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The Fixer Upper Effect: Waco museums enjoy the ride (and try to learn the deeper meaning)

By Charlie Walter

It’s Monday, November 5, at 1:01 pm. I’m headed to a meeting in downtown Waco, Texas. As I drive by The Silos, a retail space developed by Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines, I am amazed to see the crowds standing in line to get in. …
Reflections on the Historic House Summit from Scholarship Attendee Sarah Ortiz-Monasterio

By Sarah Ortiz-Monasterio

On February 3-5, 2019, AAM’s Historic Houses and Sites and Environment and Climate networks hosted a rare convening of experts at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, Florida, for “Sustainability: Governance, Relevance, and the …
Ageism is All Around Us

By Bill Tramposch

Greetings! This is my second blog as Aroha Fellow for Museums and Creative Aging, and I begin by reiterating my invitation to meet colleagues who share an interest in creative aging during the 2019 AAM Annual Meeting in New Orleans this …
Why the Tenement Museum Launched a Podcast

By Kevin Jennings

Earlier this year, I gave the keynote speech at the annual conference of the Council of American Jewish Museums. The theme of the conference (as well as the prompt I received for my remarks) was “The Creativity Challenge.” In my speech, I …
Designing for a Divided People: Planning the permanent exhibition for the Kurdistan Museum, Erbil

By Christine Echtner

“The next generation do not know about it. I talk to them, but it’s not like a film. If I tell them it may not stick, this way is more permanent.” Najiba Ahmad Hakeem, Kanitu Village, Kurdistan, Iraq about the Kurdistan Memory Programme …
Magical Machinery? What AI can do for museums

By Kristen Summers

When people hear I work with artificial intelligence, they often imagine that I create software that does magical things. Their minds go to humanistic androids or programs that predict distant future events. But the reality of AI is much …
Collaborating with Emergency Responders to Protect Cultural Heritage

By Donia Conn

Protecting cultural heritage collections is crucial to preserving our nation’s history, sustaining the economy, and fostering resilience so that communities can respond to and recover from disasters of all shapes and sizes. Most cultural …
A Fellowship Helps One Emerging Professional Find Her Footing

By Asmaa Walton

Art has been a part of my life since very early on. When I was around four, my mother began working at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and I spent many hours after school and on weekends there with her hanging out in her office. Even at …
N’Sync: Aligning Expectations During an Exhibition Design Project

By David Whitemyer, AIA

According to Google, pop star Justin Bieber is attributed with the quote, “Two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.” It seems more like something Heraclitus or another philosopher might’ve said. Stephen Covey wrote in …
Making Professional Development Work for Small Museums

By Aimee E. Newell

“We had been talking about going to different conferences for years, usually in a joking, musing way, so it is awesome to be able to do it.” When I asked my colleague Mark Riccetti, our organization’s director of operations and programs, …