Estonian National History Museum

Where else do museum workers spend their honeymoons but going to museums? In August, on a delayed honeymoon, my husband and I visited Copenhagen, Berlin, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Stockholm. It was an extraordinary trip and we visited museums in every city - some good, some bad, some simply radically different from the museums I had grown used to in the United States and western Europe.

In all, we both fell totally and completely in love with Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Medieval at its core, the city had its heyday as a trading center of the Hanseatic League. The medieval center of the city was preserved in the way that many cities are stilled in time: by economic bust, by growth in other parts of the country, and by a fierce pride in heritage.

Overlaid on that medieval core were new skyscrapers on the edges of the city, and here and there, ghostly traces of the Soviet presence that had occupied Estonia for most of the 20th century.

In many ways, the story of Estonia is a story of conquest and yet strong nationalistic identity. The Estonian National History Museum reflects that, and its central thesis is a strong and carefully reinforced story of a central identity.

The museum itself was in an old guild hall building that dated to the 16th century. It had been beautifully restored, and the basement was devoted to interpreting the guild as well as Tallinn's role as a trade city.

Above is the entrance to the museum, which told the story of Estonian history through a clever artistic video that used different characters - historic and mythological - to tell different aspects of Estonia's history. Each offered commentary on the main story, told in the largest screen on the bottom right.

In a particularly effective bit of visual clarity in storytelling, the core video had two aids. On the top, a basic timeline, that advanced in red as the story went on. On the bottom, a population counter that mostly rose - but dropped dramatically at several points in the 20th century due to famines and displacement. Large numbers of Estonians fled the country as refugees during the Soviet era.

The central hall was sparse but stunningly beautiful. Scattered throughout the hall were these stations, as you can see above. Each one had a question in Estonian and in English, and the questions were constructed to serve two purposes. On one level, they were questions that many tourists would ask, as above - "Is Estonia known in the rest of the world?"

On another level, however, each question was a deeply probing reflection on national identity. I'll be frank: until we booked this cruise (which we did mostly on the strength of my husband's Swedish heritage) I knew very little about Estonia. I probably could not have picked it out on a map. When I listed the cities we were visiting to friends and family, I always had to explain where Tallinn was, and why it was included.

So a question about whether or not people have heard of the country is a very real one, even for this relatively well-educated and well-traveled American, but it's also deeply personal to the inhabitants of a small nation whose independence has been precarious throughout its history - and will most likely be precarious again.

Each question was answered with sweeping, thoughtful language that did include some basic facts and statistics but largely encouraged the reader to think not only on the simple straightforward answer (which to the above question was "well, sort of") but also the ramifications of that answer: how and why  have people heard of Estonia?

The questions were answered with interactives, with text, and with objects. "What is Estonia's national dress?" or "What language do Estonians speak?" were answered with inclusivity and sensitivity, while again stressing a common national identity.

Estonia is a relatively stable democracy with a strong ethnic nationalistic identity, at a time when all of those basic descriptors are shifting and don't mean what they used to. Some speculate that, like Crimea, it's an object of Russian interest, and it wouldn't take much for this country to disappear again. Visiting it - and experiencing this museum - felt like a gift.

Local History, Recent History, and Authenticity: What Patriots' Day Gets Wrong

One of my post-election actions was to purchase a subscription to the New York Times. I added the app to my phone, and since then have read a handful of articles every day. (I'm also loving the mini crossword puzzle as a quick jolt of puzzle-solving & success to start my day.)

An article I read on the day it came out last week has stuck with me and bounced around in my brain ever since.

'Patriots Day' Disconnect Between Bostonians and the Rest of Us

I wasn't in Boston on that fateful Patriot's Day. I had moved to Vermont a few months earlier. I did have the day off, and had the race on TV and was tracking several friends on my phone to see their finishing times. When news of the bombing broke, I wanted to be in Boston, the city of my childhood and my graduate years. I quickly found that I couldn't listen to or watch anything but local news. I downloaded the WBUR app for my phone and listened to it nonstop for breaking news. I wanted voices and faces I recognized and trusted.

