Dear Members of the MANY Museum Community,

This last "Letter from Erika" in 2019 is different. It is a first look at data provided by 206 museums (15% of our state’s museums) who answered over a hundred questions in our 2019 State of New York State Museums survey. This first survey of the field conducted by MANY since 2011, paints a new picture with charts, graphs, and data visualizations created by Megan Eves, MANY’s Marketing and Social Media Coordinator who studied this summer with Edward Tufte, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science, Yale University. The full report will be published in March 2020.  This letter also includes testimony I delivered on Thursday, December 12 at a hearing on Capital Funding for Arts and Cultural Organizations called by the Assembly Standing Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports chaired by Assembly Member Daniel J. O’Donnell (District 69) and the Assembly Subcommittee on Museums & Cultural Institutions chaired by Assembly Member Robert C. Carroll (District 44). My testimony was shaped by the survey data that illuminated differences in distribution and types of funding to museums.  We have included a map and an alphabetical list of the museums who shared their information. We are grateful for the time and generosity of our colleagues. When published, the charts and report will be located on a members-only access page of the website. Members will need to log into their MANY profile on the website to access the report.  About the Charts Not every museum answered every question in the survey. You will find an “n” number on each chart to support the data; text analysis will include the phrases “of those who responded to the survey,” and “of those who responded to the question.” Charts included in this letter are:  Museums by discipline, budget size, and region Types of Museum buildings and public spaces New York State funding by museum budget size, region, and granting agency Average salary compensation by region and percentage of budget Intern compensation by region and budget size Thank you for your support in 2019. We served a record number of museum professionals through our conference, workshops, and Meet-Ups. Our membership has grown to almost double what it was just three years ago.  Your membership helps us sustain operations and produce important publications like our newsletter and the State of New York State Museums. A tax-deductible donation to our annual fund will help MANY ensure a better future for all New York Museums. Click here now to make a donation; gifts of any size are welcome and deeply appreciated.

With thanks and wishing you a Happy New Year,

NYS Capitol Building in Albany, NY

Dear Members of the MANY Museum Community,

This fall we saw hundreds of museum professionals at Meet Ups and Workshops in every region of our state. We were immersed in planning the programs and events for the 2020 annual conference and developing new member benefits, including a partnership with the New York Council for Non Profits that will allow MANY members access to NYCON services at greatly reduced rates. 

When I look back at our fall calendar, I am filled with gratitude for our hosts and our program attendees. I am also grateful for support from our elected officials. Behind all the public facing work we have done this year to support best practices and professional development, there has been another project quietly developing. 

I am pleased to share the news that on October 28, New York State Senator José M. Serrano introduced Bill #6819 which is an act to amend the arts and cultural affairs law in relation to providing financial assistance to museums, zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums and other cultural institutions located in low-income urban, suburban, or rural communities, or that provide educational services to such communities, otherwise known as The Museum Education Act. We extend our thanks to Senator Serrano for his leadership and bill sponsors Senators Comrie, Hoylman, Kennedy, Little, Lou, May, Ortt, and Sanders.  This new bill would allow funding to museums chartered by New York State Ed as well as to museums chartered by the Secretary of State or other legislative action. These two changes to the proposed law greatly expand the number of museums who would be eligible for funding. While we are awaiting confirmation about the bill’s introduction in the Assembly, we were pleased to learn this week that the new acting commissioner of the State Education Department, Shannon Tahoe will include the Museum Education Act in her budget testimony.  

I will be testifying on December 12 at a public hearing conducted by the Assembly Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports. The focus of the hearing is to examine the enacted 2019/2020 budget as it relates to the funding of art and cultural institutions. I will share information about museum capital funding needs, challenges with the application process, and capital projects completed or underway. We have some great data from our State of New York State Museums Survey (report coming soon!) but if you did not participate in the survey or would like to send an update about your capital needs or your projects, please send me an email and let me know what you are working on in your museum.

In other Advocacy news, registration is open for AAM’s Museums Advocacy Day that will be held February 23-25, 2020 in Washington DC. In 2019, New York had the largest delegation of any state in the nation. We had great fun talking to our Congressional Representatives and their staff about the importance of museums to our state and our nation. If you have ever thought about joining us at Museums Advocacy Day, with the 2020 election coming up, this is the year to do it!

It is taking many hands to build this bigger platform that will help create a stronger voice in advocacy and expanded funding streams for all of our state’s museums. We will need museum professionals from all of state’s museum, no matter your budget size, discipline, or location to speak up in 2020 and share with your elected officials how your museum makes a difference in your community. We also need your support to make all that we do possible. Each and every donation, no matter the amount allows us to help you. Making a donation to MANY is easy. Just click here and help us help you amplify all the great work being done in New York’s Museums.

 

With thanks,

Assemblyperson Jonathan G. Jacobson (left) from NYS Assembly District 104 attends the Hudson Valley meet-up at Dia:Beacon and gives remarks.

The Alice Austen House on Staten Island represents the life and work of Alice Austen (1866-1952), an early American photographer and a woman ahead of her time. She was one of America’s most prolific female photographers and captured over 8,000 images throughout her life. The house was restored to its former glory after years of neglect as interpreted as a traditional historic house museum. In 2015, the museum received a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to re-interpret the museum to focus more on the life of Alice Austen and in 2017 updated their National Landmark designation to become a National Site of LGBTQ History.

Exhibition panel as part of the new permanent exhibition “New Eyes on Alice Austen”

Photo courtesy Danielle Bennett

“Clear Comfort”

Alice Austen’s home, “Clear Comfort” was built in 1690 as a Dutch Farmhouse. She moved to the house in the late 1860s where she lived with her mother. In 1917, Gertrude Tate moved in and they both lived in the home until 1945 when financial problems forced them out. “Clear Comfort” had been in the Austen family for nearly 100 years. The house fell into neglect and a group of citizens (later the Friends of Alice Austen House, Inc.) successfully saved the house in the 1960s, gained it historic landmark status, and restored the house in the mid 1980s. 

When current Executive Director Victoria Munro first visited the house, it was a simple self-guided tour that focused on period furniture placed to replicate the late 19th century. “I didn’t know who Alice Austen was. I only knew that I was visiting a historic house in a park. There were some photographs in the entryway and the rooms were filled with furniture from the time period of the home and there were two contemporary art galleries. But I left not really knowing who Alice Austen was, not knowing that she was a photographer and definitely not knowing that she was a lesbian. As an artist who is gay, that would have been really big for me,” said Victorian Munro, Executive Director. 

