alexandra Drakakis

Photograph by Amy Dreher

Collection 9/11 Museum, Photograph by Matt Flynn

Alexandra Drakakis is the Associate Curator at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum and a MANY Board Member.

By Michaela Gaaserud

Exhibitions have no limits when they’re created in virtual reality.  That’s what more and more museums are happily learning as VR pushes the visitor experience into a whole new realm.

As immersive exhibitions stretch beyond physical walls, VR allows new, exciting ways for museums to connect and build relationships with visitors.  

With VR, visitors can interact with people, artifacts, plants, animals, even distant planets, in an environment that transcends time and space. It also engages younger generations through the use of breakthrough technology and helps position museums as fun, rewarding destinations.

As creative minds are challenged to offer better, more exciting experiential exhibits, museums are also finding that development costs for VR can be rough on the budget.  

This is one reason that MANY members EXPLUS, Inc. and Frameless Technologies combined decades of museum exhibition development experience with cutting-edge technology to create The Way Box – a VR exhibition tool that provides museums an economical way to feature new VR exhibits on a regular basis.

The Way Box is delivered built-out and ready to for visitors to experience the exhibition in virtual reality. It can be installed in museum of all sizes, with configuration options that range from 4 to 24 seats. Each visitor enters The Way Box and has their own VR station, equipped with a headset, interactive features (such as hand gesture hardware) and atmospheric enhancers (such as heat, cold, wind, etc.). The visitor then enjoys a personal, interactive, 5-7-minute VR experience.

“The concept is simple, yet The Way Box solves many challenges faced by museums,” says Duncan Burt, President of EXPLUS, Inc. “It fits into limited space, doesn’t require custom build-out and can increase earned income.  It also delivers fresh exhibit content on a regular, predictable basis.”

The Way Box also offers a subscription model for museums sharing a common focus (science, history, aviation, etc.). These themed subscriptions provide fresh, immersive VR exhibits where the content and technology are replaced/updated on an annual basis.

The Way Box custom model allows for the development of unique VR experiences for specific museums that can be featured long term and replaced/updated as desired.

According to Burt, “The Way Box makes VR accessible to museums with smaller budgets by essentially spreading the development costs among subscribers. It also delivers high-end interactive and atmospheric features that elevate the user experience.”

The Way Box is rolling out in 2019.  For more information, contact Dave Coughlin at EXPLUS, Inc. at: dcoughlin@explusinc.com

By Megan Eves

I am a non-traditional museum person. I didn’t get a degree in museum studies but I learned first hand. During graduate school, I started my museum career at a cemetery museum. The experience was peculiar, intriguing, and rewarding. This working cemetery museum disrupted my own fixed impression of what a museum was and introduced me to the idea that a museum is a place for ideas and discussions. I learned about museum best practices from my colleagues, engaged in Twitter discussions about trending museum topics, and I joined the local museum association to connect with museum professionals and emerging museum professionals that gave me insight into the museum field.

Participating in a digital space allowed me access to continuous discussion forums, hashtag conversations, and global museum resources. Having a traditional museum background did not matter. There was a wide support group available to me online. However, even with this vast digital world at my fingertips, it was easy to feel disconnected. I wasn’t sure how to take grand concepts and ideas from larger institutions and make them applicable to my museum or to my own professional development.

Individuals and small museums can feel disconnected from the larger museum world. Digital platforms can be a remarkable resource to crowdsource problems in search of sustainable solutions. In-person discussions, however, can lead to meaningful connections and deeper resources for an individual to grow professionally or to help museums connect with one another.

I joined the Museum Association of New York as an individual member in 2015. My first MANY meet up at the Chemung County Historical Society allowed me to meet my online museum peers and have an engaging conversation face to face. Exchanging contact information beyond a Twitter handle provided the next step for future collaborations and to discuss ideas. The first MANY annual conference I attended put the top museum professionals and my museum peers in one space sharing compelling and eye-opening topics. I could shake hands and put a face to a name.

Since joining MANY as the Marketing & Social Media Coordinator in December 2018, communicating and engaging with museums across New York State on a digital platform has been my focus. These online platforms allow for continued conversations and sharing ideas between in-person meetups, which culminates at the annual conference. The conference provides opportunities to meet with your peers in a professional and casual setting. These face to face conversations that happen at the annual conference establish invaluable connections for future partnerships.