I followed those voices through the manhunt in Watertown, and soon had my own unnerving connection to the tragedy: Sean Collier was from my hometown, a few years behind me in high school. I knew his sister better, but I still have a wisp of a memory of Sean as a freshman in the band room. Now he was dead, and though I had perhaps said a half-dozen words to him in my life, it was personal all over again.

I was lucky enough, in 2014, to see Rainey Tisdale's exhibition at the Boston Public Library, "Dear Boston." I had a few hours to spare while visiting Boston and seeing the exhibition was on the top of my list. It was a deeply emotional exhibit, and one of the rare exhibits that my "museum brain" fizzled out repeatedly while viewing. Each time I focused on construction, design, or theory, that thought stuttered to a stop, half-formed. I simply reacted.

I'm not sure someone who wasn't from Boston would have had that reaction. In a similar way, I doubt I would have that reaction at the 9/11 Memorial site. Though deeply affected by that tragedy, like all Americans (it was my first day of classes at college, and it seems like every minute of that week is engraved in my memory) New York is not my city. It wasn't a personal tragedy.

From the moment I saw the previews for the movie Patriots Day, I also felt like many of the people quoted in the New York Times article: uneasy, offended, even borderline repulsed. The author of the article chalks that up to a deep familiarity with the facts behind the narrative. She argues that many Bostonians have followed the story of the bombing so closely that they are jarred by the artistic licenses taken by the film.

I don't think that's right. I think there's something deeper. I think that Bostonians are reacting on an emotional level to the simple existence of the movie, in the same way that I felt in "Dear Boston." I think that there's an exposed nerve here, and it's mixed up in some deeply profound and personal touchstones.

First: local history. Why are people so passionate about things that happened on their block, in their town, their county, their state? Is it some kind of ingrown nativism, a pride of place? Is it simply more accessible? Or is there something deeper, and more primal - is there something deeply satisfying in looking at a moment in history and saying mine? Where are the intersections of this impulse and place? Is this part of that alchemy of place-based history that I am still not sure we really understand? Either way, Boston is already a place with territorial impulses, the Hub of the Universe, and the local history of the Marathon bombing is theirs, "Our Marathon," as the Northeastern University digital project titled it.

Second: recent history. This is a much more obvious call-out. There's a reason that films about recent history, especially recent tragedies, are decried as exploitation. Sometimes - oftentimes - they are. There's money to be made in hitting those raw emotions with a mallet, and human beings are drawn to the manipulation of those emotions like moths to a flame. Every movie made about a recently dead celebrity, terrible tragedy, or deeply emotional event that's still in the news will be decried by many as a cash grab. I think there are a few things at play here: on the most obvious level, people often reject obvious manipulation of their emotions. I think there's also a sense that a properly thoughtful treatment of events needs time to simmer. It needs time for us to think and process instead of simply reacting. But that could be the historian in me.

Third: authenticity. Can you ever really suspend disbelief to participate in a fictional narrative about something that you were so deeply embedded in? This is where the New York Times article gets closest to the truth. There definitely is a tendency to subject movies based on real events to a deeper scrutiny. Sometimes that's appropriate, sometimes not. Movies are not documentaries are not history books. They have a specific type of storytelling that strives for emotional impact over hard adherence to the facts. That's right and good; they are true to their medium. But it's a tough balance, and it's rare that a movie is made about something that is so personal to so many people.

I think that it's the confluence of these three strong wells that explains why Boston is upset about this movie. I also think it offers hope to us in museums and history for thinking about going forward. Where there is deep emotion, there is also strength, and there is potential. In this instance, it's negative, but we need to remember that going back to those wells can be reinvigorating for positive purposes as well.

2017 Reading Goals

A friend did an interesting analysis on his 2016 reading, and I thought I'd do the same for mine.

In 2016, I read 79 books, tracked thanks to Goodreads.