The “Family Tree” exhibition panel

Photo courtesy Danielle Bennett

Interpretation Changes at the Alice Austen House

Munro first came to the house in 2015 to write programming about women’s history and help create a more structured women’s history program. In 2017, she became the Executive Director. Under her leadership the house received a $250,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant for the implementation of a new onsite interpretation and expanded website content called New Eyes on Alice Austen: Redesigning the Museum’s Permanent Installation. The museum used scholars to help re-envision the permanent exhibition that would incorporate Alice Austen’s contributions to photography, immigration, women’s and LGBTQ history. 

Before this grant the house only included 25 photographs from Alice and did not help to tell her story. The scholars brought in as part of the NEH grant helped to create an overarching voice for the museum by using more of Alice’s photographs and life. Scholars helped contextualize Alice Austen in New York City history, women’s history, immigration, LGBTQ history, and photographic history. “We felt like we were finally doing justice for Alice and her story,” said Munro. “As the installation for this new permanent exhibition was forming, the scholars helped us pull together every quote possible on Alice’s work to create an identifying voice for the museum. We unfortunately don’t have her voice. We have notations on her photographs, but by the time Alice was interviews she was in the final years of her life, she was homeless, and wasn’t exactly in a position of power to speak about her younger years.”

The installation of the new permanent exhibition took around two years and used high-resolution photographs and updated text that was recommended by the scholars. The museum no longer displays period furniture, since most of it didn’t belong to the family. Alice’s story was integrated into all educational programming. Victorian Munro reflected that there were times during this transformation where it was difficult to explain to people about the interpretation changes. “We had people who just really loved the Alice Austen House but they were so receptive to what the changed looked like and the new visitor experience. They see how the rooms are interpreted without any furniture but they can move through it, see Alice’s camera, see her work, and it’s an amazing experience.”

Alice Austen’s photographs of what the house looked like when she lived there replace the period furniture. Photo courtesy Danielle Bennett

The Alice Austen House expanded their mission to include “exploring personal identity” to help highlight LGBTQ interpretation and other programming. Photographs of Alice’s partner Gertrude were hung on the walls of photographs and when the house was designated an LGBTQ Historic Site in 2017, a new introductory text panel was installed in the museum entrance that acknowledges the 53-year relationship between Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate. This reinserted Gertrude as a central figure in Alice’s life and including her into the physical space of the house.

Content Inclusion

“In accepting the amendment to our national designation, it gave us a huge responsiblity to the LGBTQ community, to actively program for them, and also provide inclusive programming for everyone else because it’s everyone’s history,” said Munro. Since the new installation of the permanent exhibition and new designation as an LGBTQ Historic Site, visitorship has doubled. “We have had visitors that have been here before and come back and have been so overwhelmed, especially if they are part of the LGBTQ community. They are so moved to see Alice and Gertrude’s relationship included in our narrative, to see Gertrude included on the family tree.”

Historian Danielle Bennet who worked at the Alice Austen House as Visitor Experience & Social Media Manager during its transformative time said, “If you open your house to a story that’s about differences, you not only embrace that particular difference but you end up becoming more open to exploring others and embracing the community however it comes. I think it makes a museum more open and vulnerable as an institution.” Bennett commented that the Alice Austen House is now much more robust in its new permanent exhibition and by sharing the story of Alice and Gertrude, the house is providing more inclusive content to its visitors. 

Interpreting Queer History

“I’ve found that sometimes museums know what they have in the collection, object wise, but going back to read the content within the collection, the letters, diaries...and to look at this content with fresh eyes to see what’s there,” said Bennet. “There are probably some really interesting pieces awaiting uncovering and interpretation. “I ask people to grapple with uncertainty. As historians were never going to know exactly how things were like. We can make best guesses and its harder to make a guess about queerness and transness because it has been scrubbed from the record but if you find something there, the odds are actually probably pretty good that there’s a reason why something persisted to present day.”

As historic house museum tell the stories about the other people who lived there and wonder how to best interpret queer history, Bennett suggests looking at the history with a bigger lens. “Houses need to talk about the other people who lived there, the other people who were closest to the houses’ namesake. Their stories are going to have something interesting. [Museums] need to ask who counts here? Are you only counting people who have certain kinds of privilege? If someone who lived in these spaces seems like they were queer, does that make their story count less?” Bennett also suggests from her research and experience working with historic houses is to create and work with community panels or advisory groups from people who know the topic, a queer academic or a queer person with a similar life experience. “People from a certain group can see things that staff might not see and it’s useful to bring in people with different viewpoints, especially when interpreting queer history.”

------------

About the Alice Austen House

The Alice Austen House is a New York City and National Landmark, on the Register of Historic Places and a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s distinctive group of Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios. In June 2017, the Alice Austen House, where Austen and her life partner, Gertrude Tate, lived together for nearly 30 years, marked its national designation as a site of LGBTQ history and updated their designation to become a National Site of LGBTQ History. This was an achievement of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, funded through a grant from the New York State Historic Preservation Office and made possible by the National Park Service.

Further Reading

Alice Austen House 

https://aliceausten.org/

LGBTQ Heritage 

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/lgbtqheritage.htm

NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/

Visit the newly redesigned Alice Austen House and celebrate its rich history and innovative events

https://www.neh.gov/news/visit-newly-redesigned-alice-austen-house-and-celebrate-its-rich-history-and-innovative-events

Danielle Bennett, Historian and Museum Professional

http://daniellebennett.nyc/

How Albany’s Heritage Sites Promote and Expand Cultural Experiences 

According to a 2013 tourism research report, the average cultural heritage tourist according is likely to spend more and stay longer when compared to the leisure traveler. The City of Albany worked with the Albany Heritage Tourism Advisory Council and Discover Albany (Albany’s Tourism Promotion Agency) to create a strategic plan specifically for heritage tourism. The Cultural Heritage and Tourism Partnership incorporated the mayor, and elected city officials, heritage sites, and Discover Albany to carry out the goals and strategies outlined by the strategic plan. 

