August 2023 Update

TRACK

We have had some incredibly helpful feedback in our latest round of piloting, and are slowly but surely working through this input and incorporating suggestions into the assessment document. This morning's TRACK working group meeting felt very productive as the group made decisions about the program timeline, assessment process, and more. 

The Tuesdays on TRACK webinar series continues. We now have five webinars under our belt and have begun to reach out to museums that receive funding from CMAP. A new requirement of CMAP is participation in TRACK, and this year that means participating in at least four Tuesday on TRACK webinars, and we want to make sure that everyone meets this requirement. Our next webinar is being facilitated by Virginia Stephen and will explore different types of boards and what they do. This is a great opportunity for board members (new and old!) to learn about governance options and alternatives that can help your museum move forward. To register, click here.

Mi'kmaq Cultural Training Day

Registration for the Mi'kmaq cultural training day in Digby is open! One of the key messages from last year's Unlocking Collections gatherings with Mi'kmaq communities was that museum workers need cultural awareness training. This will be our fourth session and every one has resulted in some wonderful learning. There is no limit to the number of people you can send, and we hope to see staff, board members and volunteers from every museum in the Southwest region and beyond! Join Theresa and Roger, and meet the new ANSM team on this important day.

ANSM Conference 

Another upcoming training opportunity is our annual conference. This is the first time we'll be getting together in-person since before COVID, so we are a tad excited. You can read all about the program, venue, and financial assistance for attending on our website.

CollectiveAccess & NovaMuse

A number of updates have just been implemented in the database as part of our MAP-funding AV inventory project. Last night, all the databases were updated to the latest version of CollectiveAccess, and have had metadata extraction, fixity checks, and Whisper transcription for av materials added. And we've also made a little change to NovaMuse. Ever since we launched the site in 2012 we've been sorting/displaying search results in order by accession number. We are changing this so that recently added records will appear at the top of the list. With this ever-evolving display of records, we hope that it will be a bit more interesting to our online community and also demonstrate that museums are actively working in their collections.

Your image lesson of the month is a bit different from previous ones. During this summer's site visits we've been hearing a lot of comments about image quality - frustrations with digitization by students, a desire to go back and redo early photos because of new lessons learned, and hopefulness that future digitization is of a higher quality. These are some big issues. Let's look at each one:

1. Student digitization work - training & supervision are the best things to combat these frustrations. It is easy to make assumptions around young people and technology, but students need to hear that digitization work becomes part of the museum's permanent and professional record...part of its public obligations. They also need hands-on training on photography setup, equipment use, image processing and naming. If you don't feel well-equipped to give that training, reach out for help, or find other tasks for the students to tackle. If students are working on digitization, it is absolutely critical to check their images and work throughout their time with the museum. Don't slack off on this. Give feedback, suggestions, and guidance. 

2. Retaking photos - this really underscores the above point...the need to take your time and make sure anyone involved in digitization has the training and supervision that they need. If this is done properly, there won't be any need to redo digitization work. But if you find yourself in this situation, be sure to plan out the work. Roll it into inventory, or your collections management game plan so that it doesn't seem like a burdensome task. 

3. Improving digitization quality - Moving forward, ensuring that everyone understands the "why" of digitization needs to be the first step. Once everyone is on that same page, it will be easier for people to put in the time and attention to detail to capture good images. We've also said before that it can be easier to start with 2-dimensional digitization of photos, postcards, letters etc. before you dive into 3-dimensional objects. When you move to 3-d, ANSM has a photography studio available to members to borrow, and we can also help you set up your own studio. We also offer digitization support and training through our Advisory Service.

Unlocking Collections

AV Survey Results

What a difference a month makes. Last month we said thank you for completing the online survey and were actively booking site visits. Now we can share the results of the survey and the amazing news that we've physically inventoried 1,426 audio and video recordings. 186 of these have cultural affiliations noted on their labels and/or documentation. To give you a sense of how quickly these numbers are growing, on Monday we went out an update to community members who joined us at an Unlocking gathering last year and had 'only' inventoried 1,032 recordings. Having heard loud and clear the importance of finding recordings of elders and community events, we are thrilled to be able to share updates like this and show communities the care that has been given these recordings, and that digitization planning is underway.