Of those:

25 were written by white men
50 were written by women
10 were written by authors of color
16 featured a protagonist or major character of color
10 featured a protagonist or main character who was LGBTQ (or explicitly asexual)

I also read 1 graphic novel, and 1 libretto.

Genre breakdown:

48 fantasy
16 science fiction
6 fiction
4 non-fiction (3 history, 1 essay collection)
2 memoir

My favorite book of 2016 was probably N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, a triumph of worldbuilding and writing and mind-bending brilliance in terms of characterization, point of view, and so many other things. It is also a genuinely diverse book in that it encompasses the obvious check boxes (author and protagonists of color, protagonists who are gay & poly) but also some profoundly differing points of view, all treated with respect.

My least favorite book of 2016 was Robin McKinley's Pegasus, which was a deep and unsettling surprise to me. It had nearly everything I could possibly want in a book and still fell painfully, depressingly flat. I read worse books, but none that I felt more sad about.

In 2017, I need to do way better in a couple of categories:
- less fantasy (which is my comfort reading)
- more authors of color
- more protagonists of color
- more protagonists/authors who are LGBTQ

And for this blog, perhaps most importantly, more non-fiction. More museum professional development!

I'll try to do a monthly roundup, and highlight any museum-specific books I've read.

Museums in the time of politics

I'm dipping my toes back into the museum blogging world, because my head is full of many things that I need to put down on [digital] paper.

I've been thinking a lot about how museums function as public spaces in an age of social justice, protest, and politics. That thinking was sparked by a good (if difficult and emotional) conversation during the Education PAG lunch at NEMA 2016, about which I may write more later.

Two blog posts this past week have also made me think further.

First was Westworld, museum collecting, and the 2016 election. I admit, I bailed on Westworld (I'm not great with violence and/or body horror), but it did raise some provocative questions about the way we see the world, what it takes to be a good person, and how to operate in a world where the rules seem to change daily. It's made me think a lot about how we share our collections and teach lessons from history in our post-fact world.

Second is What does a Trump presidency mean for the IMLS? from Engaging Places. There's some good news there - funding is moving forward with bipartisan support, the new director is set until 2020 - and some less than encouraging news. Of particular note is this summation, which highlights for me one of the most disquieting pieces of our new reality:

If after January 20, [the IMLS re-authorization bill will] be on President Trump’s desk but will he sign the bill or veto it? His decision will probably be most affected by what’s happening to him that day.

I'm going to continue to think about authority, history, museums, and social justice in 2017, and I'll be posting here weekly. I'll continue some museum highlights and reviews (including a number from a trip to northern Europe in summer 2016) and trying to dig a little deeper into how we work in the new reality of our world.

Graduate School Buyer's Guide for Museum Studies

Last week's New England Museum Association conference was amazing, and my head is still spinning from all the thinking, networking, and partying. (Okay, not really that much partying, but the hors d'oeuvres at the JFK Library were out of this world.)

I co-hosted two panels: the Conference Preview on Wednesday morning, and The Graduate School Conundrum on Wednesday afternoon. It's the latter that I'd like to take just a few minutes to talk about. I'll continue to follow up on this with additional thoughts over the coming weeks, because this is a topic that needs to be considered at length and with some really deep thinking.

Many, many ideas and tough questions came up during the session, but one cohesive subject that came to the top was whether museum studies graduate programs need a "buyer's guide," and what that would entail. I was taken aback not only by how little people knew about the graduate programs they were choosing but also by how little articulation there was about what people even wanted to know about their graduate programs. The overriding question so far seems to have been "will it get me a job?" That is a fine question. Answering it will not tell you much about the graduate program, however, and we don't even know all the moving parts that make up the answer to that question, though we have some good theories.

With that in mind, one of the excellent panelists, Linda Norris, has kicked off the conversation about a graduate school buyer's guide on her blog, The Uncataloged Museum. She poses some excellent questions and pokes at the bigger picture. We've also been having a good conversation on Twitter about some of her big questions, namely the positive and negative implications of a tight professional network.