As a non-traditional museum person, digital platforms have been a great substitute to connect with museum professionals and gain information about museum best practices. However, the opportunity to hear and connect with over one hundred presenters from over eighty institutions in one place on a variety of topics for fundraising, education, collections, and discussions on diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion is something that cannot happen on a screen.

My museum career has been nontraditional, but nonetheless ardent. I learned best practices from my colleagues, first-hand experiences, and from MANY member resources. The resources that MANY provides, like the annual conference, allow museum professionals to learn from each other, share insights about projects, and discuss compelling and eye-opening topics happening in the museum world.

I look forward to attending the conference in Cooperstown this Apil and to join a broadening conversation about what access and identity mean for museums in 2019. Topics like instilling diversity, equity, and inclusion into museum administration and front of house operations like programming and exhibitions. Moreover where else can you hear from AAM President & CEO Laura Lott discussing the important call in leadership for diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in museums. Or from Tenement Museum President Kevin Jennings dissect how the stories we tell reflect what lives we value. Both keynotes providing a starting point for ongoing thought to carry throughout the conference and well beyond.

The annual conference will renew and stimulate your excitement about what is happening in the museum field. Join us at the MANY annual conference and invest in your professional development. Meet with your online peers in person and connect beyond the internet.

Members, Colleagues and Friends,

When we launched our new website a year ago, we had administrative goals for MANY like improving financial management and streamlining membership renewal. Being a bit of a techno geek about human/computer interface design, I was also interested in how the website could help build a community. I wanted to build a website that was responsive and dialogic, that could move valuable information easily from passive to interactive, and help MANY equalize member access and sharing no matter their location, budget size, or discipline.

In this profession, we are connected by our cultures, our natural and built environment, and the history of our use of the land, water, and sky. We are also separated by distance. MANY's website is a way to ameliorate that isolated feeling we sometimes get from being stuck at our desks as the snow flies.

On January 2 we launched our new job board with the goal of making it much easier (and free!) for MANY members to post position openings and for job seekers to find them. Our member discussion forum is the ideal place to post opportunities like the N-YHS poster exhibition. Or the member news forum update from the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor about the progress on the Matton Shipyard. Are you doing an event this spring that you are proud of and would like your colleagues to know about? Share it on our event forum. Not a member? Join today and join the conversation.

If this way of communicating interests you, but it seems like a bit of a challenge to figure out how to make it happen, we will be hosting website "how-to" sessions for our members in February and March. Watch for emails and sign up. Our new high speed WiFi connection will make it easier than ever.

Although we would love to see everyone at our annual conference, or at programs like The Museum Institute at Great Sagamore, we know that some years it just isn't possible to get us all in the same place. So please post exciting news, events, and opportunities, reach out to colleagues, and contribute to our website forums. And if you haven't checked out all the great things happening on our social media feeds lately, take a minute, click on over and share something good!

Hope to see you soon, virtually or IRL, e

Erika Sanger

Executive Director

The Museum Association of New York Awards Meredith Horsford for its Inaugural 2019 Annual Conference Cassetti Scholarship

Troy, NY — The Museum Association of New York (MANY) has awarded Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Executive Director Meredith Horsford its inaugural Cassetti Annual Conference Scholarship. The Scholarship Committee had many exceptional nominees from across New York State to consider, but Meredith’s nomination quickly rose to the top in the selection process.

Over the past four years, Meredith has focused on creating an inclusive community resource through expanded public program offerings and a growing list of community partnerships. Her nominator Donald Rice, Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance (DFMA) Board President, noted that under Horsford’s supervision the DFMA has added board members from the local community, installed bilingual interpretive signage, increased community partnerships and began working with local artists to create exhibitions. Rice stated in his nomination, “These remarkable achievements pushed us toward the future with a complete and inclusive narrative, to better serve the neighborhoods of Inwood and Washington Heights and fulfill the mission of DFMA.”

“As the director of a small nonprofit organization, the Cassetti Scholarship will allow me to attend the 2019 Museum Association of New York Conference, where I will be part of a panel that will address how cultural organizations use their values as a spring board to infuse diversity, equity and inclusion in their programming and internal operations,” Meredith said in response to her scholarship award announcement. “This is also a great opportunity to engage with and learn from my peers and bring back new ideas to my staff.”

The scholarship was created to recognize Robert K. Cassetti’s, Senior Director of Creative Strategy and Visitor Engagement at the Corning Museum of Glass and former Museum Association of New York Board President, significant contribution to the advancement of New York’s museum field. This is MANY’s first, full scholarship for a museum professional to attend the annual conference.

Robert Cassetti stated, “I am honored that the scholarship will provide the support for this dynamic museum professional to attend the MANY conference.”

The scholarship includes conference registration, two nights in the conference hotel, and a $150.00 travel stipend.

 
Image courtesy of the Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum

Get In Gear with Cycle Tourism

By Star D’Angelo, Independent Museum Consultant

According to the American Alliance of Museums, museums contribute $50 billion to the national economy. New York ranks as the second highest contributor, generating $5.4 billion annually¹. That is nearly half of the $108.7 billion total tourism dollars generated in New York in 2017². Museums clearly are an important economic force in New York, but the numbers also indicate that there is also quite a bit of room for museums to grow within the tourism industry.

Attracting more recreational tourists to museums is not a new idea, but the need to pay more attention to trends in this sector was reinforced this past September when I was invited to attend the NYS Bicycling Summit in Saratoga Springs. Organized by the New York State Bicycling Coalition, the Summit focused on a variety of topics related to bicycle safety and increasing interest in bicycling for recreation and transportation.

Did you know that cycling tourism is the largest sector of the growing tourism economy? The Outdoor Industry Association completed a national study in 2017 that found that bicycling participants spend $83 billion on 'trip-related' sales, and generate $97 billion in retail spending³. In 2012, Parks and Trails New York released a study that found that the 277 mile long Erie Canalway Trail alone generated $253 million in sales, created 3,440 jobs, and generated 1.6 million annual visits⁴. Despite working at a museum located near numerous established bike paths, I was unaware that cycle tourism had become so popular! Museums and historic sites were mentioned repeatedly throughout the Bicycling Summit and I learned quite a bit about the mutual interests of cycling advocates and museums.

Currently, New York State is actively expanding bike paths across the state and improving cycling safety as a part of its ongoing effort to increase tourism state-wide. Museums in the rural and scenic areas of upstate New York are especially poised to serve cycle tourists who increasingly express interest in exploring small towns within two to five miles of their route. They are seeking opportunities to experience a “strong sense of place” (a phrase that was frequently repeated during the Summit) and they spend more time in a single community than automobile tourists.

It is important to be aware that cycle tourists have needs that differ from those of tourists who are traveling by car. As you can imagine, they need rest stops along their chosen route that provide for their basic needs such as a place to lock bikes and rest briefly. Cycle tourists also want to learn a bit about local culture and history and they are looking for interesting and entertaining diversions as they pass through each community.

Here are some tips for encouraging cycling tourists to visit your museum:

1. If your museum is located within five miles of an established bike path, pay attention to cycle tourism trends consider offering services tailored to the needs of cycle tourists. There is no single source of information about all bike paths in New York but the NYS Bicycling Coalition Provides regional resource information here.
   
   

2. Provide a covered place to safely lock bikes during their visit. It may also be a good idea to keep a list of bicycle repair shops in your area for visitor use.
   
   

3. Provide a bathroom facility and a safe, comfortable place to sit down and rest.
   
   

4. Makes sure that your museum has an attractive and welcoming gift shop offering easily portable, locally produced items that reflect the unique character of your community. Ideally the shop will also carry items of use to cycle tourists such as flat repair kits and water bottles.
   
   

5. Provide access to snacks such as bottled water and granola bars. Team up with a local restaurant for cross promotion of services if you can’t provide food on-site.
   
   

6. Keep your tours and programs brief and engaging. Most cycle tourists will spend an hour or less at each rest stop. During the Bicycling Summit there were many stories about overzealous tour guides taking up too much time and offering too much information. This is such a common experience that it seems to be an insider joke among the cycling community! Train volunteers to offer a few engaging stories instead of attempting to provide a full encyclopedia of information.
   