Hub training sessions are going well, and if your museum is a member of the Advisory Service and hasn't signed up yet, you still have three opportunities: Sept.6 in LaHave, Sept.14 in Enfield, and Sept.27 in Middleton. Click here to register for this free training opoportunity.

Our friends at CNSA are also thrilled with the inventory progress and we're looking forward to strategizing next steps and digitization options for our shared members.

Educational Partnerships

We said goodbye to Katie and Lydia this month, and we did our best to give them a good send off. They accomplished so much to help us and museums. It was lovely to have them on our team. And in usual ANSM style, we are now looking ahead to new opportunities. This fall we will be hosting an MSVU student who will be helping with NovaMuseEd initiatives. We recently confirmed our participation in the annual Social Studies teachers conference so this timing is perfect. 

We also got some great news from the University of Toronto this month. Our proposal to work with their Masters in Museum Studies students on a teaser exhibit about Pere Clarence d'Entremont's life and work for the Acadian World Congress was accepted! We've been chasing funding for this project (another idea that came out of the Unlocking gatherings) since last fall so this is very exciting. We'll be framing up a work plan and timeline over the coming weeks and are also keeping fingers crossed for some additional support to cover travel & print/design costs. It is really heartwarming how everyone wants to support Unlocking initiatives. 

July Update 2023

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. 

Your image lesson of the month is this interesting Made in Nova Scotia medicine bottle. Here are some basic rules about object photography:
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

Katie is with us two days a week and she is definitely making the most of those two days! She's  refreshed museums' records on Artefacts Canada, made notes and updates for a variety of ANSM documents, drafted an advocacy package, helped a museum upload a ton of images, researched makers for Made in Nova Scotia, and helped prep for hub training. Maggie and Karin (and Allie) had a great trip to the valley to see Katie, and Allie took this great photo.

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!

June 2023 Update

 ANSM Staffing

Last month we shared that the the job competition for our new Executive Director had closed. This month we're excited to say that there will be an announcement about that role very soon, and we're on the cusp of interviewing for two other positions at ANSM - Museum Services Coordinator and Communications & Administrative Coordinator. This is a time of major change for ANSM, but the thought of increased capacity and how we can better serve our members is exciting to say the least. 

Because of all the meetings and activities on the go, your best way to contact us right now is by email. We are not in the office every day, so there will likely be a delay in responding to any messages left on the ANSM line.

AGM Recap

In case you missed it, our AGM happened on June 16th. You can read our annual report on our website.

Strategic Plan

Maggie presented our new strategic plan at the AGM. It represents some familiar activities and exciting new opportunities for ANSM, and responds to what we heard last year during the Unlocking Collections gatherings. The plan was written in-house following a two day planning retreat where we worked with Mind's Eye Creative to figure out the next few years of ANSM life. We love how they captured our discussions and think you'll enjoy the visual nature of this plan.

Unlocking Collections

Karin presented our new ReconciliAction Plan at the AGM, which came out of last year's Unlocking Collections gatherings as well. We originally thought this would be a digitization strategy but this is so much more. It includes actions for ANSM and museums, and includes a list of actions taken as well as those to come. This is the first time we have released a document like this - a living and active plan that is updated regularly, and that is open for anyone to see. As we said last year, this is just the beginning. There is much to be done but we are encouraged by the progress and relationships being developed.

One of the calls to action is to ensure museums have access to cultural awareness training. We've partnered on this with a few different people and groups since last fall and are very pleased to announce that we've just set another training date! On September 18th we will be at the Digby Pines Resort, where Theresa Meuse and Roger Lewis will lead a day of learning for museum workers. The agenda will be very similar to the training days we've held elsewhere - Halifax, Membertou and Millbrook.  Stay tuned for an announcement on registration. There will be a registration cost but it will be kept as low as possible and only aim to cover the cost of the facility rental, food, and facilitator fees.