Conservation Exhibit at the Shelburne Museum

I recently had the chance to visit the Shelburne Museum and explore a few exhibit spaces I'd never seen before. One of my favorites was the small area in the Horseshoe Barn devoted to the work of conservation.

There was a sitting area with books about conservation to read - some basic ones, and some of the more complex and scientific ones. I liked that this exhibit didn't speak down to the visitor. It recognized that conservation topics are complicated but important.

They also used a variety of practical examples to show various reasons for exhibition and conservation techniques.

These windows showed different types of glazing to use for UV protection, and explained why it's important.

There were also traditional-style panels with lots more information.

There were also interactive spaces that people were very much engaged with, showing different techniques conservators use to analyze and treat objects and artwork.

The exhibit wasn't large, but it was well-situated at the main entrance of the building that features the carousel horses that conservation interns have been painstakingly working on for decades. It's an excellent example of bringing behind the scenes work to the visiting public.

"Circling the Sheldon" at the Henry Sheldon Museum

"Circling the Sheldon" was at the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury, VT from March 1, 2014 - April 19, 2014, so I'm quite a bit behind in this review.

I did want to post about it, however, because I was so impressed with it when I visited in April 2014.

The Walter Cerf Gallery at the Sheldon is a marvelously flexible space, and I've seen a few other exhibits installed over the years. "Circling the Sheldon" has to be one of my favorites, for one major reason: it was one of the most creative exhibits I've seen in a long time.

Simply put, the theme was circles, and it afforded the museum the chance to really dig through their collections to explore that theme. There was an incredibly diversity and richness of objects throughout the exhibit. The broad theme allowed for the side-by-side display of objects that never would've been displayed together otherwise, and to display some objects in new contexts.

Here's how they describe the exhibit.

Visitors will find this distinguished geometric form in historic military and fashion buttons, a wooden peg leg worn by Jonathan Preston who lost his leg in action during the Revolution, Native American baskets, antique leather fire buckets, a colorful yo-yo quilt, and the historic clock face with Roman numerals salvaged from the Middlebury Congregational Church at the time of its 1989 building restoration.

In what museum universe would you ever see a peg leg alongside Native American baskets and a clock face? I love it.

Even the ubiquitous spinning wheel gets a new look when it's put alongside other circle objects.

Kudos to the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History for finding an intelligent, thoughtful, creative way to showcase their collection.

Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House

Louisa May Alcott and her family moved to a house in Concord, MA in 1858. Her father, Bronson, named it "Orchard House" after the apple orchards that surrounded it. It was in that house that Louisa wrote the book that would make her famous: Little Women. She blazed through the draft in one month, sitting at a little desk overlooking the front yard.

Orchard House is a truly special place. If any house can be said to have a soul, Orchard House has one. I worked at Orchard House in college, mostly as a tour guide. When I was promoted to opening and closing, I would often get to the house 15 minutes early and sit on the floor in one of the rooms, soaking up the atmosphere. I love that house like I love few other places in the world.

It's a special place with a really special history, on both the emotional and the intellectual levels.

Right now, Orchard House is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary telling the story of the house itself, which dates back to the Revolutionary War and contains fascinating American history above and beyond the Alcott family, whose story is much more far-reaching than just Louisa's literary career. The house has been a museum for over a century, and has a remarkable portion of original family furnishings and artifacts. If for no other reason than to tell the story of one of the most remarkable historic house museums in the United States, this documentary will be an extraordinary thing.

If you're a fan of Little Women, please consider donating to the Kickstarter campaign.

Blog Roundup

Some interesting posts from the blogosphere.

Blame the Crowd,  Not the Camera from Museum 2.0

Interesting take on a post by Grumpy Art Historian, in which he laments the National Gallery's new open camera policy. Simon argues the problem is not necessarily cameras, but the vast numbers of people crowding around star pieces of art. If you've ever visited the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, you know the feeling!

I find merit in both arguments. I tend to think that those taking photographs of objects are parsing their own experiences in their own way, and we shouldn't judge them for not having an "authentic" interaction with that object. At the same time, some people are clearly snapping photographs that they will never see again, that will not come out well, and are doing so out of a reflexive sense of imitation.

Ultimately, I would argue, the solution is more about mindfulness than anything else, but how do museums communicate that to their patrons? Only take a picture if you really think it through first? That feels elitist. Maybe provide more scaffolding by each painting or object to get people to think about the picture they're taking - like a hashtag for them to use, or a mention of the museum's Instagram account? Examples of fun ways for people to pose in front of the photographs?

So Many Job Openings, So Hard to Get Hired from Evil HR Lady

Okay, this one was mostly depressing, but I think points to some fundamental problems with museum employment as well. It's an employer's economy, and job profiles are in flux. There are also some actually helpful tips about matching yourself with a job that you may not be 100% ideal for.

Slactivism from Seth Godin

I may be a grinch, but I have become increasingly annoyed by the ALS ice bucket challenges. Part of that is admittedly jealousy - clever, viral, and raising a ton of money! But most of it is that it's become a gimmicky stunt that people use for attention - and then don't donate, or don't mention ALS. How many people dumping ice water over their heads really know what ALS is? Seth Godin offers a nicely different perspective here, one that made me think twice.

Weekly Blog Roundup in Museums

Here are a few interesting reads from the museum world & beyond.

How a Classic Business Matrix Can Help Museums and Historic Sites from Engaging Places

I've seen a few variations on the "apply business models to museums!" idea, but I really quite like this one. Definitely worth reading and considering.

Up All Night at the Museum from The New Yorker

Interesting, disturbing read from the New Yorker about the first ever adult sleepover at the American Museum of Natural History.

Joyful Museums

Yes, I'm plugging this again. It's a great project. If you haven't done the survey yet, please do!

Joyful Museums Project: Boosting the Signal

Marieke Van Damme is a Boston-based museum professional who is both smart and thoughtful. She's putting together a fascinating panel for NEMA 2014 about workplace culture in museums.

To that end, she's launched the Joyful Museums project, and she's collecting responses to a general survey about museum workplace culture.

Here's what she writes:

I believe that keeping its workers happy, despite grim economic and other circumstances, should be the top priority of every museum. 

Engaged museum workers will have a deeper commitment to the mission of a museum than a disengaged one, and they will strive for a higher quality product (exhibition, program, publication, etc.) for the public. Building off of the growing academic field of positive psychology, I intend to explore what being happy at work means, why it is important for the museum community, and how it can be accomplished.

So please, take a few minutes to fill out her survey. I'm hoping to attend her panel at NEMA, and I'll report back on the results here.

You can also follow her on Twitter @joyfulmuseums.

(ps - Marieke and I have emailed a bit about our respective NEMA 2014 surveys, as they have some thematic crossover. If you haven't taken my grad school survey yet, please do!

NEMA 2014 Conference Panel: The Graduate School Conundrum

I've written here before about the panel I will be chairing at the New England Museum Association's annual conference this fall.

The survey that will lead off the panel is now open and seeking responses.

It can be found here, and I'd appreciate if you, gentle reader, could share this link as widely as possible. I'm hoping for a good cumulative mass of responses to start to get some good commonalities and statistical groupings. So far it's humming along nicely, and there's some fascinating (and depressing) information coming back.

Thank you for your help!

Weekly Blog Roundup

It's been a while. Massive work projects will do that to you. Here are some interesting reads I've found over the last few weeks.

Why Marketing Needs a Corporate Folklorist from the Harvard Business Review

On the one hand: I could not agree more that having a corporate historian is an absolutely necessary position to ensure continuity, culture, and plain old memory.

On the other hand, the argument here, which ultimately ends up as "history helps you sell stuff!" squicks me a little.

On the other other hand, isn't that what we often say to sponsors anyway?

The Nonprofit Director's Skill Set: One Group's Opinion from Leading by Design

I have a copy of Leadership Matters waiting for the right moment and amount of concentration to read it, but in the meantime I quite enjoy this blog. I also really enjoyed this blog post, which I thought was an interesting consideration of an actually really important topic. Hiring a leader is one of the most important things any nonprofit organization will ever do.

