It Is Time to Include AANHPIs In Museum Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Efforts
Over the past year, we have all witnessed the increasing acts of hate and violence against Asian Americans, particularly against women and the elderly. Some have tried to cast these incidents as a new trend. Yet, for those of us who …
With Rapid Response Collecting, Who Are We Responding To?
After the start of protests over the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent looting of businesses, hundreds of plywood boards went up in Greensboro, North Carolina’s downtown. But these boards, which could have been an angry reminder …
Building True, Lasting Collaborations with Source Communities
It’s well-documented by this point: museums are changing. No longer solely repositories of information and keepers of culturally important artifacts, museums today are taking on new roles and shaping revised definitions of …
Curatorial Dreaming in the Age of COVID-19
The Museums and Equity in Times of Crisis series explores how museums can center diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in the decisions and plans they make for weathering the COVID-19 pandemic. In this edition, professors and …
How the Anchorage Museum is Telling the Story of Climate Change
As the world faces the unprecedented in climate crisis and pandemics, museums are more important than ever for facilitating essential human connection and meaning-making. As a result of these crises, human lifeways and ecosystems will be …
What Can Data Teach Us About Museum Collections?
Author’s Note: When I initially wrote this blog post several months ago, it was to describe and celebrate an initiative that I spearheaded at the National Gallery of Art that made new use of museum collection data. The point of the …
A Small Museum’s Rapid Response Collecting Project for COVID-19
For historians, there is history in the making at any given moment. The life events, triumphs, and tragedies we experience and record help us define our ever-changing world for generations to come. So, when the coronavirus began affecting …
Quantifying a Commitment to Representation
I realized last summer that after twenty years in the museum field, I felt deeply frustrated. When I enrolled in my first museum studies classes in the late 1990s, there were audible and inspiring calls to increase diversity in museums. …
Why We’re Covering the Opioid Crisis at the Indiana State Museum
As museums look to the future, it is paramount that we stay relevant to our visitors and continue to meet their needs. Instead of only serving as stewards of the past, museums can put history in context and look to the future and tackle …
Silent No More: The new Lucy Burns Museum speaks to the centennial of suffrage
Suffragists are recorded as the first in US history to use silence as protest, calling themselves “Silent Sentinels.” US suffragists (rather than British suffragettes) were also the first to picket the White House. They stood in front of …