TRACK

This month we had an orientation meeting with museums participating in the 2nd round of piloting. And we are now starting to receive their feedback on the newly redesigned assessment document. Once we hear from everyone we will make some more changes and then roll into round 3 of piloting. For round 3 we are looking for a few more museums to review the assessment document. This round will have a tight turnaround of two weeks. If you are interested in participating, or if you would like more information, email Karin.

Conference 2023

Looking ahead to the Fall, our annual conference is going to be in-person again! We can't wait to head to Baddeck in October to talk all about Museum Care - care of self, team, and community. We would love to hear about your museum's experiences in these areas. If you're interested in presenting, check out the call for proposals.

Registration is now open, and more info can be found on our website.

If you haven't been to an ANSM conference before, one of the things we do is celebrate excellence in our member museums by giving out a couple awards. If you want to nominate a person or museum for their amazing work, check out the criteria and nomination forms on our website.

CollectiveAccess & NovaMuse

As summer students and seasonal staff and volunteers join the team, remember the importance of training people on proper cataloguing, data entry, and other collections management practices. In checking database statistics yesterday, numerous instances of people entering bad data into the databases were discovered. This creates major headaches for the museums and makes all museums look bad since we share NovaMuse. It is so important to talk to new workers about the importance of following standards, of the museum's professional reputation, and its public trust responsibilities. Encourage people to use the Help menu, info button for each field, and to reach out to their supervisors and ANSM for help when they have questions. And don't forget to check on peoples' work. If they are struggling with something and not asking questions, it's so much easier to catch these issues early than at the end of the summer when major messes have been created. Another reason why it's so important for everyone to be using their own database account. You want to be able to track each user's work. If you need any new accounts set up, reach out to Karin and she'll get those set up asap.

The ReconciliAction Plan includes the goal of addressing data entry backlogs. This month our collective work brought the numbers up to 371,000 object records and 343,000 associated media files. Steady progress is being made, which is great to see and demonstrates to communities that we heard and are responding to their concerns expressed last summer. But as above, we need to make sure that this is happening at a high standard. 

Our image lesson of the month has all sorts of great lessons for us. This small pitcher is has Hebrew writing on it and has a specific purpose in Jewish culture. Looking at the record though, it is tagged as being a Jewish object, nor has the museum explained the object's importance through that cultural lens. Shifting to the photography, paper tags should be removed prior to photography, and the object should be sitting in its natural upright position rather than lying down. This would greatly improve our understanding of it. Putting the scale in the lower left corner (close but not touching the object) and keeping that within the frame around the object, and adjusting lighting to remove shadows will make the photo look incredibly professional. Additional detail photos should capture the writing, makers marks, and different sides/views. Remember again to take your time, and reach out for help if you have questions.

Summer Site Visits

Since we are still actively in the hiring process, Karin and Sandi will be tag-teaming on getting site visits started. Most people know that in response to a member survey a few years ago we started doing a mix of virtual and in-person site visits. Yesterday we emailed everyone on the list for a virtual visit this year to book their date/time. We'll be talking about Unlocking Collections and the ReconciliAction Plan, audiovisual materials in the museum, and some upcoming training opportunities. And of course we want to hear all about what's been happening in the museums! For anyone on the list for in-person visits, we'll be in touch soon. 

Educational Partnerships

There is a lot going on right now in the world of partnerships. Karin met with two 'new' schools this month to talk about their heritage internship programs and how ANSM can work with them. We now have an MOU with one school and both will receive internship proposals from ANSM as part of our ongoing recruitment efforts to get museum studies students into Nova Scotia's museums.

Karin's SMU course has wrapped up the seminars and now the students are rolling into some special projects for the remainder of the summer. All of these projects directly respond to Unlocking Collections calls to action. 