What My Favorite Meteorologist Has To Do With City Museums from CityStories

Rainey is a brilliant, original thinker and I really like the clear argument she makes here for the work a city museum should be doing to connect to its constituency. I like the way she's framed it as a balance between expertise and community integration, something so many museums struggle with.

Dear Ann Coulter

I know, I know: when I led workshops this spring about social media and online presence for history organizations, one of my rules of thumb was "don't feed the trolls." There are people who exist in this world who will say ridiculous, outrageous, vicious things simply to garner attention. The internet is their playground.

However, given that I have talked about family history on this blog, and tracked the movements of my ancestor Richard Gustin in particular, I do have to carefully and precisely refute her recent argument that "I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer."

(I will not link to her full blog post, because it is filled with racism, nativism, and a whole boatload of particularly obnoxious privilege; Google "Ann Coulter" and "soccer" and you should hit it immediately.)

My grandfather was born in Pennsylvania, and he fought in World War II. My great-grandfather was born in Pennsylvania. His father was born in Pennsylvania. His father was born in New Jersey, and he fought in the Civil War. His father was born in Massachusetts. His father was born in Massachusetts, and he fought in the Revolutionary War.

You get the picture? That's one line of my family; the other goes back even further. I have an atypical American family tree for the lack of immigrants that show up after the 17th century. So I should be Ann Coulter's ideal American, at least for that narrow definition and example.

I love soccer. I watched a ton of the World Cup games. More to the point, both of my brothers are those fans. They play several days a week in competitive leagues. One went to college on a Division 2 soccer scholarship. They tailgate at New England Revolution games. They live and die by the fortunes of the US Team. They react in the white-knuckled, nauseated, deathly still way to a close game the way only a diehard sports fan can manage. Their heritage is the same as mine.

Again: not that it needed refuting. But I am living proof that she is flat out wrong.

The Graduate School Conundrum, Part 2

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had a proposal accepted for the New England Museum Association's 2014 Annual Conference. I talked about the first half of that proposal, the survey to gather information.

The second half, after the presentation of the survey findings, will be an informed conversation between two brilliant thinkers in the museum world, both of whom have graduate degrees and are still intimately involved in professional development and learning. I'm beyond lucky that they agreed to work with me on this.

Our conversationalists are Linda Norris, of The Uncataloged Museum, and Cynthia Robinson, of the Tufts University Museum Studies Program.

I've known and admired them both for many years and our email conversations so far have been thoughtful and enlightening.

Some of the questions we'll consider:

- how graduate programs can be improved;

- how the level of commitment from the college or university affects the quality of the program;

- what graduate programs can provide that work experience in museums cannot (and vice versa);

- what the museum field needs of its newest employees ;

- whether graduate programs are flexible and innovative enough to produce the next generation of great thinkers;

- whether they encourage and increase diversity or homogeneity;

- what the future of professional education in the museum field should look like.

The Graduate School Conundrum

I'm excited to announce that a panel I proposed for the New England Museum Association's 2014 Annual Conference has been accepted.

My idea for the panel has been growing over the last few years, as I meet young & emerging professionals from all over the country. It seems like every conversation I have leads me to discover a graduate program I've never heard of - and too often, students aren't prepared for the real world of museum work.

I'm designing a survey right now aimed at two audiences: first, museum graduate programs themselves, to see what kind of degrees & classes are offered, how the program is structured, and essentially attempt a snapshot of what's out there.

The second audience is museum professionals and will attempt to discover how many currently working professionals have graduate degrees; how useful they've found them; what skills have transferred; what skills have been useless; whether they hire graduate students.

The basic question is this: if graduate school is becoming the new gateway to the museum profession, what's it really teaching us? Is it really that important?

I'll share my reading and thinking here on the blog as I continue through the project, and will publicize the surveys when they go live.

