Topic Suggestion: Computers and Accessioning

Hans from Parksville writes:


Hi Lisa,

With hundreds of small museums in the province, I was surprised to find so little activity on the blog. Am I missing something?

I have been the summer-time manager of the Parksville Museum since 2002 except for a short stint as manager of the Qualicum Beach Museum. Both are small community museums. The staff consists of me and 2-4 summer students, we are only open from mid-May to end of September, we have only 1,500 – 2,000 visitors, there is considerable involvement by volunteers, we are managed by a working board, and our annual budget is about $50,000. Question: What is a good working definition of a small museum? How about: Maximum annual budget of $100K or maximum of 2 paid full-time staff .

As the so-called manager, I do everything: janitorial, grounds and building maintenance, developing displays, guiding tours, training and supervising summer students, fund raising, publicity, historical research, special events, accessioning and archiving. And that is one of the problems with managing small museums: one has to be willing to wear many hats. I would be interested to hear how other managers of small museums manage to deal with all these varied responsibilities. At the Osoyoos conference it would be nice to have lots of opportunity to meet with and talk to staff from other small museums.

I would be very interested in a discussion of how to speed up and streamline accessioning as well as a discussion of the pros and cons of various software programs for small museums such as PastPerfect In a lot of small museums much of the work is done by seniors many of which are uncomfortable with computers. In those instances, what are the pros and cons of staying with paper forms.

I will leave it at that and see what sort of response there is. Maybe managers of small museums are just too busy to spend time blogging.

Cheers,

Hans Boerger, Manager
Parksville and District Historical Society
(www.parksvillemuseum.ca)

Topic suggestion: Collaboration

Laura from the Jewish Museum and Archives of BC writes:

"I would like to suggest a topic to discuss at the Small Museums Conference: Collaboration - everything from bulk buying, conservation and packing materials to sharing exhibits."

Thanks for the suggestion, Laura! I should let you know that there is a group of museums in the Lower Mainland who have been getting together to share ideas about how to share exhibits. I will send you an email from my work address about the details of that group. One of our projects involves setting up a blog so museums in the Lower Mainland and beyond can exchange informations about exhibits we are developing and willing to share with other museums.

In the meantime, I'd like to hear more about your workshop idea (from you, and from others). Are you thinking of a workshop that would teach tools for collaboration (such as using social media to communicate, setting up frameworks and terms of reference, etc), or were you thinking of an opportunity for small museums to network and identify potential partnerships during the summit?

How to Post

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Exhibit Design in a Small Museum

Another workshop idea is learning how to design exhibits in a small museum setting. Find out the tricks of the trade to create engaging and professional exhibits without a big cost.

Wearing all the Hats

One idea we had was to create a workshop for people who work in operations where they are the only staff person. There are particular challenges to "wearing all the hats" -- you have to write the grants, do the tours, report to the Board, and try to find time for strategic planning and fundraising. Whew! This workshop would focus on strategic planning, financial management, and managing temporary and contract staff in small operations.

Let us know what you think about this workshop idea!