Katie is keeping busy with her Fleming College internship, and so far has written some webinar reviews, helped with some database work, developed some advocacy plans, done some Made in NS research, and found and updated some resources relating to EDI and collections management. 

Next week we will be welcoming another student on board for a placement from SMU. Stay tuned for her introduction and to hear about her work.

May 2023 Update

ANSM is Hiring! 

The application period for our new Executive Director has now closed, and the Hiring Committee is moving onto the next phase of reviewing applications and scheduling interviews. In other hiring news, we have just announced two new, 4-day/week positions at ANSM. Our old Member Services Coordinator position is being broken out into two new roles - Museum Services Coordinator and Communications & Administration Coordinator. Please help us spread the word! The application deadline for both is June 19, 10am. 

TRACK

The second round of piloting has begun! Maggie and Karin met with participants this month and are excited to hear feedback and continue moving forward with this new program. 

Tuesdays on TRACK are proving to be quite popular. If your museum is registered for TRACK, you can request recordings of previous sessions on our website. You can also register for upcoming sessions online. For any museums that are receiving CMAP funding, you need to participate in 4 of the 8 sessions this year. We are monitoring registration and participation so will reach out to any museums that don't seem to be on track to meet this requirement.

Employer-Employee Training

In case you missed it, last week we partnered with a career counselor at SMU to deliver a webinar on working with students. And this week we are delivering part two - a webinar for students on how to make the most out of their work placement. If you have students working with you this summer and haven't yet registered for this webinar, here's the link. 

Museums 101

Our Museums 101 course launched online this month with 28 participants. Meeting Wednesday afternoons for two hours, the course is taking place over 5 weeks. This is the only Museum Studies Program course being offered this year, and we are thoroughly enjoying the conversations and feedback as we look to review and renew the entire program. 

Mi'kmaq Community Engagement Days

Our second day of learning took place early in the month in Millbrook. We had a full house and learned so much from Heather, Katie and Roger. One of ANSM's key takeaways is that museum workers recognize a deficit of knowledge about Mi'kmaq culture and history. We have been setting up meetings with community leaders and organizations to see how we can help to address this issue, and remain committed to this learning journey. We hope to share more news and opportunities soon.

Educational Partnerships

Karin went back to school this month, teaching Museum Fundamentals and Unlocking Collections at SMU. The students are learning museum theory and applying this to practical assignments to help ANSM and member museums respond to Unlocking Calls to Action. 

CollectiveAccess & NovaMuse

As museums are gearing up for the summer, we're seeing steady activity in the databases. With 369,000 objects and 340,000 media files, there is much work to be done and everyone is doing a great job "eating the elephant one bite at a time". With interns around, we are slowly picking away at the data improvement plan, and SMU students will be helping out with Made in Nova Scotia and seeking more connections in collections. Slowly but surely, we are learning more about collections. 

On the NovaMuse front, we are copying over files to relaunch NovaMuse with some improved search, sync and other functions. In case you missed it, we now have land acknowledgements and the option to view the website in French. We still have a backlog of new NovaMuseEd resources to catalogue and release, but we're so excited about all the progress we've made over the past months. 

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more news about training and tech upgrades and new staff...all sorts of fun stuff on the horizon!

March 2023 Update

What a month! As we talked about everything that's happened this month, it feels like one of the most productive and eventful months in ages. We are in a completely different place now than we were on March 1st. Here's a quick look at some highlights.

Nova Scotia Government Budget 2023-24

We were incredibly pleased to share our response to the budget last week. With increases in funding for both CMAP and NS Museum locally managed sites, we know that this will be a game-changer for museums that have been struggling so long and hard to make ends meet. We are still awaiting some more details on the $5.1 million increase for arts and culture, and look forward to sharing more when we hear more. We also recognize that as wonderful as this news is, it won't be enough to stop conversations in some organizations around continuing operations. That's why we released the Museum Life Cycle Completion Toolkit. This is something we commissioned two years ago and was led by Anita Price following her retirement from ANSM. We've been quietly working on it over the past year and hope that it will provide clarity to those asking these tough questions.

