kudos affiliates! for may 2013

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Spring has sprung, and 2013 continues to be a successful one for our Affiliates!

Funding

The Ohio Historical Society (Columbus, Ohio) has received $155,000 from the Ohio General Assembly for repairs on the sternwheeler W.P. Snyder.  The Society also received two awards from The National Endowment for the neh_at_logoHumanities: one for $248,600 to continue the digitization of Ohio’s microfilmed newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program and one for $359,994 to support a project to increase and share knowledge about Midwestern Native American tribes with community college educators.  

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan)  received  a $1.9 million gift to create the first endowed curatorship. The Berryman MSU Museum Curator of History Endowment established by Julie Avery, Stephen Stier and Val Berryman will create a new curator position for the museum’s historical collections. 

Hugh Moore Park, home of the National Canal Museum,  (Easton, Pennsylvania) will receive $475,000 in upgrades, including a canal-themed playground, an outdoor classroom and signs detailing the park’s historical elements. $175,000 will be from a state grant for the project and the rest of the funds will come from the Hugh Moore Trust. 

Awards/Recognition

greenglobes-165The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas) recently achieved a four Green Globes(R) rating from the Green Building Initiative for its sustainability practices. The museum’s achievement is a rare feat — only 12 out of 759 Green Globes certified buildings in the US have achieved four Globes.

Executive Transitions

Smithsonian Affiliations would like to welcome the following new directors to the Affiliate network:
– Patrick D. Lyons, Ph.D. will be the new director of Arizona State Museum (Tucson, Arizona)
– Ramiro A. Ortiz and Stuart A. Chase who have been named to lead HistoryMiami (Miami, Florida)
– Kay Peninger recently started as executive director of the Charlotte Museum of History (Charlotte, North Carolina)

Welcome Abbe Museum! First Museum in Maine to be in Association with the Smithsonian

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PrintSmithsonian Affiliations is pleased to announce a new affiliate relationship with the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine. The Abbe Museum is Maine’s first Smithsonian Affiliate, joining 177 Affiliates in 41 states, Puerto Rico and Panama, currently in association with the Smithsonian.

“Becoming a Smithsonian Affiliate will support exciting collaborations between our organizations, while dramatically expanding the Abbe Museum’s visibility in the market place and in Maine’s cultural community,” said Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, Abbe CEO. “Collaborative projects are key to the Abbe’s strategic direction. The Smithsonian is an incredible institution with tremendous scope in reach and resources. We are thrilled to share those resources with our community and members.”

The partnership will provide the Abbe Museum access to the Smithsonian’s many resources, including its 137 million-object collections, scholarships and educational opportunities for staff, traveling exhibits and membership benefits.

“The Abbe Museum is well-recognized for its outstanding collections, first-class exhibits, professional staff and commitment to education,” said Harold A. Closter, director of Smithsonian Affiliations. “With a mission that so thoroughly matches the work of the Smithsonian, we are honored to welcome the Abbe Museum into the family of Smithsonian Affiliates and look forward to working with this impressive organization to help preserve the rich heritage of Maine and share the inspiring stories of its people.”

Collaboration with the Smithsonian is something in which the Abbe Museum already has experience. When Abbe’s downtown location opened, the museum borrowed three collection items for the exhibit “Four Molly’s: Women of the Dawn,” guest curated by Bunny McBride.

On May 23, the exhibition “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas” will go on display in the Abbe where it will remain through Aug. 4. “IndiVisible” was developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

The Abbe has long enjoyed a relationship with the National Museum of the American Indian, particularly working together in the development of educational programming.

A current Abbe Board Member, member of the Passamaquoddy tribe and renowned Native artist, David Moses Bridges, has worked extensively with the Smithsonian as a researcher, consultant and educator.

“I was very excited to learn of our relationship with the Smithsonian,” said Bridges. “I have always been impressed by the Smithsonian’s commitment to include Native people as the caretakers and interpreters of the collections they oversee. The Affiliations program allows the Abbe Museum and its visitors access to the greatest collection of Indigenous art in the world. Anyone who has stepped inside the Smithsonian will understand that the Abbe Museum’s new affiliation with the Smithsonian is surely something to be excited about.”

Established in 1996, Smithsonian Affiliations is a national outreach program that develops long-term collaborative partnerships with museums and educational and cultural organizations to enrich communities with Smithsonian artifacts, scholars, educational programs and professional-development opportunities. The long-term goal of Smithsonian Affiliations is to facilitate a two-way relationship among Smithsonian Affiliates and Smithsonian museums and research, education and outreach organizations to increase discovery, inspiration and lifelong learning in communities across America. More information about the Smithsonian Affiliations program and Affiliate activity is available at www.affiliations.si.edu.

New! PAL Talks- distance learning for Affiliates

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Smithsonian Affiliations introduces PAL Talks (Partnering with Affiliates for Learning)!  Refresh your knowledge or learn something new about being an Affiliate and collaborating with the Smithsonian in webinars and video chats about membership, branding, artifact loans and more. 

Mobile App Clinic meeting

Our first Vidyo conference in February 2013 was a huge success!

Our successful pilot using Vidyo at the Mobile App Clinic last month showed us that Affiliates are eager to learn more about collaboration opportunities at the Smithsonian. We also thought Affiliates would like more opportunities to learn about each benefit of their affiliation in further detail.  

So we’re kicking things off with a Vidyo webinar about the Smithsonian Affiliations Membership Program. External Affairs Manager, Christina DiMeglio Lopez will lead the chat and explain why everyone should be taking advantage of “two memberships in one.”  

