This week on the CFM blog, Elizabeth Merritt, VP of strategic foresight and founding director of CFM, shares 2026 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo sessions for attendees who are looking to the future.

The Bizarre New Trend Sweeping U.S. Libraries: Readers Are Searching for Books That Don’t Even Exist
from Iowa Park Leader, 3-22-2026 [Trends]

Patrons are walking into American libraries asking for books that cannot be found, not because they are rare, but because they don’t exist. Fueled by generative AI, a wave of plausible-sounding but fabricated titles is sending staff on time-consuming chases, blurring the line between recommendation and hallucination. Librarians are becoming de facto detectives, piecing together clues across catalogs to separate the real from the unreal. Since late 2022, requests for these phantom books have surged, with a recent spike after AI-made summer reading lists appeared in several outlets, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Some lists named fictitious titles by real authors, creating the perfect storm of credibility and confusion.

Exploring implications: How long before museum visitors/amateur researchers start asking museums for “original documents” that don’t exist? And how might fake AI content about museum collections impact museums’ “superpower of trust?”

It’s Equal Pay Day. Women have lost ground for the second year in a row
from NPR, 3-26-26 [Research]

Equal Pay Day marks how far into the new year women must work to make what men earned in the previous year. This year, it’s March 26, a day later than it was in 2025. That’s because for the second year in a row, the gender pay gap in the U.S. has widened. According to the most recent data from the Census Bureau, women working full-time, year-round, now earn 81 cents for every dollar men earn. That’s down from 83 cents a year ago, and 84 cents the year prior. It’s the first consecutive widening of the wage gap since the 1960s. While no single factor drives the wage gap, occupational segregation accounts for a large part of it. There are far more women than men doing low-wage work in restaurants, hotel housekeeping, and child care. Even within occupations, there are disparities. Studies have found male doctors earn higher wages than female doctors across all specialties.

Go deeper: There is considerable debate over whether or not the predominance of women in certain professions drives lower wages. That said, significant segments of the museum workforce (e.g., archivists, curators, technicians, and educators) are female and women directors are typically are paid less than men in equivalent positions. Raising awareness of gender-based pay disparities can help drive reform of systemin issues that perpetuate wage inequity.

World’s smallest QR code, smaller than bacteria, could store data for centuries
from ScienceDaily, 3-29-26 [Tools for the Future]

Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope—smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record. The storage capacity is also impressive. More than 2 terabytes of data could fit within the area of a single A4 sheet of paper using this approach. Unlike conventional storage systems, these ceramic data carriers can remain intact indefinitely and do not require any energy to maintain the stored information. Magnetic and electronic storage devices often lose data after only a few years, especially without continuous power, cooling, and maintenance. Unlike modern data centers that require significant electricity and cooling, ceramic-based storage can preserve information without any ongoing energy input, helping reduce environmental impact. By engraving data into ultra-stable ceramic materials, the team has opened the door to storing information that could last for centuries or even millennia without needing power or maintenance.

Food for thought: As one author of this paper points out, “”We live in the information age, yet we store our knowledge in media that are astonishingly short-lived.” How might emerging technologies like ceramic nano-QR codes help museums ensure that information is preserved for the long term?

This week on the CFM blog, Kimberly Bender, former executive director of the Heurich House Museum, shares ten tips around succession planning learned from her own leadership transition.

Design insights from studying the Van Gogh Museum
from MIT Sloane School of Management, 3-10-26 [Research]

“Museum fatigue” — physical and cognitive fatigue that causes a sharp drop in visitor attention — has been extensively studied and documented, and yet it has rarely been examined using large-scale behavioral data. Using data from the [Van Gogh] museum’s multimedia guided tours, MIT Sloan assistant professor Ali Aouad, PhD ’17, analyzed visitor pathways to elucidate how physical and digital spaces are associated with differences in engagement. In particular, the research showed that although visitors often deviate from the curated path, museum design choices — including the arrangement of artworks and the spatial layout — can help explain observed patterns in visitor behavior. And, counterintuitively, moderate congestion was associated with higher levels of engagement. Identifying when fatigue begins allows curators to think creatively about ways that strategic and well-planned design might sustain engagement for a longer time.

Detroit’s African American museum says fed, state funds drying up
from The Detroit News, 3-13-26 [Trends]

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is seeking $11 million in city government funding due to an “extremely challenging” financial climate. The cultural institution is one of the largest and oldest African American museums in the world. Changes in federal funding during the Trump administration and the recent halt in state funding have resulted in the loss of millions that the city-owned museum counted on in previous years. Another challenge is that a proposed millage vote, which the museum has sought for years to pursue, is trapped in a partisan legal fight. The Wright and many other cultural institutions have lost funding during [the] Trump administration, which has moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs wherever it can. [Neil Barclay, the museum’s president and CEO] said new federal rules for grants are “making it challenging, if not impossible, for African American museums, and indeed all museums of a color to apply,” he said.