Canadian Museum Policy - Important Survey

The Department of Canadian Heritage has released a survey as part of its public consultations on developing a new national museum policy. The existing policy is older than a lot of museum employees. An update is long overdue. We are encouraging all of our members to respond to this survey in order to get a policy that reflects current museum realities rather than those of the 1960s and early 1970s. You are not limited to one response per museum, so share this link. Encourage every board member, staff member, and volunteer to fill it in. Make sure your voice is heard in Ottawa.

ANSM is Hiring Again

Our season of change continues, with Brittany deciding this month to pursue a new career. We are very sorry to see her go, but so very thankful for all she's done over the past year. We're excited for her new adventures and know we haven't seen or heard the last from her. The happy budget news puts a question mark over our hiring plans, so while we are figuring that out and waiting to hear more from government, a familiar face is alongside us and helping out. Sandi Stewart, who worked with us from 2016-2020, has been quietly helping out with various tasks. It's great to be working with Sandi again, and her familiarity with ANSM and our operations makes this collaboration easy. Her next big projects are the annual report and membership renewal, so you'll be hearing more about Sandi's work in the near future.

TRACK

We promised it last month; here's this year's training schedule for TRACK. Monthly one-hour webinars with have us exploring the eight pillars (remember that Marketing & Revenue Generation has been split out into Financial Stability and Communications). We are engaging with some wonderful experts in each of these areas to learn about different facets of the pillars. The webinars are running from April through November. Registration is now open for the April webinar and we're working on getting the other registrations open, so watch this space! 

Phillip has wrapped us his work with us on the resource library. We have a giant bin of (very old and not useful) books that have been culled, recycled reams of paper files from old workshops and training files, and have a box of paper files to update and get online (hello future intern project!). We now have 551 resources available on our website - one-stop shopping for forms & templates, books & museum literature, and tutorial videos. While we're in much better shape than before, we aren't done yet! We will continue to work on this resource library - scanning more forms & templates, getting book covers onto the website, and attaching book reviews and other helpful info. 

We are still waiting on the assessment document from the graphic designer, but it should arrive any day now, after which we will launch into the second phase of piloting. Last year the majority of pilot sites were in the central and southwest regions, so this year we will be turning our attention to the northeast and Cape Breton, but will also circle back to phase 1 pilot sites to make sure that we addressed their concerns, comments, and suggestions. 

Museums Canada Summit

Museums Canada came to town this week for their 2nd annual summit. This was the first in-person conference for many people since the pandemic started, and it was lovely to reconnect with peers from across the country, and make new connections. It was also fascinating to see all of the young, emerging professionals and how they engaged in their first conference. Lots of questions and discussions were posed to museum experts which made for a much more interactive conference than some others we've attended. Summit sessions addressed governance, HR, exhibit development, community collaborations, intangible cultural heritage, school programs, and much more.

Re-Org Workshop 

As soon as Museums Canada wrapped up, Anita and Brittany went to Tatamagouche for the Re-Org Workshop. Reports back suggest that everyone learned a lot, enjoyed the experience, and several people will be working one-on-one with Anita in their museum to try and upgrade their storage areas using the Re-Org method. 

Looking ahead, we have several upcoming learning opportunities. 

Museums 101

In May, Karin will be delivering Museums 101 online. This will be a 5-week course that takes place on Wednesday afternoons from 2-4pm, and is the only course of our Museum Studies Program that is being offered this year. Museums 101 is an excellent opportunity for new board members, staff and volunteers to learn about the scope of museum work, understand how museums have and continue to evolve, learn about ethical and other guidelines for our work, the key core functions as well as current hot-button topics such as advocacy, burnout and community-led services. If you aren't new to museums, it's a great way to update your knowledge and network with other participants. Registration is now open and spots are filling up fast, so don't miss out on this great course. 

To learn more and to register, click here.

