April 2023 Update

In Memoriam

Nova Scotia's museum community lost two very bright lights this month. Kathleen MacLeod of North Highlands Community Museum, and Peter Cullen of Ross Farm Museum. Kathleen and Pete were both intensely dedicated to their museums but also engaged in broader advocacy and ANSM board/working group activities. We invite you to read our tribute posts to Kathleen and Pete, and comment to share your condolences with their families and friends. 

ANSM Hiring

In case you missed it, the ANSM board made an announcement recently as it opened the job competition for our new Executive Director. Having had conversations with both the board and hiring committee, this is an exciting time for ANSM and we are all feeling optimistic about the future. Please spread the word and share the posting! Turning to the Member Services Coordinator position, we are awaiting clarifications from CCTH on March's funding announcement before making a decision about this role. In the meantime, we are so happy to have Jacob Agnew and Sandi Stewart working with us. Jacob just completed his Centennial College internship with us last week, so will be staying on part-time and working with Karin on a variety of tasks. Sandi is primarily helping Maggie with our membership renewal and annual report/AGM preparations. Keep an eye on your email inbox for your membership renewal notice.

TRACK

We had our first Tuesday on TRACK webinar this month, looking at revenue generation for museums with David Oyler. If you missed it, you can request the recording by reaching out to Karin. To register for upcoming webinars, visit our website. If your museum receives CMAP funding, participating in four webinars is a condition of your funding. 

We got the assessment document back from the graphic designer, and it looks great! Such a big improvement on the old evaluation document. The TRACK working group is currently reviewing it and sending in their notes for some final tweaking before we launch the second pilot.

Museums 101

In two weeks our Museums 101 course is starting, and we only have a few spots left. This will be an online course that runs for five weeks, Wednesday afternoons from 2-4pm. If you are new to museums, or if you have new volunteers or board members, this is a great course to introduce you to the field. If you've been working in museums for a while now but haven't had a lot of opportunities for professional development, this is a great course to learn about how the field is changing. Remember that this is the only museum studies program course we are offering this year, so don't miss out on the opportunity. Visit our website to learn more and to register.

Mi'kmaq Community Engagement Days

We had our first session in Membertou this week, and it was such a great bonding and learning time. Huge thanks to Jeff Ward for sharing his time and knowledge with us, and thanks to everyone who joined us. On May 12th we will be meeting in Millbrook for another day of learning with Heather Stevens, Roger Lewis, and Katie Cottreau-Robbins. If you'd like to join us there, click here. 

CollectiveAccess & NovaMuse

For years now we have shared monthly numbers for CollectiveAccess and NovaMuse, demonstrating progress in our collective collections management efforts. As we continue to learn how to unlock collections and step away from old colonial practices, we're going to stop sharing these monthly numbers. They were meant to be encouragement and a bit of friendly competition between regions, but we want to focus instead on moving forward. This doesn't always mean you're adding new records. You could be updating old ones...correcting spelling, adding new information found through research, or filling in blank fields that got skipped over in the initial cataloguing. 

Unlocking Collections

The most exciting update in this area is a follow-up from last month, when we shared that a funding application was unsuccessful but we had an upcoming meeting that we hoped would turn that bad news around. We are so happy to say that it has! Our new friends at Acadian Affairs are stepping up to work with us to find some money for a storytelling project. This is fantastic news and we are so happy to have their support in sharing hidden stories of the Acadian experience.

Related to storytelling, we want to remind you one more time to answer the audiovisual materials survey if you haven't yet. So far only 24 museums have responded, and we are using this survey to determine locations of hub training, and to priotitize in-person site visits. It is incredibly important to get feedback from all 60 advisory service museums. The survey is closing Monday, so once you finish reading this post, please answer the survey. 

Educational Partnerships

As we mentioned above, Jacob is finished his internship but not finished with ANSM. We are looking ahead and will have a student joining us from Fleming College for the summer, and have just broadcast a fall placement proposal to a number of schools. Next month Karin is stepping back into her teaching shoes at SMU with a new class of students who want to learn about museums and collections. These partnerships are worth their weight in gold as we cultivate interests in the next generation of museum workers and support emerging professionals. It's a privilege to be a part of it.