COVID-19 – Page 2 – American Alliance of Museums

Ten Uplifting Museum Stories of 2020

By Elizabeth Merritt

This year my scanning feeds were clogged with relentlessly depressing news. My heart was eased, however, by the way that museums rose to the challenges posed by 2020. Here are a dozen stories of how museums helped their communities and …
A Pandemic Time Capsule and Tools for 2021

By Elizabeth Merritt

This blog has become an incidental time capsule of 2020, a monthly record of how the museum sector responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, when the first of the posts featured below was published, the US had 1,700 reported cases—that …
Tales from Campus: Oxy Arts

By Elizabeth Merritt

One of the risks posed by the pandemic is that the public health imperative for social distance might discourage activism and engagement just when it is needed most. In this guest post, Frankie Fleming, Manager of Education and Community …
Museums as First Responders: Museum of Homelessness

By Elizabeth Merritt

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed gaping holes in the systems that should shield communities from harm. Patching the frayed social safety net will require government, private, and non-profit sectors to work together, going beyond their …
Digital Tools for Pandemic Times

By Elizabeth Merritt

Almost all US museums closed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. While a few reopened by summer, many decided to remain shuttered for the entire year, and often for these museums the only way to engage with the …
Tales from Campus: Connecting Community in the Time of COVID

By Elizabeth Merritt

What’s it like to be an undergrad this year? The social experience of college is as important as the academic content, but many students are attending class online from their dorm rooms, and most social groups and events are on hold. In …
My Primary School is in a Museum—US Pandemic Edition

By Elizabeth Merritt

Can you imagine being a school-age kid during this pandemic? Whether they are glued to a screen trying to learn via Zoom, attending class masked and distanced, or being home-schooled, this experience will shape our youngest generation for …
Tales from Campus: how a collections-based seminar went virtual

By Elizabeth Merritt

All museums have had their worlds turned upside-down in the past year, but college and university museums and galleries face a specific set of challenges. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, as this academic year began only 27 …
Navigating a Job Search in the COVID-19 Market

By Dana P. Hundley

The museum field, and cultural institutions in general, have undoubtedly been hit hard by COVID-19. As a result, many museum professionals are finding themselves job searching and considering career transitions at a time with seemingly …
Children’s Museology and the COVID-19 Crisis

By Monica Eileen Patterson

While physical museums are facing an uncertain future, virtual museum visitorship is booming. The Louvre’s web traffic has increased tenfold to four hundred thousand visits a day, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art reports an …