Mi'kmaq Community Engagement Days

Building on the wonderful learning experience with the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre, this spring we are partnering with Membertou Heritage Park and Millbrook Cultural & Heritage Centre for more learning. On April 26th we will be in Membertou, and May 12th we will be in Millbrook. Facilitators will be sharing some cultural awareness training and decolonization information. Each session will be from 10am-3pm with lunch provided. To learn more and register for one or both of these sessions, click here.

CollectiveAccess

We talk a lot in the office about moving big tasks forward rather than letting them overwhelm us. We have a few analogies that we use depending on the day - sometimes we talk about eating the elephant one bite at a time, other days we talk about kicking the ball forward, and Karin's personal favourite is that we're all reading a book together and just turning pages and putting in our bookmark for the next person to pick it up again. All of these analogies fit collections work. This month there was a lot of editing of existing records, but there were also 400 new records and 2,500 images added to the databases. 

For those of you use the CollectiveAccess manual, we released an updated version this month. This is also a great time to remind everyone the importance of a training plan and ongoing supervision for summer students. Just because they're young doesn't mean they understand databases let alone museum standards. If you need help in this area, reach out! We are happy to talk to you about this, to give you some resources and tips. 

Rather than an image lesson of the month, we're going to talk about a data cleaning issue. We have a gigantic data improvement plan that we slowly pick away at (see above - eating that elephant). Right now we are nearing the end of reviewing all of the entities in Advisory Service member museums' databases. Thousands upon thousands of people, businesses and organizations are linked to collection records as donors, original owners, makers, manufacturers, and more. Unfortunately, sometimes the same person is entered multiple times which means the museum has to do multiple searches to find related items. We are trying to help fix this. So consider this your friendly reminder to be consistent when you link people to records. If John Smith sometimes goes as Johnny Smith, use the alternate name field to make note of that instead of adding a second entry for the same person. Another issue that we are seeing a lot is women not being documented by their own name. I know this sounds crazy in 2023, but one database we're working on right now has an incredible number of entries for Mrs. So-and-so using her husband's name rather than her own. Let's give these women the respect they deserve. Let's say their names. You can still make note of who they were married to or any other family-related notes you want. But let's give them back their names. 

Unlocking Collections

In cross-over CollectiveAccess and Unlocking news, we are in the final review stages of our French version of CollectiveAccess, as well as a French user manual! It feels wonderful to see so much progress on this area and be able to better serve Acadian museums in the province. 

We have also been putting in a lot of language work into NovaMuse. As we wrap up this year's MAP-funded work, we are adding a land acknowledment and commitment statement in English, French, Gaelic and Mi'kmaq. We are also doing the final review of NovaMuse's translation, which means the website will be available in both French and English. This is a huge improvement in accessibility, and one that we didn't expect to be able to release. Object records will not be translated from the language which they were entered in CollectiveAccess, but other text will be translated. 

Made in Nova Scotia work continues, and we now have 14 cultural affiliations attached to makers. This work has also brought a lot of extra and new information about our province's makers, so records are being updated and more objects are being linked to maker profiles. Yet another example of an elephant we are collectively eating. 

To end this update on a happy note, last month we mentioned that a funding application we submitted was unsuccessful. Thanks to our wonderful crew of interns and community partners, we have identified elements that we can move forward on, and also have a meeting in a couple weeks to see if we can scrounge up some money to tackle other elements. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us!

Educational Partnerships

We were very sorry to say goodbye to Jordyn this week, who has been working on NovaMuseEd resource development with us since January. She was a lovely addition to the team and ended up developing 7 new learning activities! This is a huge boost to online resources. We will be cataloguing and adding these to the site over the coming weeks so keep your eye on our social media for those announcements. And be sure to share NovaMuseEd with your local teachers. What a great way for museums to collaborate and provide ongoing services to schools and educators. You can read Jordyn's farewell message here.

