Weekly Blog Roundup

Here's a quick selection of interesting blog posts from the museum world this week.

"Arts" Coverage Isn't Museum Coverage from Museum Commons

This post went straight to the core of one of my major contentions with coverage of museums. Gretchen continues to talk more about exhibition critique, but how about any major coverage of museums that aren't art museums? How about an acknowledgment that actually, the most common type of museum in America is the small history museum, and what they have to offer is just as unique and valuable as the community art museums?

For that matter - and yes, I'm going to say this out loud and publicly - local history is vitally important to a community in a way that Yet Another Monet simply isn't. I would rather spend money on developing a program or a museum exhibit that examined a local tradition or family than I would on more art. The problem isn't limited to small places, either. Boston is a world-class city that has an enormous encyclopedic art museum that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in just the last few years to continue expanding. Yet it has no cohesive overall history museum and its enormously important smaller history institutions struggle. That is utterly baffling to me.

Museums are rectangles. Art museums are squares. Not all museums are art museums, even if all art museums are museums.

/soapbox

Tricks and Treats of Collections Management from NMSC Archeology & Museum Blog

This is a fun and informative roundup from the NMSC Center about the quirky things that collections managers deal with every day.

Tilting at Windmills, Part One from Thinking about museums

I could really just link one of Ed's posts every week in this roundup, but I particularly liked this one, which really breaks down the ideas and concepts behind immersive museum exhibits.