   

7. Check to see when bicycle tour groups will be moving through your area and adjust your operating hours to accommodate them. Far too many cycle tourists find that museums are closed when they wish to visit. In fact, summit participants repeatedly expressed frustration with attempting to access museums outside of 9-5 business hours.
   
   

8. Meet with cycling groups to discuss cross promotion and other joint marketing strategies. You can find information about who is cycling through your area via the Ride with GPS website. Ride with GPS also provides ways to promote visitation to your museum through designated ambassadors, cycling route maps and other services.
   
   

9. Cyclists may not have regular access to the internet so, provide marketing resources in the form of printed rack cards, brochures, and pocket maps that are easy to carry.
   
   

10. Work locally to improve safety for cycle tourists. There were many concerns expressed about cycling through industrial districts and past numerous abandoned buildings in towns along the Mohawk River Valley, Hudson River Valley and other areas. Cycle tourists are especially concerned about personal safety. Provide maps and directions to assist them.
    
    

11. If your museum works with developers to reduce adverse impacts for new construction within historic districts, advocate for bike path linkages to the historic district and/or your museum.
    
    

12. Attend conferences related to recreational tourism. Pay attention to annual tourism studies released by New York and reach out to colleagues in other sectors of the tourism economy.

With some thoughtful consideration of the needs of cycle tourists, even the smallest museums can benefit from this new and growing trend in tourism. During the Summit, I quickly discovered that bicycling advocates are eager to share information and to partner with museums to improve the experiences of cycle tourists. Let’s reach out and start talking about ways to support each other!

The following entities offer resources that can help museums encourage increased visitation through cycle tourism:

• Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor 
  
• NYS Canal Corporation 
  
• Parks and Trails NY 
  
• Erie Canal Bike Tours 
  
• NYS Bicycling Coalition 
  
• Bike the Scenic Byways 
  
• Bike Hudson Valley
  
• Ride With GPS
  

¹American Alliance of Museums: https://www.aam-us.org/programs/about-museums/museum-facts-data/

²New York State Tourism Industry Association: https://www.nystia.org/news/2017tourismeconomics

³The Outdoor Industry Association: https://www.adventurecycling.org/bicycle-tourism/building-bike-tourism/economic-impact/

⁴Parks and Trails New York: https://www.ptny.org/application/files/2714/4604/5359/Economic_Impact_of_the_Erie_Canalway_Trail_Full_Document.pdf

Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues

If I am lucky along my travels, I can stop to visit a museum, meet an industry partner, or walk in one of our beautiful state parks. I wish I could accept every invitation extended along the journey, but my plans are frequently diverted before I can measure the miles to home. Last week time was on my side and I got to see the new Kids Rockwell Art Lab, across from a pizza place and three doors down from the ice cream store on Market Street in Corning. 

       

The Rockwell Museum began thinking about the Art Lab as a way to continue to serve family audiences during a construction project to replace the second and third-floor gallery windows that required the removal of collections and the closure of the family engagement studio. A Market Street double storefront space was available and a satellite museum space was born. The Kid’s Rockwell Art Lab opened in mid-September on the day of Corning’s Harvest Festival. Three hundred people attended and great press coverage followed. Brian Whisenhunt, the Rockwell Museum’s Executive Director said that he knew that the Art Lab was a success when a toddler had a “melt-down” when told it was time to leave—an achievement indicator familiar to children’s museums and science center staff.

Although the Art Lab represents a major new investment, the need for space during construction was real and the museum’s commitment to serving its family audiences is strong. With few low-cost, indoor winter activities available to families in the region, the Art Lab will be a creative option on a snowy day. Adult admission fees cover both the Art Lab and the Rockwell Museum and admission is free to kids 17 and under.

As many local private foundation funds were committed when the need for space became apparent, and capital support was dedicated to the window replacement project, the Rockwell was challenged to secure enough financial support before they could open Art Lab’s doors. With creative re-use and a small budget, the Rockwell filled the space with activities from the museum’s family engagement studio, borrowed furniture, and recycled the admissions desk from a recently-closed department store. Along with the addition of two staff to the Visitor Services department, the biggest investments were associated with getting the Art Lab up to current building codes with the addition of bathrooms, wheel-chair accessibility, and a new coat of bright paint.  

Future plans for The Kid’s Rockwell Art Lab include developing partnerships with teachers and high school students, changing activities three times a year to coincide with exhibitions on view at the Rockwell Museum, and hosting the traveling exhibition “Framed: Step into Art” from the Minnesota Children’s Museum in next summer when Corning will be filled with families visiting from out of town.

I traveled thousands of miles and met hundreds of people in the past two months, all passionate about their work and committed to making their organizations relevant and sustainable. When funding is hard to find and space is limited by a construction project museums may choose to put a well-attended program on hiatus. The Kids Rockwell Art Lab is an excellent example of how engaging community, stretching resources, and applying creativity can help a museum reach a new level of success.

My journeys this fall have been just as valuable as the destinations. Thank you for making me feel welcome at every place I have landed. I will be at the MuseumNext “Designing the Future of Museums” conference this week and will report back soon about lessons learned. We have two more workshops, and two more Meet-Ups ahead of us in November. I hope to see you along the way in either Utica or on Long Island!

Wishing everyone safe travels,

Erika Sanger
Executive Director

by Brian Howard, Executive Director, Oneida County History Center

I’ll start by stating the obvious--the arrival of the digital age over the last 15-20 years has been nothing short of revolutionary in its impact. The Internet has fundamentally changed the way people access information, and the effects on museums, historical societies, archives, and libraries has been profound.

By and large, researchers are no longer compelled to visit ‘brick and mortar’ locations to access the information they seek. Genealogists were long dependent on historical societies and libraries for unique content--most of which can now be found on ancestry.com. To survive, our field has been forced to adapt. Smaller organizations, especially, have little choice other than to change or face extinction. That said, I am convinced that organizations like ours can continue to play a vital role in their communities. While nonprofits of all stripes need to be nimble in today’s marketplace, I’ll focus on what I know best—the experience of small museums and historical societies. But the lessons here should be applicable across many organizations.

SERVING THE COMMUNITY

Community service is at the heart of most small museums. Most draw their visitation and support from the immediate locale or a specific interest group; few are compelling enough to bring in the throngs of tourists envisioned in the literature touted by our local Tourism Promotion Agencies.  Rather than focus on bringing busloads of foreign tourists through the doors, I think it makes more sense for small facilities to innovate within the ‘box’ that defines their community.

The Internet is a virtually limitless source of content but not context.  Say what you will about the value of online ‘communities’, they are no substitute for face-to-face interaction. Our public programming presents an opportunity to unite visitors via a common experience or dialogue.

History exhibitions that link the past with the present are great tools to illustrate an organization’s relevance to the community. The redevelopment of inner cities and downtowns which were virtually abandoned in the 1960s and ‘70s occurs in the context of promoting identity. No matter how small our institutions are, we can contribute to this new approach to urban renewal by providing stories, images, and property information that reflect an area’s values and/or experience. Doing so via exhibitions provide visitors with opportunities to engage in dialogue that might not occur in an online or offsite setting.

People still desire to come together to discuss topics of mutual concern. Organizations like ours remain a great venue for authors, subject matter experts, artists, and enthusiasts to interact with a live audience. Welcome them, frequently.  Don’t shy away from hosting political debates. Ask to host naturalization ceremonies for new citizens. More than anything, promote your organization as a vital physical and cultural resource in the community.

COLLECTIONS ACCESS

While times and technologies change, access to collections remains vital to museums.   Directors, curators, and designers (often, these are the same person) are constantly challenged to share their materials in new and innovative ways.  Traditional exhibits and conducting paper-based research haven’t fallen completely out of vogue, but both have been somewhat marginalized in the digital age.  The internet has been so pervasive in its reach that to deny its impact is counterproductive.

The need to digitize our collections should be self-evident.  In the ‘old days’ (like the 1990s...) this involved contracting with a firm to photograph and transfer documents onto microfilm.  While this is still done, albeit digitally now, the proliferation of low-cost, highly capable scanners has seen this process move in house.  At my organization our digitization effort began a decade ago, and the impact has been profound.

Since 2009 we have scanned over 30,000 images. They were in all formats—prints, nitrate film, glass plate negatives, and more. The main archive is housed on our server with backup copies on DVD. One set of disks is housed on site and another is in a safety deposit box at a local bank. The originals are preserved here, too, but since they were scanned they have been virtually untouched. What to do with original documents after they are digitally preserved is a topic for another article.

We have also digitized our entire newspaper archive and are now plowing through our manuscript collections, estimated to be over a quarter million documents.  Like our photo collections, there has been little need to access the original papers since digitization. Their most prevalent use has been in our exhibit galleries, where use of original materials is the priority.

It should be noted that all the scanning and organization has been completed with our volunteers.

Digitization has transformed the way we do business.  The speed with which we deliver content has been dramatically increased.  Thanks to electronic access, the following activities have become everyday parts of our operation:

• Television—We provide images for a “Hidden History” segment on our local ABC affiliate, airing weekly on their evening news broadcast.

• Social Media—Our vast holdings provide the basis for regular posts on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages, reaching over 6,000 followers.

• Print—We provide articles and images for two local magazines—Mohawk Valley Living and Greater Utica—published monthly.  Local newspapers also use our images.

• Property Research—The revitalization of our local downtown has seen many property owners in our library, reviewing our digital archive for pictures of the buildings they are rehabbing.

• Infrastructure—The City of Utica and the New York State Department of Transportation have both made extensive use of our digital holdings in local or regional improvement projects, including the creation of a roundabout in downtown Utica and the rebuild of the Route 5/8/12 Arterial, which is the main roadway through our area.

• Businesses—We have generated substantial revenue via the sale of high-resolution prints to local businesses, restaurants in particular, who have adopted a historical theme in their décor.

• Books and Merchandise—Over the last few years we have published several books in house, making extensive use of our photo collections.  We are also a primary source of images for other authors writing about the greater Mohawk Valley.

Very little of what I described above would have been possible without electronic access to our holdings.  While it may sound daunting, the digitization process has been relatively easy to implement; it takes time but it is not complicated.

While small museums and historical societies are constantly resource challenged, that does not mean that they cannot be vital and relevant to the communities they serve. I encourage every organization like ours to take a proactive approach and embrace technology, and reap the resulting benefits.  Please contact me if you have any questions!

 

At the Crossroads of Equal Rights

By Billye Chabot, Executive Director, Seward House Museum

Perhaps to an outside observer, Auburn, New York would seem an unlikely setting for an Equal Rights Heritage Center. But if you look closer, the history that happened here puts Auburn at the crossroads of equal rights and at the epicenter of several defining moments in the continuing struggle for social reform.  

Opening at the end of October, the Equal Rights Heritage Center is owned and operated by the City of Auburn.  The Center will promote heritage tourism and will highlight the themes of Equal Rights and the role of New York State from a historical perspective. Exhibitions will feature the abolitionist movement, the fight for social justice and human rights including rights for women, refugees, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ community. It will serve as a visitor information center, house a Taste New York Market, and provide offices for our tourism and downtown partners. Additionally, the Center will allow for reflection on the legacy of passionate concern for the equality of all human beings and encourage dialogue on a variety of topics fundamental to the theme of equal rights.

“This is a downtown revitalization project for our city designed to support and boost our historic and cultural sites locally and regionally," Mayor Michael Quill said. "We thank the Governor and our state legislators for their support. We look forward to working in partnership with the Auburn BID, the Cayuga County Office of Tourism and all our historic and cultural sites to make this project a success."

Since Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul’s public announcement of the Equal Rights Heritage Center in September 2017, the Seward House Museum has worked with our community partners to assist us in thinking strategically about the many ways the Center will impact the Museum.

With the thread of equal rights woven throughout the narrative of the interpretation of the Seward Family, we now have an additional opportunity to explore, ask questions, dig deeper, and engage audiences while navigating the tensions of our shared history. This may lead to the development of emerging perspectives and programming which can encourage new ways of considering the past. For example, questions like, who gets to participate, and who has the right to be a citizen, are still relevant today and connect our history to a national narrative.

The Equal Rights Heritage Center will certainly add to the Seward experience as visitors move from the Center to the Seward House and gardens, and on to Seward Park, creating a type of heritage campus.  The natural partnership between the Seward House Museum and the Center will provide a unique experience to bring our stories alive in the most compelling of ways. We look forward to the Center’s opening and dedication in this fall.

Is the building open yet? Click here to view the live webcam and track the progress!