via the Cultural Heritage and Tourism 2018 Report

Telling Albany’s Stories

In 2016, Maeve McEneny was hired as the Heritage Tourism Program Coordinator and she began with seeking input from heritage partners. “I needed to meet with the museums and figure out what we’re doing,” McEneny said. Maeve put out a call to museums and cultural sites in the Albany area to meet and talk. These quarterly meetings were marketed as “Let’s CHAT” (Cultural Heritage and Tourism) and focused on collaboration and input from the heritage tourism community to identify priorities, create visitor experiences and market these experiences to cultural heritage travelers. “I ended up doing a lot of listening and what I discovered was that there are similar types of programming happening across each site...and potential for these sites to partner together.” These partnerships were exactly what the strategic plan called for to help promote and expand Albany’s existing cultural heritage experiences. “Similar programming happens with major anniversaries like Suffrage, the Erie Canal Bicentennial, and Hamilton. Hamilton was probably one of our most popular. We knew Hamilton* fans were traveling to Schuyler Mansion but they had a capacity issue. Other sites worked together in a partnership like the Albany Institute for History & Art, Proctor’s, Ten Broeck… to get in on the Hamilton excitement and extend it,” McEneny said. “By partnering together, these heritage sites could take advantage of the tourists coming in by supporting one another.” In total, the Albany Institute, Schuyler Mansion Historic Site, and First Church took part in the “Hamilton in Albany” program. Discover Albany promoted “Hamilton in Albany” on its website, social media channels, created a brochure, and pitched it to national media. Schuyler Mansion attendance from June to September in 2016 increased by 116% and the Albany Institute attendance increased by 53%. 

*Hamilton: An American Musical is a musical about the life of AlexanderHamilton with music, lyrics and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

Some of these partnerships are planned but others evolved organically.  “Tastes and Traditions” came from a discussion between Maeve McEneny and Albany Institute Curator and MANY Board Member Diane Shewchuk at a MANY conference. “From that conversation I learned that there was a group of different heritage sites doing kitchens and I thought that it would be interesting to pitch to the group,” said McEneny. Over 80 sites and businesses participated and created 117 events and programs. Discover Albany used input from the CHAT partners and created events, tours, classes and exhibits hosted on their website as well as devoting a page to Tastes and Traditions in the Discover Albany Visitor Guide. 

Initiatives like these are why Mave McEneny says that this group works well with Discover Albany. “It’s one thing that we’re coming up with all of these plans and themes and sharing resources, but by telling me and the Discover Albany team about it, including our social media coordinator and marketing directors at these meetings (CHAT) who are looking and listening for content for the website, social media, and blog posts that we can listen for stories and connection that Discover Albany can market.” Posting events, tagging the themes on the Discover Albany website help their social media coordinator to find relevant content and write blog posts connecting similar events and programming together that can extend a visitor’s experience. “We will use it for travel writers who are coming in for a familiarization tour to help them visit multiple sites around a similar theme and that’s really the goal for when heritage tourists come in, to visit multiple sites and hopefully stay overnight. The heritage tourist is likely to spend more money and engage in cultural sites than the average, so Discover Albany wants to make the area inviting.”

Extending the Invitation Beyond Museums and Cultural Sites

The CHAT group also includes partners from outside museums and heritage sites. “We’ve invited playwrights, a dance company, artists, and others who could help us tell Albany’s stories,” said McEneny. For example, Historic Cherry Hill wanted to do Suffrage anniversary programming but did not have a direct connection to the movement (in fact the matriarch of Cherry Hill was anti-suffrage). Through the CHAT group, Historic Cherry Hill connected with Kysta Dennis, a lecturer in Creative Arts at Siena College, who wrote an original one-act play “The Burden of the Ballot.” Historic Cherry Hill and Dennis collaborated to bring this play to the site and be part of the Suffrage anniversary programming.

Artists from the Albany Center Gallery were also included in these meetings to know about important anniversaries. Discover Albany featured Herman Melville in 2017 for the 125th anniversary of his death as part of their “Literacy Legacy” program where various heritage sites and cultural institutions highlighted Melville’s life in Albany. The Albany Mural Project (Capital Walls) administered by the Albany Center Gallery had artists include a whale in some of the art murals throughout the city to accompany “Literacy Legacy.”

Collaborating Not Competing

Before the Albany Cultural Heritage Tourism Strategic Plan, Albany museums, cultural and heritage sites chose collaboration over competition back in 2010 to create Partners for Albany Stories (PASt). The group was a collaboration of historical, cultural, and preservation associations that worked together to create a comprehensive telling of Albany history. Participating organizations included the Albany City Historian, Albany County Historical Association (Ten Broeck Mansion), Albany Institute of History & Art, Crailo State Historic Site, Historic Albany Foundation, Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, New York State Capitol Tour Program, Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation of NYS, Shaker Heritage Society, Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, and Historic Cherry Hill. Its creation occurred at the same time as the Regional Economic Development Council and so by partnering together, their shared goal was to seek multiple capital funding project grants for Albany’s  historic sites and developed into collaborative programming. 

Having this partnership background for Albany’s heritage sites, helped the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Partnership in 2016. “At first I thought that there might be some resistance but the cool thing about Albany was that people were hungry to work with each other...they wanted to share and they were excited about the people that they met [at these meetings],” said McEneny. 

The Future?

The CHAT group has made significant progress since its creation in 2016 to create immersive visitor experiences with collaborative input from the Albany heritage tourism community. With a strong partnership foundation, Maeve McEneny says that the group is looking to what the next step is. “In 2020, sharing resources and continuing education are two areas of focus. We recently worked with Advance Media who lead a Facebook training workshop for the group.” 

Discovery Albany is also helping to track attendance figures year over year to help recognize trends, track the impact of marketing campaigns, and help to identify priorities which are shared with the CHAT partners. 

According to the CHAT Report, a total of $58,277 has been spent on advertising for heritage tourism including digital and printed materials to promote new tourism products created by Discover ALbany and the CHAT partners and to capitalize on the heritage tourist.

Want to bring this type of initiative to your own Tourism Promotion Agency?

“Start with your heritage partners first,” said McEneny. “Put a call out to directors and museum educators to come together and talk and then approach your TPA where you can show them the successes of coming together as a unified voice.”

Further Reading / Resources

Cultural Heritage and Tourism Results Report

https://www.albany.org/partners/cultural-heritage-and-tourism 

Albany Heritage Tourism

https://www.albany.org/things-to-do/albany-heritage-tourism/

The Role of a Museum Editor 

Megan Eves’ Interview with Richard Price, Museum Editor at the Corning Museum of Glass

Recently retired at the end of September Richard Price has worked at The Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG) since April 1985. As the Head of Publications, Price has edited every edition of the Museum’s annual publication including prestigious Journal of Glass Studies, Notable Acquisitions, and the contemporary glass exhibition-in-print, New Glass Review. Additionally, Price edited every catalog for Museum exhibitions and other publications among the best known: Glass from World’s Fairs, 1851-1904 (1986), Drawing upon Nature: Studies for the Blasckas’ Glass Models (2007), and Tiffany’s Glass Mosaics (2017) which won the W.E. Fischelis Award from The Victorian Society in America. 

I spoke with Price to learn more about how he entered the museum field, his time as Museum Editor at CMOG, and reflected back on some of his favorite projects.

Richard Price, Head of Publications at The Corning Museum of Glass poses with a few of the publications he has worked on throughout his thirty five year with the Museum.

Megan: Describe what you did as a museum editor at CMOG. What are the main roles/responsibilities? 

Price: I edited the manuscripts for the publications from academic journals to annual reports to collection and exhibition catalogues. I worked closely with curators and with writers for our academic journals who came from around the world. I enjoyed learning about these different subject areas that were sometimes very different from what the museum was pursuing but they gave me an opportunity to learn from these scholars. I enjoyed encouraging help these young people to get their work published, get it up to standard, and I thought that was a very useful thing to do. I was very touched by these people who when they learned I was leaving they took the time to write and thank me. 

How did you enter the museum field? How did you end up being CMOG’s museum editor for over thirty years? What were you doing before?

When I went to journalism school, I learned that I wanted to be an editor so I took those classes out of sequence. I jumped all news writing prerequisite to take editing. I had a wonderful teacher who worked with me and really taught me my craft. I worked for our local newspaper on and off for ten years. I also worked in the local library. I started at the museum in 1985 so I already had experience working with the local newspaper The Leader in Corning and what was then the Corning Area Public LIbrary and those were good stepping stones to what I ultimately did. 

I left The Leader in 1984 and basically was between jobs for a year. My mother ran a store on Market Street in Corning and put me to work. Someone let her know that the person in charge of publications at the Corning Museum of Glass was going to retire and my mom said “you need to apply for this.”

I was familiar with the museum because of our four generations of family connections. Starting with my grandfather who designed the 200-inch disk for the reflector telescope for the Palomar Observatory. He worked for what was then Corning Glassworks. who designed the 200-inch mirror blank for the Hale Telescope—the single largest piece of Pyrex ever made—which allowed astronomers to see farther into space than ever before. Still today, it resides at the Palomar Observatory in California. The first, failed attempt at this giant piece of cast glass is a staple of the collection of The Corning Museum of Glass. My dad was an othormic engineer. He worked on what were then photoray lens that darken in the sunlight. He would travel to Arizona with a colleague and they would put samples on a roof of a motel and test them for how quickly the lenses would darken and then fade. So I’m the third generation and my daughter works here now as the Media & Public Relations Manager. My son worked he for a number of years as a security guard, so the family is well represented here. It’s a wonderful place to work and it’s given me the opportunity to learn more about a subject that connects with a lot of people in my family. So I’ve had the opportunity to put out publications for the museum that is probably at the forefront of its field which is a humbling experience from time to time. 

Rick with his wife, Sheila, and daughter Kim Thompson

What made you excited about editing catalogs for CMOG?

I feel that it is a very important role that you are backstopping the institution. You’re trying to prevent the material misstatement. You're trying to prevent errors of any kind and it’s a big task but it’s rewarding.

Can you share a favorite project?

One of my favorite projects was Cage Cups: Late Roman Luxury Glass by the late Dr. David Whitehouse, a former director of the museum. This was a project of which I was blissfully unaware until one day Whitehouse called me over to his desk and let me know that he had been working on this publication quietly for years. He shared that he had recently received an unfortunate diagnosis and would die within months from the time we met. He asked me if I could handle it. Of course I said yes. I knew that cage cups where the luxury glass of the Roman Empire. There are not many of them but they are phenomenal pieces. There are some disagreements about how they were made and so Dr. Whitehouse wanted to produce a book that would bring the findings of the day that would give a good context and make it a very readable book. 

After he passed, we learned of some cage cups of which he was unaware. I started digging around with help from one of the former curators and we were able to identify and locate thirteen additional cage cups. We went to publication with over eighty cage cups identified. The discovery of these cage cups gave me the opportunity to interview excavators, curators, museum directors and others who had a hand in finding these things. It was really gratifying and because in some cases people were so excited to be part of the book that they provided photographs free of charge, they gave us copies of documents that helped that section come alive. I know that a lot of people in the curatorial world were aware that he [Whitehouse] was writing the book but I was not until he gave it to me about six/eight months before he died and I just took it as valedictory work. Dr. Whitehouse was one of the leading scholars of ancient Islamic glass in the world. I was very honored to work with him and edit his exhibition and scholarly catalogue. It was a great joy for me to bring Cage Cups to publication in late 2015.

 

A favorite project of Price’s was his work on the publication Cage Cups: Late Roman Luxury Glass by the late Dr. David Whitehouse, a former director of the Museum. Whitehouse’s book was incomplete at the time of his death, and Price continued his research, talking with curators and excavators around the world and uncovering a number of additional masterpieces which were included in the publication.

What did you learn from editing your first catalog to the most recent?

I learned as you went. One of the things that I did was put together a museum style manual that I had originally intended for my own use. I used it for the academic and popular adult publications. I put it together over the years as I learned different things. I built a fairly long vocabulary list and needed to know how these words were spelled, what they meant and how they were used. 

Every project was different. It wasn’t a case of becoming more and more confident in a particular area because people were writing about different things and you had to familiarize yourself with everything but you learned from each and every one of them. Because I was focused on one thing at a time, I were able to devote more time to digging deeper and make suggestions to authors such as “should we include something like this?” or “is that pertinent?” I was able to engage in a dialogue with them more by virtue of the fact that over the years I have learned cumulatively from a number of projects. 

What advice would you give someone looking to do something similar to your position?

