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An After-School Program Gives Refugee Children a Creative Boost

By Aimee Hunt

One of the many things that make Charlottesville, Virginia special is that it serves as a destination city for the International Rescue Committee, which helps refugees settle into their new countries. Since 1998, more than three thousand …
More Evidence for the Power of Creative Aging

By Bill Tramposch

One of the most fruitful areas of the creative aging movement is the one that explores the arts and aging. The evidence for the positive effects of arts on wellbeing is mounting rapidly and to such a degree that it has spawned a new …
Attracting Visitors with User-Generated Content

By Amrita Gurney

If I ever find myself with a few hours to spare, there’s no place I’d rather be than a museum. Visiting a new exhibit fills me with exhilaration, perspective, and knowledge. But in North America today, there are a large number of people …
How One Small Museum Approached Accreditation

By Ann H. Sievers

Accreditation helps museums focus their purpose, refine their practices, and build their futures. But some museums, particularly those with small staffs and budgets, might consider it challenging amid their other responsibilities and …
A Reading List on Creative Aging

By Bill Tramposch

I once had the privilege of interviewing Frank Oppenheimer, the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. I asked him why he had created the museum, and he answered: “Both my brother Robert and I were struck with how, in our …
Shaping a New Assessment on Museum Education and Interpretation

By Robert Forloney

On March 21 and 22, 2019, AAM brought together thirteen experts on museum education for a professionally facilitated exploration of trends, needs, and opportunities in the museum education field. The insights from this convening are …
Thinking about the Unthinkable: Disaster preparedness and emergency response plans for small museums

By Donald P. Zuris

Since 1981, the Museum Assessment Program (MAP) has been assisting small and mid-sized museums in their quest to achieve best practices and national standards. The process begins with an application to AAM for one of the assessments, …
Read the Winners of This Year’s Excellence in Exhibition Label Writing Competition

By American Alliance of Museums

Exhibition labels are a primary tool museums use to communicate with visitors, so every word (and punctuation mark!) counts. To underscore this, AAM’s Curators Committee sponsors a yearly competition spotlighting the work of …
What Happened at #AAM2019? Let Our Social Media Journalists Fill You In

By Joseph O'Neill

Each year, AAM invites a group of passionate museum professionals who are active and skilled on social media to attend the Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo as Social Media Journalists. Like any other attendees, they follow their curiosity …
Flies in the Buttermilk: Museums, Diversity, and the Will to Change

By Lonnie G. Bunch Ill

This essay originally appeared in the July/August 2000 issue of Museum News, a publication of the American Alliance of Museums. Lonnie G. Bunch III later became the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American …