Leaders Face Disruption With Resilience and Resolve, Poll Finds
from The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2-3-26 [Research]

A new survey of more than 350 nonprofit and foundation leaders finds that 97 percent of nonprofit leaders and 87 percent of foundation leaders say their environment is becoming more challenging. 36 percent of nonprofit leaders surveyed said they were somewhat or very concerned that their organizations may not exist or may be diminished in scope over the next five years. Fully 70 percent of nonprofit leaders and 60 percent of foundation leaders say they are concerned about the likelihood of increased burnout, retirement, and voluntary departures of staff members in the next year. Already, 43 percent of nonprofit leaders say they have seen an increase in such staff losses in the past year. Over all, 45 percent of nonprofits said some of their federal funding in 2025 had been canceled or not renewed. Within this group of affected nonprofits, one-quarter said this loss of support had a major impact. Another 70 percent said it had a moderate or mild impact. Only 4 percent dismissed their loss of federal funding as having “no real impact.”

This week on the CFM blog, Steve Light, Vice President for Education and Guest Experience at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, sheds light on their Declaration Book Club and other civics-based programming.

Historic Slavery Photos Get ‘Final Resting Place’ After Long Fight With Harvard
from The New York Times, 3-11-26 [Trends]

What are believed to be the earliest known photographs of enslaved Americans are images of a father, Renty, and his daughter Delia that were commissioned in 1850 and used to advance a professor’s racist theories. More than 175 years later, and after a long court fight over possession of the photos, [the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina] on Wednesday [March 11, 2026] honored the arrival of the images in the state, where the portraits were shot and the subjects were originally enslaved. The portraits were originally commissioned by Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-born zoologist and Harvard professor, who believed that Black and white people had different genetic origins, and that Black people were racially inferior. The images were long overlooked in a Harvard museum until 1976, when their discovery was hailed because of their age.

Go deeper: Use the free CFM report The Next Horizon of Museum Practice: Voluntary Repatriation, Restitution, and Reparations to place this action in the context of evolving museum standards.

This Museum Is Using Pokémon to Teach Visitors About Fossils. Fans Are Waiting for Hours to Snag Tickets
from Smithsonian Magazine, 3-11-26 [Museum Innovations, Trends]

When tickets to the “Pokémon Fossil Museum” went on sale on March 3, thousands of fans logged on simultaneously and overwhelmed the Field Museum’s website, reports NBC Chicago’s Izzy Stroobandt. At one point, more than 23,000 people were waiting in the virtual line for tickets. Fans must purchase a separate timed-entry ticket to the exhibition, in addition to a general admission ticket for the museum. Created by the Field Museum, Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science, and the Pokémon Company International, the experience compares creatures from the popular Pokémon video games, animated series and trading cards with the real-world fossils they’re based on. Museumgoers will see “fossil Pokémon,” like Tyrantrum and Archeops, next to real fossils and casts of dinosaurs and other creatures. “Professors” from Pokémon and “Excavator Pikachu” will lead visitors through the exhibition. Illustrations of Field Museum scientists, including chief fossil preparator Akiko Shinya, will also act as guides.

Food for thought: Museums large and small have been grappling with Pokémon Go for a decade now, discouraging users from playing inside exhibitions; coopting it for scavenger hunts, for fundraising events, or using it as a tool to further their missions. What emerging games and social media phenomena might play a similar role in the coming decade?

AI chatbots can sway your opinions without trying
from Futurity, 3-10-26 [Research]

Prior research has shown that content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) that has been prompted to be persuasive can indeed shift people’s opinions. But this study provides evidence that the same is also true of content that is not intended to change minds, such as the summaries that popular chatbots produce in response to simple queries about historical events. This unintended power to persuade is caused by latent biases introduced during the training of the large language models (LLMs) that drive chatbots’ core capabilities, the researchers say. Those latent biases — which can carry over from ideological leanings in the data used to train LLMs — lend subtle nuances to the framing of the narratives the chatbots generate.  [The researchers conclude] using chatbots to learn about history has unanticipated and anticipated influences on people’s opinions.

Museums might: Monitor research on how public understanding of history is changing, in part due to increased use of AI chatbots, to understand the preconceptions visitors bring to the museum’s exhibitions and web content.

This week on the CFM blog, Karissa Raskin, CEO of Listen First Project, shares an opportunity for museums to partner with Listen First on the Better Together Film Festival to bridge partisan divides and think critically about the future we want to create.