I think that the only thing you can do it that’s the kind of thing you want to do is to make inquiries to museums. I know that there are a number of museums that do some publications, some more than others, but some of it is freelance work and some of it is staff. I don’t know that you can study it in an academic environment but  you get involved in museums and express and interests and if you've studied journalism or have taken courses in editing like from the American Society of Copyeditors that would be a good stepping stone to get into this kind of work.  

As you retire from your position, what else stands out about your time at CMOG?

Every project has been important to me, we have put out a number of books either as catalogues or as adjunct materials for an exhibition, some of those are more popular books, others are more scholarly but each one I have felt has been very important. It’s one thing when you’re working in the field of newspapers and magazines, those things are here today and gone tomorrow but in the world of glass and particularly glass scholarship I have been very mindful of the fact that our books are meant to last generations. It was vitally important that we devote the time and effort to make these things free of misstatement or free of factual errors and getting them right for scholars for generations to come.

New York State Council on the Arts Awards

Museum Association of New York $46,000

New York State Council on the Arts Grants Support

Vital Cultural Programs Statewide

New York, NY— The Museum Association of New York today announced that it has been awarded two grants totaling $46,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for FY2020 with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. NYSCA grants support the transformative impact of the performing, literary, visual and media arts in New York State.

The Museum Association of New York is one of 462 arts organizations across New York State receiving a total of $8,383,993 million in grants through NYSCA’s Round II FY2020 funding to support arts programs that drive New York State’s economic growth and community health.

 “The arts and culture are a critical driver of health in people and places,” said Mara Manus, Executive Director, New York State Council on the Arts. “Our state’s creative industries generate a total of $120 billion to the state economy, account for 466,000 jobs, and play a significant role in revitalization, education and social justice.”

"NYSCA's support of MANY's annual conference and programs throughout the year helps us serve museums and museum professionals across the state no matter their geographic location, budget size, or discipline" said Erika Sanger, Executive Director Museum Association of New York. "New York's Museums steward and share our state's history, arts, and culture with audiences and support for professional development is critical to advancing and sustaining our sector."

NYSCA will award a total of $41 million to arts organizations across New York State for FY2020. The second of three rounds of NYSCA funding for FY2020 includes support for museums, theatres, and arts organizations that drive tourism and anchor communities and arts education programs essential to learning for all ages, including public school students, aging populations and at-risk youth.

NYSCA Round II grants also support creative arts programs promoting physical and mental health and personal and professional development in historically underserved and vulnerable communities, including those in geographically remote areas; disabled communities; impoverished and homeless populations; and justice-involved youth and adults.

The Museum Association of New York received funding through NYSCA’s Folk Arts Program Project Support for the Museum and Folk Arts Forum as part of “The Power of Partnership” 2020 annual conference in Albany, NY. This Forum will explore and strengthen the ways in which museums and folklorists can work together to build understanding around shared informal learning practices, investigate how folk arts can strengthen the interpretation and presentation of community traditions in museums, how museum audiences can experience traditional arts, and how folk arts can build relationships between museums and their communities.  

The Museum Association of New York also received funding through NYSCA’s Museum Program for annual statewide support for “The Power of Partnership” 2020 annual conference, professional development workshops, and the Museum Institute at Great Camp Sagamore.

Annually, NYSCA grants are awarded in 15 discipline programs and the Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Over the last two years, NYSCA has awarded an additional $30 million in capital funding to 71 organizations statewide fueling community development and tourism, and will announce additional capital grant awards this year.

“New York’s cultural sector is a driving force in our state’s economy,” said Katherine Nicholls, Chair, New York State Council on the Arts.  “As our arts organizations expand their audiences and programs with NYSCA support, we will serve many more New Yorkers and build the vitality of our communities statewide.”    

NYSCA Round II grant awards were made through the agency’s Arts Education, Special Arts Services, Museum, Theatre, Music, Dance, Literature, and Visual Arts Programs. A list of NYSCA grantees searchable by program and location is available here.

Additional NYSCA funding will be announced in late 2019, including support for presenting organizations, individual artist commissions, and, through the Regional Economic Development Council, programs driving economic growth and building New York State’s workforce.

About The New York State Council on the Arts
 
The New York State Council on the Arts champions community and creativity by preserving and advancing numerous aspects of the cultural heritage that makes New York State an exceptional place to live, work and visit.

NYSCA upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development and quality of life. Through its core grantmaking activity, NYSCA awarded $51M in FY2019 to 2,400 organizations statewide through direct grants and regrants in our 15 programs, the Regional Economic Development Council initiative and the Mid-Size Capital Project Fund. NYSCA funding supports the visual, literary, media and performing arts and includes dedicated support for arts education and underserved communities. NYSCA further advances New York's creative culture by hosting convenings with leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources.

Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960, and continued and expanded to the present day with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, NYSCA is an agency of the Executive Branch of the New York State Government. For more information on NYSCA, please visit: www.arts.ny.gov.  

About the Museum Association of New York (MANY)

The Museum Association of New York inspires, connects, and strengthens New York’s cultural community statewide by advocating, educating, collaborating, and supporting professional standards and organizational development. MANY ensures that New York State museums operate at their full potential as economic drivers and essential components of their communities. For more information on MANY, please visit: www.nysmuseums.org.

Wayne Higby,Director and Chief Curator, Alfred Ceramic Art Museum; Brian Whisenhunt, Executive Director Rockwell Museum of American Art and MANY Board Member;  Erika Sanger, and Susan Kowalczyk, Curator of Collections and Director of Research, Alfred Ceramic Museum

Dear Members of our Museum Community,

I have found that inspiration can come from bewildering sources and energy can flow from unpredictable places. Then there are the sure things--places I can go and people I can turn to when the edges of my thoughts get fuzzy and I can’t quite figure out the next best step in a process. Museums, gardens, and places where water meets land have been my touchstones and my mentors have been generous. 

One of things that surprised me most when I began my work at MANY was the energy created when a group of people who share a commitment to our communities’ access to our history, heritage, and culture come together. At our Meet-Ups and Workshops this fall I felt rooms buzz with conversation, heard laughter echoing off walls, and felt warm greetings from colleagues. 

I’ve been traveling quite a bit this season and you might have seen me arrive somewhere a bit road weary. But a quiet walk through a gallery or an historic site, a cup of coffee, and an inspiring conversation later, the fatigue has worn off and I actually may find it hard to fall asleep later that night, my brain filled with overflowing thoughts. 

