May 2010 Update

CMA Conference

Anita and Karin both attended the CMA annual conference in St. John’s Newfoundland.  It was a great time, and Nova Scotia was well represented.  Bill Greenlaw, Executive Director of the Heritage Division, participated in several sessions as a presenter, moderator and panelist.  Also, Dorothy Outhouse (Islands Museum), Rodney Chaisson (NS Highland Village), Maggie MacIntye  (Nova Scotia Museum), Stephanie Smith (Nova Scotia Museum), Jane Arnold (Beaton Institute) and Richard MacKinnon (Cape Breton University) were all presenters, panelists or moderators.

My conference notes will be posted online this week along with a few more pictures from the conference. 

ANSM Website – Resources Section

It’s been in the works for awhile now, and I am very pleased to announce that the promised Sample Forms and Polices are now online.    The collections-related forms that are now online are a Documentation Flowchart, Artist Report, Catalogue Worksheet, Donor Questionnaire, Manufacturer Report, Oral History Agreement, Pre-Acquisition Review Form and Reproduction Rights Agreement.  Aside from the flowchart, all forms are MS Word doc files that can be downloaded and customized with your own letterhead and adjusted to meet your individual needs.

More forms and polices will be added over the coming weeks and months, but if you don’t see what you need, let me know and she’ll do her best to help you out.  Feedback is very welcome.

Site Visits

‘Tis the season to travel.  I am once again on the road conducting site visits, and spent the last week of May in the southwest region visiting the Cape Sable Historical Society, Tuna Sport Fishing Museum, Admiral Digby Museum, and the Islands Museum.  I also managed to squeeze in a TIANS workshop on Social Media for Tourism Operators (see my workshop notes in the blog archive) and the TIANS AGM.

I am actively working on scheduling my summer travel, so if you would like to request a specific day or week please let me know.

Regional Meetings

The last spring regional meeting was for the Central (formerly HRM) regional group at the Alderney Gate Library on May 7^th. 

If you don’t attend your regional meetings I strongly encourage you to do so.  Not only are they great networking opportunities, but this is where ideas are shared and advocacy is coordinated.  The groups typically meet twice a year, in the spring and fall.  Reminders about upcoming meetings are posted on the regional heritage listservs.  If you aren’t subscribing to the listservs, contact Penny Harvey and ask to be added to the Cape Breton, HRM, Northeast, or Southwest listserv. 

Blog Poll

You’ll notice that the blog has been slightly changed over the past week.  Since IT & Collections Management Services (Passage) is a service of ANSM, I have removed the list of members since ANSM has a list of members of our website.  So the poll feature has been moved to the right side of the blog. 

For the most recent poll, I asked you how you market your museum online.  19 people responded to the question, and here are the results:

1. Website 100%

2. CHIN (Artefacts Canada, Community Memories) 73%

3. Facebook 31%

4. Twitter 21%

5. YouTube 21%

6. Wikipedia 10%

7. Blog 5%

8. Flickr 5%

Thanks to everyone who voted as this information will be incorporated into ANSM’s Internet Marketing for Museums Report & Recommendations.

Our new poll is about our database system.  As many of you know, we have been looking at the database system with IT consultants to determine whether it is meeting our needs, how much longer it can be used, and what other database options are available.  To that end, it is very important that each of you respond to this poll.