Confidential database reveals which items NPS thinks may ‘disparage’ America
from The Washington Post, 2-2-26 [Trends]

[Displays at the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi, Arches National Park in Utah, and Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia] are among several hundred that managers have flagged at hundreds of national park locations since last summer in response to administration orders to scrub sites of “partisan ideology,” descriptions that “disparage” Americans, or materials that stray from a focus on the nation’s “beauty, abundance, or grandeur.” The submissions were compiled in an internal government database and reviewed by The Washington Post, which confirmed its authenticity with current federal employees. The database does not make clear which of the plaques, maps, films and books ultimately will be removed or recast by the Interior Department, though some have already been axed. But the submissions provide a sweeping portrait of the scope of President Donald Trump’s bid to reconsider how national park sites address the historic legacy of racism and sexism, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, and pollution — or whether to acknowledge them at all. 

Resource for resistance: Revisit the AAM statement on Growing Threats of Censorship Against U.S. Museums.

Understanding the History Workforce
from American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), March 2026 [Research]

In the spring of 2025, AASLH conducted the National Survey of History Practitioners. The survey gathered information from nearly 3,700 practitioners working in history museums, historic sites, historical societies, and related organizations in the United States. [Among the key findings:] Women comprise most of the workforce, yet gender equity remains an issue; the workforce lacks racial and ethnic diversity; the workforce is highly educated but underpaid; LGBTQ+ practitioners face systematic challenges; practitioners overwhelmingly believe the work they do is meaningful. In our current moment, however, most also express feeling worried and frustrated. Taken together, [the] findings reveal that the history workforce is passionate, skilled, and deeply invested in public service, but current conditions may threaten the field’s long-term sustainability. Low compensation, inequitable advancement, uneven accountability, and hostile workplace environments collectively contribute to dissatisfaction, burnout, and potential attrition. 

An AI Company Apparently Inspired by ‘the Sims’ Wants to Revolutionize Public Opinion Research
from Gizmodo, 3-8-26 [Tools for the Future]

 A new company is asking the bold question, hey, what if we just replaced [public opinion polling] with AI? It’s called Simile, and it was just awarded $100 million in venture capital from Index Ventures. According to its website, Simile claims to be “developing a foundation model that predicts human behavior in any situation, at any scale.”  The company’s co-founder and CEO, Joon Park, explains how this works: AI agents are trained on chat-style interviews with actual people, at which point the agents become “digital twins” or “digital clones” of their human counterparts. Actual data from people’s behaviors and consumer habits are added to make sure the clones are accurate. Then, market insights can then be derived—ostensibly at least—by having market researchers talk to or poll those “clones.” Simile customers are allowed to, as the [Wall Street] Journal puts it, “ask infinite questions of their AI people.”

Explore the implications: Spend a few minutes thinking about the implications of this signal of change. If “virtual people” become proxies for public opinion polling, customer feedback, even voting, would that be good, bad, or simply unwise? What kind of future might be created by mass adoption of this approach?

The Center for the Future of Museums Blog shares musings on the future of museums and society, where you’ll read posts authored by CFM director Elizabeth Merritt and guest author posts. If you have a story to share, email us at futureofmuseums [at] aam-us [dot] org.

Explore more resources from the Center for the Future of Museums in the AAM Resource Library.

The new annual TrendsWatch report has been released as the January/February 2026 issue of Museum magazine for AAM members and subscribers. Get a free preview here. It will be available as a free PDF report later this spring.

Dispatches shares summaries of recent news stories illuminating trends and events shaping society, technology, economics, the environment, and policy today. Fuel your museum’s strategic foresight by thinking about the implications of these “signals,” and the kinds of future they might create.

The most frequent categories that you’ll see articles filed under include: Tools for the Future, Museum Innovations, Projects, Trends, and Research.

The Dispatches roundup published as a webpage began in January 2026 and will contain the most recent 5 weeks of news roundups.

In February, we made available an archive of contents older than 5 weeks (from January 2026 onward).

From October 2009 through December 2025, Dispatches was sent as a weekly newsletter from our Center for the Future of Museums. In that time, it grew to be an invaluable resource for over 40,000 subscribers!

In recent years, AAM has also sent other in-depth weekly newsletters: Aviso with news and opportunities to AAM members, and Field Notes, a newsletter we began several years ago with stories and insights for museum people which was free to subscribe.

Readers told us they wanted to receive fewer weekly newsletters from AAM. By consolidating content and moving Dispatches stories to the web, we can ensure that just one weekly newsletter hits your inbox.

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