In the meantime, I'd greatly appreciate any links to reading about museum studies programs, whether published, online, or unpublished, and would appreciate any feedback about what questions you think need to be asked or what issues should be addressed. Comment here or shoot me an email at amanda.gustin[at]gmail[dot]com.

Exhibit Workshops + Cultural Heritage Professional Gatherings in Vermont

Same old excuse for not blogging, though I have what feels like a dozen ideas a day. I can't remember the last time I sat down at my home computer to do my own writing/thinking!

But regardless, here is a very cool thing I've been working on at my job: exhibit workshops and cultural heritage professional gatherings around Vermont. I'll be teaching program planning & community outreach in preparation for Vermont History Expo at each of these workshops.

Thinking about an exhibit for the 2014 season? Whether you are planning an exhibit for Vermont History Expo, your historical society building, or to travel to schools or other venues, the Vermont Historical Society would like to invite you to attend a workshop that will provide some useful information for creating a successful exhibit.

These five workshops across the state will offer guidance from Curator Jackie Calder, Public Programs Coordinator Amanda Gustin, and Community Outreach Coordinator and Conservator Laura Brill, as well as provide time for organizations to work on their own exhibit planning. 

All workshops will take place from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm and are free of charge thanks to a grant from the Patrick Foundation. Most will be followed by a reception for Cultural Heritage Professionals in the evening.

Friday, March 28 -- Bennington Museum, Bennington
Friday, April 11 -- Middlebury, venue to be determined
Monday, April 14 -- Vermont History Center, Barre
Friday, April 18 -- Woodstock Historical Society, Woodstock
Monday, April 28 -- Old Stone House Museum, Brownington
If you would like to register or have any questions please contact Laura Brill at laura.brill@state.vt.us or (802) 479-8522.

Here's info on the Cutural Heritage Professionals Gatherings:

Cultural Heritage Professionals - archivists, educators, curators, librarians, conservators, preservationists, students, etc., are invited to join us this April for an early happy hour. We'll get a few appetizers, but other food and drink are up to you.

Friday, April 11 - 51 Main in Middlebury

Monday, April 14 - Mulligan's in Barre

Friday, April 18 - Richardson's Tavern at the Woodstock Inn in Woodstock

Monday, April 28 - Bailiwick's in St. Johnsbury

Curator Jackie Calder, Public Programs Coordinator Amanda Gustin and Community Outreach Coordinator Laura Brill will definitely be at the restaurants from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Please let Laura know if you are planning to attend, laura.brill@state.vt.us or (802)479-8522, and feel free to pass along this invitation to your colleagues!

Thank you to the Sheldon Museum, the Woodstock History Center, and the Old Stone House Museum for hosting the Exhibit Workshops on those days as well, and to the Patrick Foundation for a grant supporting the workshops.

Weekly Blog Roundup

Here are a few interesting blog posts from the museum world.


Pinterest as a Museum Tool from the Columbus EMPs

I've been playing with Pinterest for some months now, and I have to confess, it's not yet my thing. I'm not a terribly visual person. But I am really intrigued by the creative possibilities for museums, and this post is a great roundup of what's out there and how museums are using it well. Many of the ideas shared are good general-application thoughts about communicating with the public.

@HistoryinPics brings history to the public. So what’s the problem? (Part 1) from History@Work

I admit, I follow this Twitter account - but declined to RT something they posted when I saw it hadn't been credited at all. I had no idea about the commercial motivations behind the account. I'll think twice about whether I even follow them or not. (Also, two teenagers making $50,000 a month doing this? I am doing something wrong...)

Weekly Blog Roundup

Here's a roundup of interesting blog posts in and about museums (and a few that are not directly about museums but are useful anyway).

Organizing your employment history at Unclutterer

One of the biggest favors I ever did myself was to organize all my files on previous employers, both digital and paper. I weeded, kept useful information, and re-labeled all my resumes, job descriptions, and contact information. I can't overstate how much of a relief and help it is to have all that information at the tip of my fingers if necessary. It's not just in a job search - I keep it up to date now because I'm always being asked for a copy of my resume for grant applications.

