I’m often asked how this new program will define “small” museum. Goodness. How our field defines “small” is an ongoing debate and for now I’m going to leave that decision to others. Here’s my take on the question as far as the new Standards program goes: if you think your museum would benefit from receiving information and resources about national standards then we would love to have you enroll in the program next summer. We’re not going to turn away any museum, historic house, or historic site no matter how large or how small.  

Where did these standards originate that we’ll be using in the new program? We’ve adopted national standards in use by the American Association of Museums in its Accreditation program because we (task force and committee members) believe that not only are the standards solid (why reinvent the wheel?), but that if both AASLH and AAM use the same standards we create a smoother path of improvement for the museum field as a whole.

We will, however, add additional standards especially ones pertaining to historic structures and landscapes. Most importantly, we will offer self-assessment questions, performance indicators (basic, good and better), and a variety of resources related to the standards. These materials are intended to help history organizations assess their current performance level in six areas, identify projects they can undertake to make needed improvements, and find the resources and training they need to successfully complete their projects.  

I’ve worked on the development of this program for just over three years and while it’s been an interesting and challenging assignment from the start, the past several months have been particularly inspiring. During that time, I’ve watched as eight service organization pilots and 47 pilot sites undertook projects related to helping them meet or move closer to meeting one or more standards. The projects have symbolized significant steps for some of the organizations. Things like a first-ever collections management policy for an organization that is more than fifty years old. Researching an interpretive plan or writing a statement of interpretive goals. Learning how to conduct a basic visitor survey. Compiling the organization’s first-ever board of directors’ orientation manual. Training board and staff members in reading financial statements. These are the kinds of achievements we want to see in AASLH’s new Standards program and we can’t wait to hear about more success stories when the program is open and ready for participation from museums across the country!

Beverly Miller, staff member of the Bois Forte Heritage Museum in Tower, Minnesota, received training from staff at the Minnesota Historical Society to build a mount for this bandolier bag. Photograph courtesy of MHS.

In my opinion, SHA is one of the finest professional development programs in the country. It is sponsored by six organizations—AAM, AASLH, Colonial Williamsburg, IHS, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture—that each care deeply about training the next generation of leaders in our field.

Some of the field’s greatest minds teach the three week curriculum and each year the partners review the program to ensure that it’s meeting the needs of the field. We tweak the schedule and presents based on the program’s evaluation and our own understanding of the issues facing the field. For example, in 2007 we introduced a session called “The Electric Museum” looking at issues of technology.

Yet the formal program is only a small part of the seminar. Based on my conversations with SHA alumni and my own observations, it is the peer networking that makes SHA nonpariel. Each year, the partners meet and select the eighteen history professionals who will make up that year’s SHA class. It is a competitive process and we put an incredible amount of thought into selecting the class.

My experience in the two years I’ve been managing the program for AASLH has been nothing short of inspiring. I look forward to my meetings with the partners each year and to meeting each year’s class.

Three weeks is a long time to be away from work and home to be sure. Yet seminarians report that the experience was well worth that time and effort.

One person from the Class of 2007 noted, “The confidence I gained and the new insights are invaluable as well as the bond with other professionals in my field. The memories I made there will be with me forever. I not only benefited as a professional but also personally. It gave me confidence in myself to be trained by the top professionals in my field and that carries into every aspect of my life.”

I believe that SHA is one of the best and most inspiring professional development opportunities around and it is something I am proud to be a part of.

I hope you will consider applying for the Class of 2009 and/or will forward along information on the program to your peers. You can find information about the program and the application process here.

The past few years have hit the pocket books of historical organizations hard, and the near future doesn’t appear to offer any relief. Consider these portents with respect to historical organizations:

• Even before a major national economic crisis, public support for historical organizations was on the decline, as evidenced by significant cuts in state budgets and IMLS’s lack of growth to keep up with the dollar.
• The great transfer of wealth from the Baby Boomer generation to our heirs may have been a pipe dream – at least to the tune of over $40 trillion. Many of us are more concerned with having enough for retirement than having enough to pass on to others.
• Historical organizations, as a field, remain disengaged with respect to advocacy. Although a few museums are successful at securing federal and state earmarks for special projects, the field as a whole has not embraced the notion of advocacy and has never lobbied as a national community.
• The old business model for historical organizations isn’t working all that well, and there’s no new business model in sight.
• Now, a national economic crisis threatens all business models for all businesses. Endowments are on the decline; corporations, foundations, and the public sector have or will have decreased assets to offer; and individuals are hanging on to their assets with both hands.

Here are some articles that we’ve found on this subject that might be of interest to you (links to the full articles are in red):

Baby Boomers are becoming more concerned with preserving their wealth than accumulating and transferring it. Insurance Journal, www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/west/2004/02/23/features/37126.htm 

Baby Boomers may not have as much to give away as we originally thought. Kiplinger.com, www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2006/09/inherit.html 

The financial crisis impacts the state of philanthropy, from:

• The Nonprofit Quarterly, www.nonprofitquarterly.org/cohenreport/2008/09/23/what-the-financial-sector-meltdown-really-means-for-nonprofits-and-philanthropy/ AND THE
• New York Times (need to sign in or create an account with them), www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/business/yourmoney/21money.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.

Spending trends in Louisiana may be applicable to us all. The Times-Picayune, www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-3/1222580423120200.xml&coll=1

Many states, like Virginia, are cutting funding for history organizations. The Virginian Pilot, hamptonroads.com:80/2008/03/virginia-will-cut-money-museums-arts

The American Historical Association is worried about funding for history. www.historians.org:80/Perspectives/Issues/2003/0304/0304new1.cfm

Business as usual is not an option, but what are some strategies that might help historical organizations navigate these stormy waters? And how will the way we do business change forever?

