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Alliance Blog
The Alliance blog provides the museum community with a place to share stories and insights, in their own voice, reaching thousands of people across the global museum field.
Out of Sight: How Museums Can Harness the Blind Perspective to Enrich Visitor Experiences
Do blind people enjoy visiting museums? Yes and no. Cheryl Fogle-Hatch and Don Winiecki captured this complicated reality in 2020, when they conducted a survey of blind adults discussing …
Climate Action Heroes: How National Children’s Museum Is Empowering the Next Generation of Climate Innovators
African American students walking out of school to march for equal rights in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Eight-year-old activist Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins climbing out of her wheelchair …
Finding New Audiences in Small Markets
While most major museums are based in urban centers or tourist hubs, those located in more rural areas face a unique challenge to expand their reach. Without a large local population or a …
The Top Ten Alliance Blog Posts of 2023
2023 was a year of deep reflection for museums, both inward and outward. Facing continued disruptions from the long tail of the pandemic—especially to staffing, attendance, and finances—the …
The Top Ten Museum Junction Threads of 2023
If you aren’t already a regular visitor to Museum Junction, AAM’s online discussion forum for museum people, now’s a great time to join! This long-running community, frequented by …
External Pressures on Museum-Going: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
This visual Data Story is based on findings from the 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, a national survey of American museum visitors from AAM and Wilkening Consulting. Every year, the …
Leisure-Time Shifts in a (Mostly) Post-Pandemic World: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
There have been a lot of changes in how people live their lives over the past five years, largely (but not exclusively) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While some of these shifts may benefit …
Museum Visitation—Frequency vs. Incidence Gaps: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
When we plot out certain demographic characteristics, we find that who visits museums frequently (and the gaps we discover) can be very different than who visits museums at all (the …
Non-Traditional Internships Provide New Perspectives, New Educational Tools
Nemours Estate is not your typical historic site. The two-hundred-acre estate, home to Mr. Alfred I. duPont and his family from 1910 until 1970, is set apart from other stately homes of the …
Museum Visitation: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
It's been 3.5 years since the COVID-19 pandemic devastated museum visitation. For some museums, visitation is back to normal. For others, well,…
The Transformative Power of Employee Activism
Museums and cultural institutions are undergoing a seismic shift, being rightly called to reassess norms and practices to address historical inequities and better reflect and serve their …
Why Museum Store Sunday Matters and What’s New for This Year
Enter through the museum store! Much more than a gift shop, the museum store has become a major earned revenue stream for parent institutions as they continue to recover post-pandemic. And …