Weekly Blog Roundup

Here's a roundup of interesting blog posts this week.

Do You Age-Stereotype? A Small Rant at The Uncataloged Museum

Linda Norris writes about something that's irked me for years: the ease of categorizing certain generations according to negative characteristics, and assuming then that those generations couldn't possibly interact productively. See also this article on Slate.com, reviewing some of the nasty things said about Generation Y and its "narcissistic" tendencies. Are there very real differences in the work habits, attitudes, and goals of various generations? Yes. Should conversations start and stop with those generalizations, instead of considering the individuals of those generations, and seek no productive way to encourage cooperation? Heck no.

(Linda's post felt close to home, as I was at a workshop with her last week - recap coming soon! - in which some of these issues came up, and I've often felt like the youngest person in the room for most of my career - a dynamic that's almost certainly about to change in the next few years.)

19th Century Slave Cabin Donated to Smithsonian's African-American History Museum at The History Blog

Really interesting overview of the selection and acquisition process for a slave cabin to add to the collections at the new museum, and some insight into how they are building the overall collection. It sounds like it will be absolutely amazing. I love small museums, and I am happiest working in them, but I admit that sometimes I wonder what it would be like to work at an institution with this kind of budget and decision-making power. (The kind of institution that can send a staff photographer across the country on a travel assignment just to take a background photograph for one exhibition, for example.

Relentlessly Social at the Annual Meeting at the Center for the Future of Museums

This guest post by Guzel du Chateau, New Media Manager at the American Association Alliance of Museums, goes over the social media outreach AAM will be doing at the Annual Meeting next week. I applaud their efforts, and have already set up some Hootsuite streams to follow the action from afar - since I started using Twitter in January 2012, I've been most engaged and found it most useful while at conferences. Great way to connect to the overall rhythm of the conference while being deep in your own sessions.