Posts
Collections Stewardship
Report urges massive digitization of museum collections
The National Science Foundation is proposing a far-reaching project to digitize plant and animal specimens in museum collections around the country and build them into an exhaustive …
TrendsWatch 2019: Confronting the Past: The long, hard work of decolonization
This is one of the five trends from the 2019 TrendsWatch. Click here to read more about the full report. “Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have …
‘Time Is Running Out’: Museum Curator In Florida Races To Preserve Holocaust Items
With the youngest people who survived the Holocaust now in their mid-70s, it’s vital that museums who preserve historical items related to World War II to move quickly in acquiring …
This strange “paint disease” is putting Georgia O’Keeffe paintings at risk
Low cost tools are in development to diagnose and treat this “paint disease” found in oil-based paintings from all time periods. Watch a video on diagnosing “art acne” and read more about …
Closing the GAAP on Direct Care
As lawyers with backgrounds in horticulture (Lori) and material culture studies (Sarah), we never thought we would be passionate about an accounting rule. Yet here we are. In 2015 we wrote …
Revolutionary War fighting ended in 1781. The last shots exploded 2 months ago.
Conservators at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources got more than they bargained for when they realized they had been storing hand grenades from the Revolutionary War for more …
Clean House to Survive? Museums Confront Their Crowded Basements
The New York Times dives deep into the problem of swelling storage and the routes some museums are taking to address it, including the controversial practice of deaccessioning. “It doesn’t …
Statues of Limitation
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2019 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of membership with the Alliance. Click here to learn more about membership! Are museums the …
See Behind the Scenes as the Statue of Liberty’s Original Torch Moves to Its New Home
Ever wonder what it must be like to move a huge portion of an iconic statue? The original torch for the Statue of Liberty is no stranger to being moved, but it recently made a short trip to …
Is It Time to Break Your Museum’s Organizational Mold?
Over the course of the twentieth century, and into today, museums have witnessed dramatic changes in their organizational and funding environments—some driven from within the museum field, …
Writing Fashion History at the Met, One Dress at a Time
Vogue takes a peek into the newly-built underground collections vault of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and interviews the dedicated team responsible for …
Museum to return First Nation skulls
The National Museum of Scotland will repatriate two Beothuk skeletons to the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa, Canada. “Following careful consideration in line with our human …