This featured speaker is the coauthor of the Pulitzer-Prize winning Gotham: A History of
New York City to 1898. Mike Wallace is Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New. York).

As is often the case at conferences, I am facing a polarized blend of practical and theoretical museum issues this weekend.  My last session of the day was about 21st-Century skills and an initial report from IMLS on ways to integrate these into museum programs – more or less how museums can thus lead the [...]

This afternoon we spent a fun hour and a half testing the web usability of a variety of websites volunteered by conference participants. The method we used, popular at the annual Museums and the Web conference, is an easy way to quickly find out whether your website is navigable. Volunteers from the audience [...]

I am, of course, referring to Conner Prairie’s 1859 Balloon Voyage!
I, along with busloads of other AASLHers, had the pleasure of spending the evening at Conner Prairie. Since there was so much to see and do, and because I absolutely love efficiency, Karen (my director) and I carefully laid out our game plan before even [...]

I was talking with Lina from Minnesota, who leads a museum for veterans with exhibits based on oral histories.  She described the components of the exhibits with passion and excitement, and even though my chief interests are not 20th century military I was completely hooked.  At one point, though, she commented that the exhibits were based [...]

Come hear what the benefits of AASLH’s Awards program can mean to your institution at 8:15 AM on Friday. Learn about how to assemble a nomination and hear of some of the award winning projects. Ken Turino

I went to the Conner Prairie (CP) “Follow the North Star” program last night.  For a short time, I became a runaway slave, running for my freedom.  The CP staff has done an amaing job of organizing this program.  The interpreters were well trained and knew their positions well.  They kept the group confused, afraid, [...]

I just got out of a session about the revitalisation of cities, Indianapolis specifically.  Having only been a Hoosier for four years, I had no idea that this city wasn’t always THE place to be!  The panelists, headed by John Herbst from the Indiana Historical Society, covered quite a bit of ground in a short time [...]

There has been many sessions on the applications Web 2.0. The program committee listened to you AASLH members that this is something you need to know more about. The great thing is that there are sessions geared for institutions of all sizes. As a bit of a luddite I am a bit uncomfortable exploring this world. There is [...]

At the after-party dinner for the Association of Indiana Musuems, Kelly from Howard County talked about a disaster planning session she found particularly interesting.  The “take home” message that she passed on was that the person responsible for the planning needs to be responsible for the implementation – this is not something that can be [...]

This afternoon, I attended three very different sessions that surprisingly carried a similar community-based thread. The afternoon began at the Small Museums Luncheon with guest speaker, Marsha Semmel. Following the luncheon, I attended a session on total fundraising and ended the afternoon hearing four historic site case studies in local leadership and advocacy. I thoroughly [...]

Today was a great first “official” day of the conference. I spent several hours today with folks from the small museum community including the Small Museum Luncheon where we asked attendees to respond to the statement, You know you work in a small museum if…
Below are some of the responses.

You’re the director, but if you’re [...]

I attended a great session today that featured staff from three historic sites in SC, IN, and DC talking about various ways they have incorporated technology and specifically social media to promote visitor engagement. The audience raised the question of how to get the support of the decision makers. One site said her director quickly [...]

Small Museum Scholarship Recipient Comments and Experience

Technology and social networking offer tools with tremendous promise, but how are historic sites making use of those tools? Hear how three sites have developed strategies to engage new audiences and expand their interpretation. Attendees were encouraged to share ideas that have (or have not) worked at their site.