February 2023 Update

TRACK Updates

T is for Training! At the last TRACK working group meeting we mapped out a training plan for the coming year that we are very excited about. We are now looking at schedules and logistics for  this year's offerings, so stay tuned as details are finalized.

R is for Resources! Phillip has been very busy reviewing, culling and organizing our resource library. Over the past week we've removed a lot of books that are irrelevant or out-of-date according to current museological standards. Phillip has also been busy adding our sample forms, templates and other online resources to the database. Now he's tackling the file cabinets (insert ominous music here). Old workshop files and other paper-based files have been hanging around the office since the old FNSH days (pre-2007). This is such a great exercise for ANSM that is going to be incredibly beneficial to us and our member museums. It feels like we are finally modernizing resources and the library, and will now have a much better sense of what we have to offer and where/how we need to grow our resource library. Bonus - we now have the space to grow!

A is for Assessment! We have finally incorporated all of the feedback from the pilot process and sent the assessment document off to our graphic designer. We know that the document was difficult to work with as it was, and so can't wait to work through a proper, pretty document with our phase 2 pilot museums.

Other Training:

Reconsidering Museums Webinar

On March 8th we'll be joining our colleagues from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to talk about Reconsidering Museums - a national research and advocacy project. If your museum is having conversations about relevance, community engagement, and relationship building, this is the webinar for you. Bonus, it is free and there is no limit of participants, so spread the word and we look forward to seeing you there. To learn more and register online, click here.

Collections Re-Org Workshop

Our good friend Anita Price is leading a workshop on storage Re-Org. If your storage is bursting at the seams, or if you think it could be made more efficient and better organized, this is the workshop for you. It's just one day, on March 29th. To learn more, click here.

CollectiveAccess Updates

It was a fairly quiet month for database work, but another 1000 records and 1000 images were added to the databases, and we saw many, many more record edits. We have collectively documented 368,138 artefacts and items, and have 337,247 digital images and media files linked to these items. With so many competing priorities in our museums, it is a testament to the dedication of our workers that collections remain a priority. The progress is real, it is sustained, and it is so important and meaningful.

Your image lesson of the month is this adorable children's basket from the 1920s. Sometimes bright colours can be difficult to photograph. It can be hard to decide if they should have a light or a dark background. This photo is a good example of this debate because the dark blue background changes to a white background. Your eye may immediately tell you that it prefers the blue, or the white. The best way to make a decision is to try both and then decide which one makes the object 'pop'. This will slow down your digitization process, but is so worth the extra time. 

In other database news, the sync process is slowly getting sorted out so that records will again seamlessly flow to NovaMuse. This continues to be a long and arduous process, slowed down by our server change and grant project priorities and deadlines. But it is slowly coming along. The current question is whether or not we can speed up the file copying process as everything gets slowly reintegrated. 

In news that crosses over between database updates and Unlocking updates, we have just gotten a draft French version of CollectiveAccess. We heard loud and clear at the Acadian Unlocking sessions that being able to access programs and services in French was a priority. This means that Acadian museums can document their collections in a French database rather than entering French data in an English system, or feeling like they had to enter the information in English because the database was English. 

Unlocking Collections

A couple significant updates on this work. First and foremost, we have a draft ReconciliAction Plan. This is the game plan, the living document, that will help ANSM and member museums ensure this work is moving forward. It will also serve as an accountability tool for community members and partners so that they will see how things are progressing as well. Once we do a bit more review and discussion with our working group and board, we'll share the Plan on our website, so stay tuned!

In order to continue the Unlocking conversation with communities we've started circulating a brief survey with our partners. If you are of Mi'kmaq, Acadian, African Nova Scotian or Gaelic descent, we'd love to hear from you. Feedback is going to be used to ensure our ReconciliAction Plan is meeting everyone's needs. If you're interested in printing and mailing us a paper survey, contact us and we'll email you the document file.

We uncovered even more helpful books and resources this month for the Made in Nova Scotia research work. Naomi continues to reconcile these resources with the existing database information and update records as required. For years we've called this our rainy day project, and lately we've been recognizing how long this haul will be. There are currently 8,458 profiles of creators and companies, so it's going to take a lot of time to review and update this information.  

In less happy news, one of our grant applications to continue this work was not successful. But as you'll read below, we've got a few people joining us over the coming months, so are looking at which pieces of this project proposal we can extract and rework. 

Educational Partnerships

The Fleming students have finished the first half of their class assignment - proofreading and editing database records. They're now working on the final piece - selecting an item for further research and enriching its database record. This is always the fun part because of the new information that gets discovered. 

Jordyn has been making a lot of progress on new NovaMuseEd resources. She's been working through files shared by museums and developing her own learning activities, and is on track to have about 10 new resources developed by the end of her placement next month. This is huge. This is a big boost to NovaMuseEd, a big boost for educators and learners, and a big boost for museums trying to get their name and offerings back into classrooms. We still have a stockpile of museum school programs to work through, but if you're reading this and wanting to get on board with this initiative, reach out! We would love to add your programs and resources to the mix. 

We mentioned last month that we were in talks with some other colleges and universities about summer internships. Well, it ended up being a very busy month and we've got some good news! We will be welcoming a Spring intern next month, and then two Summer interns starting in May. We are developing a giant task list as we begin work planning, and are excited to help these students launch their careers by giving them experience working with museums in a lot of different ways. They will be working on advocacy, communications, databases, research, and unlocking collections, to name a few things. It will be great to move all of this work forward. Win-win-win.