To share your comments, click on the Comments link underneath the list of Tags.

I left the meeting refreshed and inspired by my peers and am very excited by the leadership of program chair Stephen Elliott of the New York State Historical Association/The Farmer’s Museum. The theme, Making History a 21st-Century Enterprise fits directly into the history and present day culture of our host city, Indianapolis, IN.

We know there are lots of exciting ways historical organizations are working to make history a 21st-century enterprise and want to encourage you to consider submitting a session proposal for next year’s meeting. You can find our Call for Proposals form on the AASLH website about halfway down the page on http://www.aaslh.org/anmeeting.htm.

Good work, gentlemen!

Cary Carson in his paper on “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B” wrote that history museums need to be more like eBay in the sense that while eBay sells nothing, they provide a framework on which people sell stuff. We history museums need to let go, provide framework, and allow the public to do history.

Though that’s hard to do, what seems to be even harder is to concede that public commemoration will not be long lasting. We invest a lot of effort in designing commemorations to be meaningful and therefore would like to see that effort live on. The problem is that the legacy of even the National Bicentennial of 1976 does not seem to be current. You may take issue with that statement, because as I visit local historical organizations, I still run across the banners and logos of 1976. But, do the themes and programs of that commemoration live on? Probably not. Perhaps the longest lasting legacy of any commemoration really is, as Toplovich suggests, to open the conversation with focus groups and in public meetings. To me, that might establish a precedent that will be followed into the future.

Becoming more of a history platform would transform how history is talked about and preserved.

“The way to study people is not from the top down or the bottom up, but from the inside out, from the place where people are articulate to the place where they are not, from the place where they are in control of their destinies to the place where they are not.

“Soldiers on the battlefield, artists in the studio: generously we study some people in terms of their own excellence. All people deserve comparable treatment. Decent, serious study begins on the inside, where people are articulate, and powerful and in control.” 

How much more powerful would our product be and the value of our worth increase if we could remember people in this way? We would transform public imagination and set hearts on fire.

I want to turn the tables a bit, and ask any conference attendees reading this to post a comment and share your stories with everyone.

What is your favorite moment of the conference?

What session helped transform your thinking about the way you do your job?

What is the one thing that you learned this week that you want to take home with you?

What one funny story can you share?

Help make this blog YOUR blog and post YOUR story.

For the last four days, the Rochester Convention Center has been a “temenos” for so many of it. Going to the conference is worth the piles of work that will be on the desk when we get back, because it will help us get through another year, thinking creatively and making history worthwhile to more and more people. I hope will see you in Indy next year!

Yesterday, during the afternoon annual Meeting of the Membership, Katrina Nelson Thomas, Senior Director of Public Programs for the Indiana Historical Society, gave her own plug to attendees to travel to Indiana for the conference by highlighting the best that Indiana has to offer.

And, to make the appeal truly authentic, she borrowed from the canon of native Indiana son David Letterman and delivered her reasons in the form of a Top Ten list.

Trina kindly sent me her hilarious Power Point appeal and I share it all with you.  Trust me when I say that it is a can’t miss and should be checked out by all of AASLH’s members–both those here with us in Rochester and those reading from back home.

2009-aaslh-annual-meeting

Oh, and if you are still looking for a session to attend later this morning, I encourage you to go to the 2009 Annual Meeting Roundtable from 10:45-12:15 and help the Program Committee here your ideas and suggestions to make the next meeting the best ever.

• some organizations don’t have the resources, ability, or tenacity to work on the standards
• change in leadership happens more frequently than expected, which results in work being slowed or stopped.
• some elements are unfamiliar or difficult
• sometimes the work is not being completed by the organization, but an outsider, which fails to build knowledge and confidence within the organization

We’ll continue to refine the graduated standards over the next year before they are released to the field, but it does show that even when organizations say (and in this case, sign an agreement) that they want to change, it isn’t that easy.

I had another late night conversation with my roommates (Kat Burkhart, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, and Tamara Hemmerlein, all of Crawfordsville, IN) earlier in the week about next year’s conference theme.  It was not quite as intellectual a conversation as the one about visitor studies, but it was clearly part of the fabric of conference-going.

We created session titles for next year’s conference, on the theme Making History a 21st Century Enterprise.  While the idea of become cultural entrepreneurs is a rich one, we were slightly distracted by… the Enterprise.  So in honor of Star Trek, we offer you a potential program listing for 2009:

Going Where No One Has Gone: Indianapolis

And, at the same time, to put those museum friends of ours in the greater Galveston and Houston area in our thoughts as well before the storm hits this weekend.

Hopefully, this entry will post exactly at 11:11.

The author of Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words and coauthor of Susan B. Anthony Slept Here: A Guide to American Women’s Landmarks, Ms. Sherr talked about how her interest in Susan B. Anthony and the Women’s Rights Movement stemmed from her assignment to cover the Women’s Liberation Front for the AP in 1969.  Her coverage led her to realize that she not only was reporting on the Women’s Rights Movement–she was herself a part of the revolution.

As a result, Ms. Sherr began to research women’s suffrage and the luminary who especially caught her attention was Susan B. Anthony.  Ms. Sherr first came to Rochester as part of her research in 1974 and loves to visit the Susan B. Anthony House when she can–and recommends the museum to friends and colleagues who are themselves visiting Rochester.

After her talk, while she was signing books in the exhibition hall, Ms. Sherr was kind enough to answer a question for an audio post to explain what the Susan B. Anthony House means to her: