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?

This week on the CFM blog, Marjorie Schwarzer shares four books on extraordinary risks museum workers, artists, and curators have taken to preserve their institutions’ integrity and protect cultural heritage.

Tracking Trust in Museums
from Wilkening Consulting, 2-19-26 [Research, Trends]

This Data Story shares fresh insights from the 2026 Broader Population Sampling of the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. In 2026, there was a tie for the most trusted sources of information: friends/families and public libraries, with museums tying within the margin of error. Researchers and scientists are a little lower, but just by a bit. There is another piece of good news: trust in museums is not political! Regardless of political values of respondents, museums come in strong with the other trust “superpowers.” Conservatives and moderates showed strong trust, and liberal trust was even stronger. Additionally, across the political spectrum, the trend is towards greater trust, not less. What emerges most clearly from this data is not a collapse of trust, but a shift. People are becoming more selective about where they place their confidence, and many continue to see museums and public libraries as credible and reliable, whether or not they are actively visiting.

Exploring implications: Lead researcher Susie Wilkening notes this data reveals an opportunity to increase the relevance and effectiveness of museums, as long as they uphold rigorous standards of transparency and truth telling.

‘Non-visitors’ prepared to pay £10+ a year to keep national museum open
from Museums + Heritage Advisor, 2-28-26 [Research]

Research commissioned by DCMS [the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport] has found that people who had not visited the Natural History Museum in London in the past three years were still willing to pay an average of £11.95 [~$16] as an indefinite annual donation to preserve the museum. The results are part of research into the application of ‘non-use value’ in the context of UK culture and heritage. “Non use value” is the value individuals attribute to culture and heritage even if they do not directly consume it themselves. The report found that 781 participants who had not visited the NHM in the past three years would be willing to pay an average indefinite annual donation of £11.95. The museum said the predominant reason respondents were willing to pay is to ensure the museum was preserved for current and future generations. The most common reason given by those who were not willing to pay was due to not being able to afford it.

Editor’s note: While this research looks at UK audiences, it sheds light on the potential for US museums to tap into a large network of small donors who believe in their mission and impact.

Two Philadelphia museums cancel popular summer camps
from Axios Philadelphia, 2-25-26 [Trends]

[Drexel University’s] The Academy of Natural Sciences and [The University of Pennsylvania’s] Penn Museum have unexpectedly nixed their longtime summer camp programs. The programs were a one-of-a-kind Philly experience for a generation of kids — offering fun, reliable spaces to play and learn among world-class museum collections while school was out. Parents scrambling to find camps and programs for their children during the upcoming summer months now have two fewer options. The parent universities of both museums have faced financial challenges over the past year. In October 2025, the Drexel museum eliminated weekday hours due to low attendance and loss of federal funding. It’s now only open on weekends. The University of Pennsylvania put in place its hiring freeze along with other financial cutbacks early last year amid uncertainty over federal funding cuts from the Trump administration.

Editor’s note: This story from Philadelphia illustrates how administrative actions impacting higher education are trickling down to college and university museums and the communities they serve. AAM’s 2025 National Snapshot of U.S. Museums found that 28 percent of museums that have suffered the cancellation of government grants or contracts, or the failure to be reimbursed for existing expenditures from government grants or contracts were forced to cancel or reduce programming for the public, and 18 percent cancelled or reduced programs for student

This week on the CFM blog, Cory Garfin and Devon VanHouten-Maldonado share how they created an AI chat bot to help Made By Us with their goal of signing up over 250 Wish Wall hosts.

6 facts about national pride in the U.S.
from Pew Research Center, 2-17-26 [Research]

In a 2025 survey, we asked people in 25 nations to say – in their own words – what makes them proud of their country. In several ways, Americans’ answers stand out from those of people in other countries. Freedom is the top source of pride in the U.S. 22% name this as a reason they are proud of their country. When asked what makes them proud of their country, one-in-five Americans offer something negative or critical instead. Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party are four times as likely as Republicans and those who lean Republican to say something negative (32% vs. 8%). Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to say they are proud of freedom (32% vs. 15%). For Democrats, diversity and multiculturalism rank among the top sources of pride, but the same is not true for Republicans. Few Americans (3%) mention U.S. history as something that makes them proud of their country.

A Biologist Explains The ‘Frozen Zoo’ — The 50-Year Project That Could Rewrite Extinction
from Forbes, 2-18-26 [Museum Innovations]

Scientists at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Frozen Zoo® have spent the last fifty years banking genetic material for a future conservation crisis that hasn’t even fully arrived yet. The idea sounds like something out of a movie: thousands of samples of living cells, drawn from endangered animals and stored in liquid nitrogen, waiting for a future scientific breakthrough. The Frozen Zoo preserves living cells (typically fibroblasts grown from skin biopsies) along with gametes when available. As a 2025 study from Nature notes, modern conservationists are now facing a problem known as “genetic bottlenecking.” In simple terms, this refers to the loss of genetic diversity that occurs when populations shrink dramatically. Cryobanked cells that were collected before these severe bottlenecks occurred contain alleles that no longer exist in living populations. In theory, this means that reintroducing that diversity could improve long-term viability.

How a Groundbreaking Indigenous Treaty on Whales’ Rights Could Change National Laws
from Inside Climate News, 2-22-26 [Projections]

In one of his final acts before his death in 2024, Māori King Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero helped galvanize Pacific Indigenous leaders to sign a landmark declaration recognizing whales’ rights. New Zealand legislators this month introduced a bill grounded in the declaration, affirming whales’ rights to migrate, maintain natural behaviors and culture, and live in a healthy environment with damaged habitats restored. The bill, introduced by a member of Parliament from the Green Party, Teanau Tuiono, ​​would recognize whales as legal persons, a status already held by corporations and other nonhuman entities. The legislation would require the government to consider whales’ rights when regulating activities that affect them and their habitats, including shipping, fishing, deep-sea mining and coastal development. Such proposals are part of the broader rights-of-nature movement challenging the conventional legal view of nature as a collection of “things” to be owned and exploited, much like microwaves or cars. Unlike traditional regulations that try to cap the harm humans can cause, a rights-of-nature approach typically creates an affirmative duty to protect the natural world’s biological integrity, treating it as kin, not a commodity—a concept drawn from many Indigenous cultures.

Editor’s note: As museums increasingly incorporate non-Western beliefs and attitudes towards the world into their work, these changes can in turn influence the public and legislators.

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.

Join Museum Junction’s Center for the Future of Museums Community, where you can join in the conversation about Dispatches and other future of museums topics!

It’s free to join. If you already have a membership or an AAM profile, you can use that to log in to Museum Junction without creating a new profile.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Log in here with your existing AAM profile.
   • If you have forgotten your password or need assistance with your login information, contact us at membership@aam-us.org.
   • If you don’t have an AAM profile, create a profile and return here to log in to Museum Junction.
2. Head to the CFM community! If you haven’t already joined it before, click the Join button.

By joining the community, you can also choose to receive automatic email digests with updates, such as posts from CFM director Elizabeth Merritt with new Dispatches contents. See the next question on how to edit your Museum Junction digest settings.

If you haven’t already, join the Center for the Future of Museums Community on AAM’s free online forum, Museum Junction! See previous question.

To check that you are receiving automatic email digests from the CFM community, or edit your settings:

Visit your Community Notifications (also found under “My Profile” > under “My Account Tab” > “Community Notifications”). Here you can choose to designate an “override” email address if you want your digest emails to another inbox other than your default email. The Communities you have joined are listed there, under Notification Settings.

For each Community, you have the following email digest delivery options:

• Real Time: sends an e-mail every time a new message is posted
• Daily Digest: sends one e-mail to you each day, consolidating all of the posts from the previous day
• No E-mail: allows you to be part of the group without having e-mails sent to you. You can still post and read others’ messages by logging in to Museum Junction.

You cat edit your general Museum Junction opt-in/out email preferences here.