By the time we reach the last MANY Workshop and Meet–Up at Dia Beacon on November 13, we will have spent time with more than 400 colleagues in twelve different places. I know we are making a difference in the lives of museum professionals by creating a community that enjoys coming together, sharing knowledge, and supporting each other’s work, not just by the buzz and the energy, but through incredibly affirming notes we received from colleagues this fall:

Thank you for renewing my spirit here!  It was a great event and the meet and greet, also awesome. The most connected I have felt, in a long time.

This Meet-Up was another great opportunity to promote unity within the local museum field, thanks to MANY.

Really enjoyed meeting the folks -- and it seems we all have the same obstacles -- but it helps to talk about it.

Our 2020 annual conference The Power of Partnership will be in Albany March 29-31 with exciting tours, workshops, and a special pre-conference Folk Art Forum on March 28. Proposals are flowing in and it is going to be an amazing lineup of sessions. I hope you can join us. We need your support to continue to offer these opportunities in every region in our state. Our annual appeal letter will be coming your way soon. If you attended a program this fall, used our job board to help you hire staff, or accessed resources on our website, you know how MANY is making a difference and helping our museum community succeed. You can also donate now through our website and save a stamp! 

With thanks for your energy and your inspiration,

By Kate Jacus, The Photo Curator, LLC

If you work or volunteer at a museum, library, or historical society, you know that objects should be displayed and stored in archival-quality materials. “Acid-free,” “lignin-free,” and “photo safe” are terms that get used a lot, but what do they really mean when it comes to your photography collection? There is more to a material being archivally safe than its pH measurement and lignin content. Understanding the science of what makes something archival can help you make informed decisions about the materials you use to protect your institutions’ cultural heritage. Photographs are the standard baseline material for measuring archival quality. 

ISO 18902

ISO 18902 is an international standard that covers archival materials. You may have heard of ISO numbers in relation to film speed, or in a manufacturing setting. The International Organization for Standardization develops specifications for products, services, and systems, to ensure quality, safety and efficiency. There are over 22,000 standards ranging from railway engineering to food technology that answer the question: “what’s the best way of doing this?” 

The standard’s full title is ISO 18902:2013 Imaging materials — Processed imaging materials — Albums, framing and storage materials. The standard is overseen by a Technical Committee, TC-42, Photography. Because photography is a sensitive medium, the standard is  a good baseline from which to judge archival products. If a material is safe to use with photos, you can assume it will be safe for other, more stable, objects. The ‘2013’ in the title refers to the date of the last revision; further information on the ISO website shows that the standard was confirmed in 2018 after a five year review. 

The standard covers the entire range of products that you might use for storage, display, or labeling, including papers, plastics, adhesives, and printer ink. Each type of material must meet a standards set with different combinations of tests and requirements. Only materials that meet ALL specifications of this standard can be considered photo-safe, and thus archival. 

It’s worth noting here that the standard’s definition of photo-safe refers only to the chemical reactivity of a material and does not apply to how it might interact physically with a photograph or object.

Image Permanence Institute

We are lucky in Rochester to be the home of the Image Permanence Institute (IPI), an academic research center at Rochester Institute of Technology.  They have long been involved in developing international standards, including part of ISO 18902, the Photographic Activity Test. Among other things, they are an independent laboratory providing testing for ISO 18902. Companies send samples of their products to IPI where they run a series of five tests related to the standard.

This image is from an IPI chart, showing the five tests that make up ISO 18902, what they test for, what part of a photograph is affected, and the damage that can be caused to each layer of the photograph. Uncovering the science behind these tests gives high level overview of what it means for a material to be archival.

The Five Tests

The PAT, or Photographic Activity Test, is actually an ISO standard in and of itself, developed by IPI. It’s a very good measure of archival quality, but not the full measure. IPI tests samples of materials by layering them in a very particular order in little jigs, or casings. These are placed in an incubator for 15 days to simulate aging in high heat and humidity. After this tropical sojourn, scientists test those materials for oxidation and reduction reactions, which cause fading, spots, and silver mirroring, and also for chromophores (the part of a molecule responsible for its color) which cause yellowing. 

All of the materials covered in ISO 18902 must pass the PAT.  

Next is the pH test only performed on paper and adhesives for ISO 18902 Acids, are naturally occurring in wood pulp used in  paper, and are damaging to many kinds of materials. Highly alkaline environments can also cause decay. IPI does a simple pH test on materials, looking for the pH to be in the neutral range of 6 -7  for unbuffered paper and the alkaline 8 - 10 range for buffered paper. 

The bump into alkaline territory for buffered paper is due to the alkaline reserve, or amount of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) embedded in the paper during production. This calcium carbonate neutralizes acids either present in the environment or created through deterioration in storage, acting as a buffer and protecting your objects. The third ISO 18902 test, for alkaline reserve, only applies to paper. IPI soaks a sample in water, then measures  the amount of acid necessary to neutralize the alkaline buffering; looking for an alkaline reserve of at least 2% CaCO₃.

The fourth test, the Kappa test, also only applies to paper. Lignin is the “glue” that holds the wood together, and during the pulping process, it gets removed from the wood fibers. The most common measurement of lignin is the Kappa number, which IPI measures by breaking down the paper sample back into pulp form, soaking the pulp in a chemical solution, and measuring the results. . To be considered lignin-free, paper has to have a Kappa number of less than 5, on a scale of 1 - 100.  

The final test of ISO 18902 is the colorant bleed, and it applies to both paper and labeling materials. IPI tests if dyes or pigments used to either color paper or to write and print on it, have the potential to stain things touching them. The test material is held next to some bond paper and soaked in water to see if anything transfers when it shouldn't.

Get The Numbers

So what can you do with this newfound knowledge? Be an informed consumer for your institution. If a product is labeled “acid-free” or “photo safe” but does not give you any additional specs to back up that claim, you can’t be positive it’s archival quality. Reputable archival suppliers will list detailed specifications about their products that include these test results. 

With the best quality archival products your institution can get, the objects in your care will have the best possible shot at longevity, and visitors decades from now will have you to thank!

Renderings of the new main entrance of The Eastman Museum. 

Image courtesy of The Eastman Museum.

