#150Touchstones: Reflecting on the Initial Voting Phase

The initial voting phase for #150Touchstones has come to a close. For those of you new to the blog, Touchstones is ANSM's Canada150 Project. Touchstones: Exploring Nova Scotia’s history in 150 years of confederation. ANSM launched Touchstones on November 24th last year and decided it would be best to keep voting open until January 15th to give the public a good chunk of time to explore NovaMuse. There was a large increase in votes after the holidays, which we expected. We encouraged everyone to pick out artifacts that are important to them, that reflected who they are as Nova Scotians, and the role Nova Scotia played in confederation and the evolution of Canada.

We wanted to give the public creative freedom to choose artifacts that they felt best suited the project's goal. With help from our partnering museums' engaging social media content, we received over 25, 000 votes in a little over a month and a half. Many of the votes reflected handpicked treasures chosen from museum staff and volunteers that they shared with their followers throughout the initial voting phase. If you wish to see the social media posts made by our partnering sites, search #150Touchstones on Facebook and Twitter. These results go to show how invested our audience is in sharing the rich history of Nova Scotia and the province's story.

The votes cover a wide array of interesting objects from across Nova Scotia. These objects pay tribute to our diversity and multifaceted cultural identity. The objects reflect various industries from across the province, such as: fishing,woodworking, mining, food processing, and more! There are various everyday objects in the mix as well: teapots, baskets, coins, school books, rugs, dishes, eyeglasses, snowshoes, sewing machines, ice skates, dresses, are just to name a few. A wide array of military items and sport memorabilia are also highlighted. Items that help tell the story of the Fathers of Confederation and other influential leaders and public figures in Nova Scotia also made the list.

To the right is a snapshot of the Top Ten artifacts chosen by the public. Click here to learn more!

One of our main goals with Touchstones is to foster a greater awareness of community museums across Nova Scotia. Many of these museums contain valuable artifacts telling of life in Nova Scotia throughout the years. We encourage you to explore these museums! If you are unable to pop in, the staff at the sites are continually working towards posting new information about their collections on the NovaMuse website. It is a great place to get acquainted with their wonderful work that they are doing in Nova Scotia's museum community.

We look forward to starting the next phase of Touchstones-more information coming soon!

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-Sandi