Managing the Email Monster

Communication is key to nearly any museum job, and even the jobs that used to be able to hide away without much talking to people (archivists, curators, registrars, conservators) are being asked to step to the forefront and interact more with the public - and more with their colleagues in the public sphere.

I have been in the background, and in the front lines. I prefer the front lines. When I'm not on the front lines in person, I am an email fiend. I'm that smartphone-addicted person who checks email every 20 minutes. I don't really play games and 90% of my apps are practical or utilitarian, but email alone is the main reason I love my smartphone.

Used and managed well, it is an unbelievably powerful tool - especially for those of us who think more clearly in text than verbally.

But after one particularly busy day last week, I counted: I had sent 55 emails and received well over 150. I felt exhausted and drawn out. Most of the emails I sent had been substantive, answering question or chasing down new things. My hands were actually sore from typing - and email was far from all I'd been doing that day.

I flashed back to a workshop I'd attended a few years ago, before I had such a busy and intense job; we'd had a group discussion about workflow and the topic of email came up. I volunteered that I often put email on a to-do list: I set aside a concentrated time of my day, perhaps 20-40 minutes, to answer what needed to be done, and then I moved on to other things. A few of the more seasoned museum professionals in the room scoffed at me, and no doubt secretly though I was more than a bit naive. (If memory serves, someone in the background even snorted derisively.)

Fast forward to today. There is zero chance that putting "email" on my to-do list and setting aside 20 minutes will take care of it. (I still use that tactic for voicemail, though.) It comes in too often; there are too many urgent and semi-urgent questions to answer; it requires too much thought and follow-up to answer the questions. (Even my personal email is frequently out of control, though not quite as busy as my work email.)

That said, I still maintain that the basic principle of my idea is sound. Here are a few tactics I use to manage even the hugely increased amount of email I go through on a daily basis.

Inbox Zero. This is my holy grail, as it is for many others. I believe the system has layers to it - and it's even marketed - but in essentials, for me, it means two things. First, any email still in my inbox is essentially a to-do list item. It represents a question unanswered, a task unfinished, or a person who needs to hear from me. Second, once that item is done, the email is taken care of. It's deleted or slotted into a folder. Period. Gone. I have hit it only a handful of times with my work email, but it's my preferred default for personal email, and I'm there on a semi-regular basis.

No Unread Emails. Nope. None. I have a coworker who marks items that she needs to respond to as unread, and lets them build in her inbox. That's fine! It would make my skin crawl. I may set them aside for brief, specific periods of time (usually while digging in to answer older emails) but I don't even just not read them. I always glance at them. Unread emails are information floating orphaned out in the void, and that means that I'm not processing everything I need to. Not ok.

Folders. I am obsessive about folders (in Outlook) and labels (in Gmail). I have tiers upon tiers of folders. I keep them closed up when I'm not actively working on that project, but they're an extensive filing system that I'm constantly tweaking. Once an email has been processed, I decide whether it contains useful information; if so, it gets filed. If not, it gets deleted. It does not sit in my inbox longer than strictly necessary. (For some categories of email that I may need to refer to - but not actively answer or read every day - that means I've set up automatic filters to label or file emails as they come in.)

Letting Go. Sometimes, a conversation could go on endlessly. That may mean it's a pleasant conversation - or it may be someone nagging you about a product or service to sell. I try hard to judge the point at which the necessities of polite conversation have been satisfied - and then move on. That may mean deleting, but most often it means filing or archiving. I don't want that line of thought cluttering up my inbox or my mind.

Staying Connected. This is not a gospel for everyone, but for me - checking email first thing in the morning, before I'm even up and out of bed, is a crucial part of my system. I'll often skim important things and start processing and thinking about my answers to them as I get ready for my day. Checking email quickly while waiting in line somewhere lets me get three or four more deleted or archived. It's rare for me to actually reply to an email using my phone, but taking advantage of the otherwise empty moments lets me get ready to tackle the bigger stuff when I'm sitting down at a desk.

What about you? Any tactics you use, or have you given up?