2015 – Page 5 – American Alliance of Museums

Shaping the Future of Learning

By Elizabeth Merritt

Back in 2007, when I started writing CFM’s business plan, I looked for other futures-oriented organizations to adopt as models for our work. One of the first I came across is KnowledgeWorks, a nonprofit dedicated to exploring and helping …
A New Museum in NYC: Climate Change Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

While I spend most of my time scanning for change taking place in society writ large, rather than trends in museum practice per se, I do keep an eye open for new museums. Why and how do museums arise (especially in these financially …
Exhibition Label Writing & Audience Engagement

By American Alliance of Museums

Exhibition labels can be an important means to deeper audience engagement. This program provides several approaches for including audience voices and telling intriguing stories that can help audiences make connections as part of their …
Trending Now: Museum Schools Part II

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week we followed up with LaneyTillner to learn more about her work with the John Early Museum Magnet Middle Prep–a museum school where she volunteers as a consultant. Laney is a graduate student in Public History (with …
Trending Now: “Museum Schools”

By Elizabeth Merritt

If you attended the CFM session on the future of education at the annual meeting in Atlanta last year, you may remember the lines that stretched up the aisle as folks waited to talk to Katherine Kelbaugh, founder of the Museum School in …
Futurist Friday: The Sound of Color

By Elizabeth Merritt

Meet Neil Harbisson. He is one of the 1 in 30,000 or so people born each year with a form of complete colorblindness. You might think of Neil as having a disability–one that impairs, for example, his ability to experience art.But …
Revisiting the Future of Museums in the New Gilded Age

By Elizabeth Merritt

I recently reread a 2011 post by my former colleague Erik Ledbetter on the effect the “New Gilded Age” may have on museums. He wrote “The decline of the middle class and the reemergence of a true American plutocracy will …
The American Alliance of Museums Small Museums Accreditation Academy Application Period Now Open

By American Alliance of Museums

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 1, 2015 Academy serves as launch pad toward Accreditation WASHINGTON, DC—The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announces the opening of the Small Museums Accreditation Academyapplication period today. The …
Why are we locking our data away from the public?

By Elizabeth Merritt

When I was researching TrendWatch2015 I sent out a call for examples of how museums struggle with the trend towards “openness” when it threatens traditional ways we have shared (or not shared) our data. Chris Norris, in the Division of …
Visitor Voices

By Sheri Levinsky-Raskin

This article originally appeared in the September/October 2015 issue of Museum magazine. A story of accessibility and inclusion The “Visitor Voices” session at the 2015 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo in Atlanta featured stories and …