When: Wednesday, April 24, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (EST)
How: Vidyo video webinar

  • Participate with a web cam & mic- click here
  • View webcast only- click here (email questions during call to affiliates@si.edu)

Setup: Download and test the Vidyo software here. 
RSVP: bugbeee@si.edu

Questions? Contact Christina DiMeglio Lopez or Elizabeth Bugbee for more information about this new digital learning opportunity.

coming up in affiliateland in April 2013

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Kiki Smith, Banshee Pearls, 1991, 12 prints, lithograph with aluminum leaf additions on handmade Japanese paper. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation, © 1991 Kiki Smith/ ULAE

PUERTO RICO
Educators from the National Postal Museum lead workshops on designing educational materials for exhibitions and for different audiences at the Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos in Gurabo, 4.5-6.

FLORIDA
The Naples Museum of Art opens the Multiplicity exhibition, featuring 83 works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collections (including the one to the right!) in Naples, 4.6.

MARYLAND
Rebecca Trautmann, National Museum of the American Indian curator, will serve as a juror for the upcoming Elements in Balance exhibition at Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center in Solomon, 4.8.

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will be loaning objects to the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery for the Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color exhibition, opening in Washington, D.C. on 4.12.

CALIFORNIA
Staff from the National Museum of Natural History will present workshops and lectures sponsored by the Riverside Metropolitan Museum as part of Smithsonian Week in Riverside, 4.23-25.

TEXAS
The City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department will announce their affiliation in Austin, 4.24.

affiliations conference preview: spaces for learning

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Do you operate an education center at your museum, or thinking about it?  Join us at the Affiliations National Conference on June 10-12  to meet colleagues who are opening or running new spaces for learning on the Smithsonian campus.  Through tours of these spaces, frank discussions with colleagues, exchanging resources and research, and hands-on activities, discover and share what makes an education center such a vital place in a museum.

Affiliations staff is currently working with the following museums to feature their education spaces:qurious

  • The National Museum of Natural History will be opening Q?RIUS in 2013, a new interactive 10,000 square foot programming space.  Q?RIUS will have access to a 20,000 specimen collection representing all departments of the museum, innovative programming and distance learning opportunities.
  • The National Museum of the American Indian’s imagiNATIONS activity center invites families to explore how Native peoples have adapted to natural environments with innovation.  Visitors can explore different kinds of transportation (snowshoes and skateboards), homes (tipis, adobes, igloos), hands-on activities (basket-weaving, Native percussion), and more.
  • The National Museum of American History is undergoing a major renovation that will result in new education spaces when they reopen in 2015.  Affiliates can talk to the staff about their planning and prototyping process, the “Object Project” and demonstration spaces, and explore possible collaboration opportunities.
  • The National Air and Space Museum’s Moving Beyond Earth gallery is an immersive space that puts visitors “in orbit.”  Affiliates can enter their Shuttle mock-up to learn about life in orbit (including the space toilet), or play the interactive SpaceFlight Academy, a group quiz that tests flight readiness.
  • The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s very popular ARTLAB+ is a digital media studio forARTLAB teens.  Staff will share how they provide access to professional technology and art, coupled with mentorship, to develop a community of young creators and innovators.   

Come to the Affiliations National Conference in Washington, D.C., on June 10-12, and bring your own experiences with education spaces to share with Smithsonian and Affiliate colleagues in these hands-on tours.  See you there!

The Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference is for current Affiliates only. If you are interested in becoming an Affiliate, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee for more information.

introducing the mobile app clinic

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Nancy Proctor, Head of Mobile Strategy & Initiatives at the Smithsonian Institution and the staff of Smithsonian Affiliations invite you to participate in a Mobile Clinic, a new opportunity as a benefit of your Affiliation that will introduce you to developing mobile tour apps.  On Wednesday, February 27 (3-5 pm EST), Nancy will present two open source platforms that Affiliates and Smithsonian staff can use: one for crowdsourcing, and the other for creating museum tours. We’ll also talk about data feeds and APIs that give greater access to Smithsonian collections, exhibition, event and other data available that may be of interest. Join us and begin an online conversation about mobile possibilities.

Photo courtesy Smithsonian EdLab.

Photo courtesy Smithsonian EdLab.

What will we discuss?
In our first Mobile Clinic, we’d like to introduce Affiliates to the available open source platform that the Smithsonian uses for developing basic museum tour apps, the supported access that will be provided, and updates to these tools and platforms as we move forward. In addition, we’d like to begin the conversation on partnership opportunities on mobile projects that may be available. Most importantly, we’d like to hear directly from Affiliates about what resources you have and those you’d like to see available. 

How will we get together?
We’ll be using Vidyo. It’s a video conferencing application that installs a small component on the desktop which allows for active engagement via web camera and microphone.  Click here to access the Vidyo conference room with your webcam and mic. 

What if I don’t have a web cam or mic?
The Vidyo platform will allow us to provide those without a web cam or microphone with a unique URL to access the meeting. The URL will show a live stream of the event–you’ll see and hear everything–but you won’t be able to live chat. You can still participate and ask questions though! While viewing the web stream, you can email your questions to affiliates@si.edu where we’ll be monitoring them as they come in to share with the online group. Click here to access the webcast.

nmai_ny_app

The National Museum of the American Indian’s new app for the exhibit “C. Maxx Stevens House of Memory.”

Is there an example of a mobile tour created with this tool?
Yes! Check out the free app from the National Museum of the American Indian in New York.

We hope the Mobile Clinic will be useful to you. We certainly look forward to hearing about Affiliate projects using mobile technology and how we might create a community of practice to discuss our ongoing challenges and successes.