ANSM Staffing
The past two weeks at ANSM have been very exciting! Karin took a much-needed vacation and came back to two new staff members. Alyssa has joined us as our new Museum Services Coordinator, and Daniel is our new Communications & Admin Coordinator. Both have hit the ground running in these new roles (you might notice that we have a new blog url), and we are feeling so great about our newly expanded ANSM team. Unfortunately we also said goodbye this month to Jacob. He impressed us so much during his internship that we kept him around to help us get through the hiring process. We are so grateful for everything he did, and yes of course we had cake delivered to him in Toronto.
TRACK
Meetings with pilot museums continue, and we are getting some great feedback, ideas, and suggestions. Maggie and Karin will be rolling these suggestions into the assessment document over the coming month, and everyone is feeling good about a Fall launch of this new program.
Meanwhile, Tuesdays on TRACK webinars continue. Remember that if your museum receives funding from CMAP (community museums assistance program), you need to participate in at least four webinars this year. We are now at the halfway point, so if your museum isn't on TRACK to meet this requirement, Karin will be in touch very soon. To request recordings or register for upcoming webinars, click here.
Unlocking Collections
We are very happy to announce that our MAP grant application was successful, and we are hitting the ground running on an av (audiovisual) inventory of Advisory Service museums. Thanks to everyone who completed the survey this Spring! It was incredibly helpful to begin to understand what is out there. Now we are preparing for hub training sessions on the assessment, management and care of av materials, and actively scheduling site visits to do a province-wide inventory. This is a huge undertaking, partially because we've never explored av materials before. But it came up time and again during last year's Unlocking sessions, so we know it will be worthwhile, and wonderful to report back to community partners that we acted on their request. If your museum hasn't yet signed up for a hub training session, please do so asap! The first one is this Friday. Registration is free thanks to Government of Canada's MAP funding, but the sessions are limited to Advisory Service members. If that's your museum, click here to register.
The ReconciliAction Plan was updated this month, so if you haven't yet read through it, or it's been a while, this is the great opportunity to see how the Unlocking initiative continues to grow and evolve.
Looking ahead, we have booked another Mi'kmaq Community Engagement Day, this time in the southwest! We'll be at the Digby Pines on September 18th. Theresa Meuse and Roger Lewis will be facilitating this day of learning, which will follow the format and agenda from previous sessions elsewhere in the province. Registration will open soon, so watch the Beacon and your inbox for that announcement.
CollectiveAccess & NovaMuse
As we noted last month, addressing backlogs and being transparent about what is in museum collections is part of the ReconciliAction Plan. This was another great month of movement on this issue, with member museums now sitting at more than 373,000 object records and 349,000 associated media files in the databases. Just keep checking in with those summer staff, reviewing new records, and making sure that you are entering as much information as possible (in the correct fields!). Slow and steady wins the race. Always assume you'll never have the chance to go back to a record.
1. Place the object in its natural position. For a medicine bottle, that's standing up.
2. Use a contrasting background. Glass can be tricky sometimes, so try both a light and a dark fabric and see which one makes the object 'pop' to your eye.
3. Centre the object in the photo. This photo tries to centre the scale and bottle rather than just the bottle. The scale should be incorporated into a nice framing of the object.
If you ever want feedback on your object photography, feel free to pop Alyssa an email (the services@ansm account) and ask her for feedback and tips. It's much better to ask early on in digitization work than after the summer is finished.
In addition to hub training, we are hitting the road for on-site visits, again focusing on inventorying av materials. When you get your email about a visit, please respond asap! We are tag-teaming on site visits this year, so you may see Alyssa, Angie, Karin, or Katie. We are also continuing with virtual site visits. If your museum doesn't have a visit booked yet, check your inbox! We're waiting to hear back from a number of people and want to get in as many visits as we can this summer.
Educational Partnerships
Lydia has been doing heaps of work preparing for hub training sessions and the av project. She's also been getting to know CollectiveAccess quite well. One of her current tasks is to move any legacy condition information to our new condition report feature, so if you see an ANSM Intern account active in your database, this is what's going on. Once she's done, we will remove the old legacy condition tab from the database. She's already reviewed more than 10,000 records! It will be so great to finally close the door on the old feature.
Karin had a meeting with the University of Toronto this week to talk about their Masters program and potential projects for these students that will benefit ANSM members and accomplish some goals from the ReconciliAction Plan. While nothing has been decided yet, everyone left the meeting feeling excited about the possibilities.
Phew! It's been a very fun and interesting month at ANSM, with so many wonderful things on the horizon. As a former Executive Director used to say...Onwards!
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