Within the last few months, the Eastman Museum has received two National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants and two Institute for Library and Museum Services (IMLS) grants with a combined total of  $1.3 million dollars. The Museum also received $1 million from the New York State Council on the Arts in 2018. These public funds will help implement facilities improvement projects that will create a new accessible main entrance and welcome center as well as restoration work on the historic mansion and gardens— one of Rochester’s National Historic Landmarks. While restoration for the historic Colonnade began this August, construction for the new main entrance and visitor center will begin in January 2020 and is expected to be completed in July 2020. 

The Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY was founded in 1947.  It is the world’s oldest photography museum and is one of the world’s oldest film archives. A leader in film preservation and photographic conservation, the Eastman houses several million objects in its collection of photographs, film, cinema, photographic and cinematographic technology. 

Funding the Visitor Center

“The visitor center project was initiated by a longtime museum patron with a $1.1 million donation, which was matched by a $1 million grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) in conjunction with the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council,” said Kellie Fraver, Public Relations Manager for the Eastman Museum. ESL Federal Credit Union also purchased the naming rights to the new visitor center— the new ESL Federal Credit Union pavilion. In total, over $5 million has been raised so far for the project with another $1 million to complete the capital campaign. The Museum is offering naming rights to the cafe, shop, and foyer to help raise the remaining funds for project completion. 

Conceptualizing the Visitor Experience

Interior rendering of the new visitor center. Image courtesy of The Eastman Museum.

The current visitor entrance and gallery spaces were built in 1989. For the past twenty-five years the museum staff have discussed  moving that visitor entrance to a more prominent location. This new entrance, new gallery and collection storage building facing University Avenue was originally planned to include a new parking lot that was closer to the entrance. However, due to budget limitations, this parking lot was never built. “The museum’s current main entrance is inconvenient and hard to find for those who arrive by car—the vast majority of our visitors. During inclement weather, getting from one’s car to the main entrance can be unpleasant and potentially hazardous, especially for those with limited mobility,” wrote Bruce Barnes, PhD, Ron and Donna Fielding Director of the Eastman Museum in the Eastman Museum January/February 2019 Bulletin. To improve the visitor experience, new exterior and interior spaces will be reconfigured to be more welcoming, to increase accessible parking, accommodate buses, enlarge and upgrade the cafe, and renovate the Curtis Theatre into a multi-use space. 

The 1989 visitor entrance will move near where the current Dryden Theatre location is today, off of the main parking lot. Visitors will enter a glass and steel structure in front of the west facade of the one-story building, originally George Eastman’s garage and where the current museum cafe and shop are located. “The structure is designed to allow the historic facade of the garage to be visible from both within and outside the pavilion,” said Fraver. “Through the new entrance, visitors will be served by a new admissions desk, gathering spaces, a resigned cafe with additional seating in the historic Palm house, and a more misson-focused shop.”

Designed like a promenade, the new entrance will serve as the starting point for visitors into the Eastman Museum. The entrance to the Curtis Theatre, the museum shop, and the expanded cafe will all be designed around this visitor space. 

First Impressions

The Eastman Museum relied on visitor engagement data to help with decisions on transforming their own visitor engagement. Survey data from a Culture Track research study “of the changing behaviors of cultural audiences  illuminated the length of time it took visitors to experience art at cultural institutions and how that affects their overall experience. The Eastman Museum took a cue from its Kodak history and is transforming an unsightly wall (hiding cooling towers from the HVAC system) to create a “Colorama.” Kodak’s “Colorama”  was a large photographic display located on the east balcony inside New York City’s Grand Central Terminal starting in the 1950s to the 1990s that was used to advertise the Eastman Kodak Company. The “Colorama” at the Eastman Museum will feature advertisements for museum programming and events as well as commissioned public art murals. It will be one of the first things seen by museum visitors as they access the new main entrance. The Museum estimates that it will need to raise $375,000 to not only create this dynamic, first impression display, but to establish an endowment to ensure the continuation of its displays. 

New first impressions continue inside with interpretive panels that will introduce visitors to the museum. These panels will help illustrate the timeline of George Eastman’s life and the history of photography, including “Snapshot Photography” that will allow visitors to see themselves in the history of photography. With all of these new changes, there are also discussions on what these new spaces will mean for their interpretative plan which asks:

• What should the visitor experience first inside the museum? 

• Should they tour the hour first or explore the gallery space? 

• How do we animate the gallery space? 

• Is this where the tour ends? 

These questions and others are being asked as the museum looks to what comes during and after these major capital improvement projects to their facilities. Beyond creating a more welcoming visitor entrance and more dynamic spaces, how the visitor will interact past the admissions desk in its new space, is a critical next step and an opportunity for the Eastman Museum to re-evaluate its interpretative strategy. The Eastman Museum plans to apply for another IMLS grant to create a new entrance into the historic house through the kitchen rather than the dining room. “It’s where George Eastman’s kitchen was [the new entrance to the house] because what we would like to do… the whole photography for George Eastman started in his mother’s kitchen in his boyhood home. So how perfect to have something where you start in the kitchen to tell the story,”  said Eliza Kozlowski, Director of Marketing and Engagement at the Eastman Museum. “You’re in the kitchen and this is where it all began.”

Visitors entering through the conservatory during the temporary construction route of the Colonnade.

New Spaces and Staffing

This project will also transform theatre spaces like the Curtis into multi-function spaces by exposing the original carriage house windows and moving the entrance tohave easy access from the new promenade in the new visitor center. Blackout curtains and a drop-down screen will still allow this space to be used as a theater while also creating a new space for other programming and events.

The museum store is expected to reduce its size to around 400 square feet. Inventory has already been reduced and the museum will focus on selling items unique to the Eastman Museum–branding, photographers, Rochester based items, etc. rather than generic gifts.

The new location of the admissions desk will have the museum store office located behind, creating an opportunity for some shared staffing.  The museum already has four staff members that were originally part of the contract guard service but are now employed by the museum to serve as “guard/hosts” and the museum ideally would like to create more multi-role positions. 

New main entrance and visitor center plan. Image courtesy of The Eastman Museum.

Messaging and Marketing

“At one point we had this tagline that was ‘opening new doors’ that we wanted to have as part of this project but once it became this bigger visitor center we had to rethink that tagline,” said Kozlowski.  “Our challenge with the messaging is not over-promising in that we’re saying transforming ‘our visitor experience’ rather than transforming ‘the visitor experience’ because the rest of the experience is not going to be very different it’s the idea that being more welcoming, being more accessible the whole cafe, store, the new experience there...a new interpretive panel as an introduction to the museum...so were rethinking the map as far as how we position what the visitor will experience first,” said Kozlowski. 

