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.

Explore all Publications from the Alliance.

Explore the AAM Resource Library by topic, and further filter by subtopic or resource types to find what matters most to you!

Table Setting: The work before the work

By Levon Williams

Often when I talk with folks about DEAI work there is a sense of urgency. They’ll say, “We’ve gotta make this happen now because so and so is really a problem,” or “We need our community engagement initiative started yesterday, so let’s …
2019 Award Winner for Excellence in Resources: Sea Curious Video Series

By Miranda Kerr

Museums are a great source of information and resources for their audiences. This year’s winner of EdCom’s Excellence in Resources award, the Shedd Aquarium’s aquatic animal video series Sea Curious, proves that. Judges were particularly …
Science Gone Viral: An interactive comic engrosses readers in educational material

By Geralyn Abinader

What’s more fun than reading comics? And what if a comic could not only model science inquiry processes, but also offer readers the opportunity to jump in and solve a mystery along with the protagonists of the story? Action, adventure, and …
How Are Older People Different?

By Bill Tramposch

It’s always risky to bundle a demographic into one description, but very credible research has revealed a great deal about the over-fifty demographic in the United States: who they are, in general, and what they seek in their lives. As …
For the Love of Front-End Research: How to make new ideas audience-centered using visitor studies

By Elizabeth Bolander

The “Eureka!” moment when you come up with a fabulous idea to implement at your museum is a great one, but it is also sometimes accompanied by trepidation: What if visitors don’t respond to the idea? How can I get my colleagues on board? …
The Stages of Aging

By Gretchen Jennings

Senior…Elder…Older American…Aging Boomer…Octogenarian…Centenarian Have you ever thought about how many decades are contained in these references we make to old age? There are almost fifty years between becoming eligible for an AARP card …
Belonging: Co-creating welcoming and equitable museums

By Sandra Bonnici

“Can you describe a time you felt unwelcome or like you didn’t belong in a museum?” This question was posed during a recent conference call for the Facing Change Senior Diversity Fellows. As I listened to my distinguished colleagues …
It Takes a Village: How community partnerships made for a winning summer camp formula

By Jeff Ludwig & Zachary Finn

For museums with the resources and opportunities to do so, offering a summer camp is a great way to open up the doors to students whose guardians might need the structured daytime hours a camp provides, and to offer students an interactive …
Reinventing Museum Careers

By Martha Morris

Museum workers tend to have a high sense of ethics, strong workplace values, and genuine pride in their organizations, relative to many other professions. But in recent times, the field has experienced a variety of challenges with employee …
Taking Account

By Bill Tramposch

It’s natural that people tend to “take account” of their lives as they get older. They become interested in reviewing where they and their ancestors have been, and pay increased attention to matters of legacy, especially pertaining to …