Museum Conservation Institute
Such interesting research is being done at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, housed in our storage facility in Suitland, MD. Most recently, Smithsonian staff were invited to hear about new research on the acceptable ranges of relative humidity and temperature in museums. Dr. Marion Mecklenburg, a senior research scientist at the Institute presented surprising results (at least for […]
Designers at the White House
Lest we forget our friends in New York, the Cooper-Hewitt was in town recently, celebrating their 2007 National Design Award winners and finalists at the White House with the First Lady. What an image of American accomplishment! Congratulations to all.
Festivals everywhere!
I love hearing about all the festivals taking place at Affiliates – please send pictures! Here’s some highlights I’ve been following recently: Historic Bethlehem Partnership’s 22nd Annual Blueberry Festival took place last weekend… yum! (Read the local review.) This year’s Festival included colonial craft and Moravian cooking demonstrations, and new this year, an antique auto show, and lots more […]
The Search for a New Secretary
Yesterday, Smithsonian staff were invited to a town hall meeting to share our views on the ideal qualities of the next Smithsonian Secretary. The chairman of the search committee, Regent Alan Spoon, ran the meeting with Regent Roger Sant, and members of the executive search firm hired for the task. The discussion was lively, as one […]
Mother Earth Celebration
I often find myself so proud to work at the Smithsonian. That was especially true yesterday, when I joined the crowds at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Mother Earth celebration to see Al Gore kick off the Live Earth concert series in North America. As I listened to Mohawk and Cheyenne elders describing Native philosophies […]
Summer at SI
On the education front, several recent gatherings have illuminated interesting research being done in the fields of online learning and museums’ fostering of critical thinking skills. Check it out – Goode lecture on Fostering Critical Thinking in Museums; Guggenheim’s research on literacy through the arts; and EduWeb’s Learning Styles & Online Interactives. Who doesn’t LOVE the Smithsonian Folklife […]
Affiliations National Conference 2007 and Affiliate Feedback
The Smithsonian Affiliations Conference commenced on June 5 last week after three days of meetings, tours and receptions in Washington, DC. When it was all said and done, there were 91 staff members representing 61 Affiliates attended the conference. Registrants came from 29 states, Panama, and Puerto Rico. Altogether, 40% of our 153 Affiliates were represented by at […]
Spring 2007
Can you believe it’s May already?! Here’s a sampling of some fun Smithsonian activity from this spring. Who Knew? Historian Heather Ewing just published The Lost World of James Smithson, which fills in a lot of the details of his life. The book reveals “not the dour recluse historians had once thought Smithson to be but an […]
Webby Awards
Kudos to our Smithsonian colleagues who are nominated for a webby award, hailed as “the Oscars of the Internet.” Please go online and vote for them at peoplesvoice.webbyawards.com!!! Nominees: Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies SmithsonianEducation.org is the Institution’s central education website. – Nominated for Best Cultural Institution Website (Society category) – Selected as […]
Conference ideas
Affiliations staff have the privilege of attending regional museum conferences throughout the year, which help to keep us in touch with potential issues facing affiliates. This year, affiliations staff have attended at least six regional conferences across the nation. As expected, the conferences offered tons of ideas and stimulated the energy to try them! We’ll be sharing those […]
Smithsonian Teachers’ Night
Thanks to our local affiliates who made the Affiliations table at Smithsonian Teachers’ Night such a smashing success!! Over 1600 teachers attended Friday night’s event (October 20), and Affiliations staff could hardly keep up with their zeal for materials! We had a nice sampling of American history resources – a lesson plan website on the French […]
Do you have an experience design strategy?
In conjunction with its renovation, the American History Museum has sponsored a staff development series, bringing leading consultants, authors and thinkers to SI to challenge our paradigms about museum-going and our attitudes toward an experience design strategy. A few months ago, we heard from David Norton of Stone Mantel (gostonemantel.com), presenting research from the influential book, Experience Economy: […]
Tourism and Dining – end of the summer pleasures at Cooper-Hewitt
I had the pleasure of experiencing two lovely exhibitions at Cooper-Hewitt this weekend. They are closing soon, so if you find yourself in NYC before the end of October 2006, treat yourself and do not miss them! (cooperhewitt.org) It might surprise you to know that Cooper-Hewitt has the largest collection of works by Frederic […]
Why do we collect this stuff? Does anybody ever look at it?
…the intriguing title to the final lecture in an excellent series by Undersecretary for Science, David Evans. The entire series is available online at https://www2.si.edu/research/spotlight/lectures_2006.html. The question that formed his title is a good one, considering that the largest portion of SI’s collection, some 126.5 million objects, reside in the Natural History Museum. And did you […]
Dynamo!
Check out Heritage Harbor’s new website – heritageharbor.org – and the great coverage they got in kicking off the redevelopment of the appropriately-named Dynamo House, a former power plant that will become the Museum’s home in a few years. They’ve also started an education blog at heritageharboreducation.blogspot.com. Congratulations Heritage Harbor!
How do you define educational success?
On Tuesday, several Smithsonian educators, and myself, attended a session of the Museum Education Roundtable. (mer-online.org/) The discussion focused on defining educational success in museums, and how differing educational approaches not only help to determine results, but differing definitions of success as well. The speaker was Margaret Lindauer, faculty member of Virginia Commonwealth University, and an experienced […]
