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Handy Bionics

By Elizabeth Merritt

#robotics #prosthetics #disability Follow the link in the photo caption to the associated story. You can find more glimpses of the future (and links) on CFM’s Pintere…
Tapping into TransAtlantic Research on Diversity & Inequality

By Elizabeth Merritt

In a couple of weeks I’ll be in London, representing the Alliance at the “Diversity, (In)equality and Differences” workshop organized by the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities. Around twenty researchers and scholars …
Futurist Friday: De-extinction. Conservation’s Fallback Plan?

By Elizabeth Merritt

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” –William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun If some scientists and visionaries have their way, Faulkner’s pronouncement may …
On the hard work of building the future

By Elizabeth Merritt

Currently I’m watching the birth of two movements in our field. #MuseumsRespondtoFerguson and #MuseumWorkersSpeak are both grappling with issues of what museums can do, should do, and should be expected to do in response to issues of …
Toward Lean Collections with Greater Impact

By Elizabeth Merritt

In around 2000, the Accreditation Commission took a long, hard look at their tabling decisions—this is when they pause their review to give a museum time to take corrective action. They were troubled to find that over a quarter of these …
Monday Musing: On Failure

By Elizabeth Merritt

I was a dinner a couple months ago, when people started dissing buzzwords. One that came in for a hit was “failure.” “I hate it when people start touting the importance of failure” one diner declared (I’m paraphrasing here). The …
Futurist Friday: My Mind to Your Mind

By Elizabeth Merritt

While we are not ready for the Vulcan Mind Meld (yet), researchers are already making great leaps in brain-to-computer interfaces. Now scientists are beginning to play with brain-to-brain communications. Recent experiments include: fitting …
Throwback Thursday: the Coming Dementia Epidemic

By Elizabeth Merritt

This past Tuesday, Lisa Eriksen blogged about museum programs for people with dementia and how staff address the thorny challenge shifting focus from impact to engagement, and assessing programs that explicitly do not expect to impart new …
Older Adults and Programming for People with Dementia

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve been planning a workshop for the Alliance’s Accreditation Commission, helping them explore evaluation programs that focus on impact, and how that may translate to our field. Bill Gates’ blithely sets numeric goals for eliminating …
Monday Musing: Up Periscope

By Elizabeth Merritt

The week before last I took a tour of the British Museum’s “Defining Beauty” exhibit, hosted by historian Dan Snow (who has a gorgeously plummy accent. Bonus). I did this while pacing the corridors of AAM, channeling Dan …