The Eastman Museum has already released the initial announcement with renderings of the visitor center as well as introducing project signage throughout the museum. Additional promotion will be included in the museums’ e-newsletter and social media channels and will grow closer to January 2020 when the project will officially begin. Media announcements will be made as the project progresses until the mid-July ribbon cutting.

Kathleen Connor, Curator, George Eastman Legacy Collection, with museum signage regarding the restoration and preservation work.

Other signage regarding the restoration and preservation work of the historic mansion can be found throughout helping to guide visitors through temporary routes (calling them “construction detours”) but also educating the public about what kind of work is happening and its significance. Signs encourage further information available on the museum website.

“Construction Detour” sign for the new route into the historic mansion.

Restoration Priorities

Originally, the new visitor entrance was going to begin this year, but the museum was happy to delay in favor of critical restoration projects for the historic house. The historic Eastman mansion received two federal grants. The first was a Save America’s Treasures grants of nearly $500,000 for the restoration of the Colonnade of George Eastman’s mansion which began this past summer. This project will continue to transform the visitor experience into the historic house as the Colonnade is the only interior route between the museum’s main entrance and galleries and the historic mansion and Terrace Garden.

Historic Colonnade during construction.

Because of this massive project, the Colonnade was closed, re-routing visitors outside through the Terrace Garden and entering the historic mansion through the conservatory. The Dryden Theatre was also closed as the Colonnade serves as a path of egress for two emergency exits from the theatre. 

Historic Colonnade under restoration.

But this project was not only to help the deteriorating floor structure of the Colonnade but to create a more comfortable visitor experience year-round with a new insulated glass system and a new heating and cooling system. 

It is the largest project in the ongoing restoration. “Restoration has been completed on the Palm House, the Porte-cochere, the conservatory roof and clerestory windows, the North Organ, and the East Porch. The next project will be the restoration of 68 windows in the mansion. The Eastman Museum is currently applying for a grant from the New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for the restoration of the historic garden structures—the pergola in the Terrace Garden, the Grape Arbor in the Rock Garden, and the loggia in the West Garden,” said Kellie Fraver. 

The new main entrance and visitor center will help to transform the visitor experience at the Eastman Museum. These projects will make the Eastman Museum “a more welcoming museum” as Executive Director Barnes remarked. Support from State and Federal funding demonstrate commitment to improving the visitor experience as well as d the economic and social impact that museums like the Eastman contribute to their communities. 

Further Reading / Resources

Director’s Note: Grants Enable Major Projects

https://medium.com/george-eastman-museum/directors-note-grants-enable-major-projects-22921bac0da8 

Restoration & Construction

https://www.eastman.org/restoration-construction

New Visitor Center

https://www.eastman.org/new-visitor-center

IMLS “Save America’s Treasures” Grant Funding

https://www.imls.gov/grants/available/save-americas-treasures

2019 “Access and Identity” annual conference Cassetti Scholarship Recipient

By Meredith Horsford, Executive Director, Dyckman Farmhouse

 

Meredith Horsford, Executive Director of the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum at the Otesaga Resort Hotel during the 2019 annual conference in Cooperstown, NY

I was honored to be named the inaugural recipient of the Cassetti Scholarship for the Museum Association of New York’s Annual Conference. This scholarship provided my small nonprofit organization with the funds necessary for me to attend and present at the April 2019 Museum Association of New York Annual Conference: Access and Identity.

As the Executive Director of the Dyckman Farmhouse, a small historic house museum built in 1784 and the last remaining farmhouse in Manhattan, our small budget and staff size often makes it difficult to set aside the time and financial resources for valuable professional development opportunities such as the MANY Annual Conference. It was a great experience to be able to attend the 2019 conference for many reasons. One of the most important reasons was the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum's ongoing DyckmanDISCOVERED initiative. We are beginning a new phase here at the farmhouse in which we are in the midst of fleshing out the narrative of the people that were enslaved by the Dyckmans. Our first step in this initiative is a year-long installation by local artist, Peter Hoffmeister, whose site specific artwork was inspired by the slave burial ground that was on the Dyckman property. Like many burial grounds of its kind, unfortunately, it was paved over, disrespected, and forgotten.. Today, of a NYC public school and a parking lot covers the site The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum has been working with elected officials to get a commemorative plaque for the site. Hoffmeister's art installation is the first time that the farmhouse has provided the public with information about the enslaved, as we have very little information in our records despite their large contributions to the farmhouse. The next phase of the initiative is currently underway. With the help of a grant from The New York Community Trust, The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance has hired a research assistant to do additional research on the enslaved on the Dyckman property as well as the enslaved in what is now Upper Manhattan, as it was quite different from lower Manhattan. Our next steps will include developing ways that this new research can be infused into everything that we do from public programs, to tours, to the objects in the period rooms.   

The DyckmanDISCOVERED initiative fit quite well with the theme of the 2019 MANY Conference and was a perfect place to make connections with colleagues, discuss these topics, challenges and achievements, and to think outside of the box, especially as it relates to the stories that museums tell and choose not to tell. Some of the sessions that stood out most to me were, "The Practice of Mindful Leadership," and "Accessing the Untold Stories of Slavery in Martin Van Buren's Home." It was wonderful to have the opportunity to see how other institutions are addressing similar themes and in the case of the Van Buren home, thinking about how small amounts of information can make a big impact in your organization's narrative. The conference was also the first time that I was able to present with a group of my colleagues about “Using Institutional Values to Center Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum and other peer institutions. This is a presentation that, as a group, we have re-presented different versions at two subsequent conferences. The sessions that I attended were useful to me not only in my day-to-day life as a museum leader but also in thinking about the institution’s next steps. Also, having grown up in Cooperstown, it was great to have an excuse to go back and visit the area, which is beautiful in the spring. I greatly appreciate the opportunity and look forward to attending the MANY Conference in the future.

Learn more about the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum.

Applications for our 2020 Conference Scholarships close on December 2. To learn more about scholarships available to attend The Power of Partnership 2020 annual conference in Albany, March 29-31 please visit: nysmuseums.org/conference-scholarship