Come along with Me - Site Visits and Community Sessions with Summer Intern Emma

We hope you enjoy this lovely blog by one of our ANSM interns, Emma Bronsema. Emma shares with us her perspective on her first museum visits with ANSM.  This included Advisory Site visits, which she went on with Brittany Houghton, our new Members Services Coordinator.  

Emma also shares her learnings from attending our very first two Unlocking Community Museum Collections community engagement sessions.  Our first two sessions, with the African Nova Scotia community in Digby and with the Acadian community in Pubnico, were successful and full of important learnings that will drive this project forward.  We are eager to continue these sessions this summer and hope to see you at the ones nearest your museum.  https://ansm.ns.ca/unlocking-community-museum-collections/ 

- Maggie 

On the Road 

Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia. What a beautiful province to drive through. The rolling hills, lakes, rivers and Atlantic ocean, not to mention the greenery and wildlife. I lost count of the deer I saw in the fields on my travels with ANSM. One of my absolute favourite places in NovaScotia has become the garden behind the Musee des Acadiens des Pubnicos et Centre de recherche. The sugar peas are absolutely divine, and the gooseberries positively tarte.

This past week I had the privilege of travelling to the lovely towns of Annapolis Royal, Digby, Pubnico, Shelburne, and Liverpool. This provided a lovely opportunity to check in with museums, meet new staff members and members of the community, as well as introduce them to our new hire, Brittany. Each place we visited was warm and inviting. During the site visits, we were able to look at their sites, figure out where these museums are at, what their needs and wants are, and walk them through instructions, and possible concerns, surrounding digitizing their collection and imputing data into CollectiveAccess. Shelburne really impressed us with the work they have been doing for their artifact storage. It looks amazing!

In addition to our site visits, we held two unlocking museums sessions with the local museums and community members. What we learned In these sessions the importance of collaboration and being there for members of the community was stressed. And communities would love for museums to start, and in some cases continue, to strive to make museums and historic institutions a place for community and not just tourists and school groups. Museums are more than just history, they are a service, and as such, they need to better meet the needs of their community and provide access to more varied perspectives and information.

What we are hearing

After discussions with community members we are hearing that there are many stories missing from the artifact, that the artifact itself is presenting to be limited; the missing narratives would liven it up. On a similar note, there is a need for more access to varied perspectives on information, artifacts, and historical events. Displays and artifacts on display are not telling the whole story. Contributions and perspectives are missing. Representation of different perspectives in a range of times and contributions to, and involvement in, society is also missing and wanted.

Next steps

Following this trip, ANSM is continuing its travel and visits and looking to continue the conversations surrounding digitizing collections, collaboration, representation and decolonizing collections. We hope to continue to work with communities and their museums in a collaborative manner. A large way to aid this process is through digitizing collections and making them accessible to community members.