We also welcomed a new intern this month. In case you missed it, Jacob started a virtual placement with us in early March from Centennial College in Ontario. You can read his intro message here. He's been instrumental in the CollectiveAccess and NovaMuse translation work, collaborated with Jordyn on NovaMuseEd resources and has several learning activities underway, has done data cleaning for 6 museums...and much more! With three more weeks ahead of him, we have no doubt that next month's update with be just as impressive.

Fleming students are wrapping up their reports for museums on their data cleaning & enrichment assignment. They put a lot of time and effort into this work and discovered some nifty information about objects in museums' collections. So if your museum was in this year's list of participants, Karin will be in touch soon with the students' report. We continue to hear from Fleming instructors that this is an incredibly valuable learning experience for the students. It's real-world. Many school assignments are not. We are already talking about next year's assignment. If you're reading this and wondering how to prepare to participate in this initiative, all you need to do is keep eating your own collections elephant. The more work you do, the better prepared you'll be.

Phew! Now you know why it's been such an eventful month at ANSM. We're feeling good about where things are at and where they are going, and look forward to sharing more good news next month.

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.

Welcome to 2023 - ANSM Update

It's a new year. Let's start again.

ANSM normally does a retrospective on the previous year over the holidays but this year ANSM staff did something we didn't do much over 2022... we rested. It was a much needed rest and now we are all back with a new perspective and new resolutions.  

Last year was a busy year for everyone - it was almost as though everyone tried to cram in all the stuff they missed over the two lockdown years into last year. The amount of stuff that got done was amazing but the pace was not sustainable. As ANSM moves into 2023 we have lots of big announcements to make, one of the biggest being that we are reconsidering the pace we work at and how to most efficiently address museum needs. With this in mind, ANSM has three big announcements to start the new year.

1. TRACK Update

This fall ANSM staff attended the four regional heritage group meetings.  It was so great to be at the meetings in person again. Many of you were at these meetings and heard our announcement that we are taking another development year for TRACK. In other words - no museums is being "evaluated" in 2023.  

Starting in April 2023 the TRACK program will launch another year of professional development opportunities for enrolled museums. Work will continue behind-the-scenes on the assessment document, including more rounds of piloting. We plan to have a final document to share by the fall regional heritage group meetings with full program launch for 2024.

Traditionally, museums were evaluated once every four years, with each museum completing the full document in one year and then having three years to prepare for their next evaluation.  At the regional meetings, a new approach was presented. Called the thematic approach, we proposed that assessments (formerly evaluation) would switch to all museums completing part of the assessment each year. For example, everyone would do Governance and Management in one year.  The program would stay on a 4 year cycle but museums would only do 25% of the work each year.  In addition to a more controlled workload, this also allows museums to work together on the yearly theme.

We are pleased to say the switch to the thematic approach has been approved and will start next year. The feedback we received on this proposed change has been very positive across the province. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months, but for now, know that yes, 2024 is "your museum's year" to participate in TRACK.

2.  Museum Studies Program

Last year was the conclusion of the third year, of the three year Museum Studies Program cycle, which has now been offered three times. We decided that many threes must mean something.  The Museum Studies Program has undergone some changes over the last years, with one of the biggest being the switch from in-person to virtual due to the pandemic. Additionally, new opportunities such as the Unlocking Community Museum Collections sessions and the TRACK program have had us all rethinking what training ANSM can offer.  

In order to give ANSM some time to reconsider the Museum Studies Program and how it can best serve our members, the program is being paused for 2023. It felt that the third end of the three year cycle was the right time. (Remember all those threes?) We have a plan to help anyone who is near completing their Museum Studies Program certificate and will be in touch with those only a few credits short by the end of January.  If you feel you are one of these people, don't hesitate to reach out to us.  

ANSM will still be offering many training opportunities. In addition to the previously mentioned TRACK courses, ANSM will offer several standalone opportunities this year, including:

- Introduction to Museums Course from Museum Studies Program 

- ANSM Fall Conference

- Re-Org workshop to be taught by Anita Price at the end of March, 2023 

More information on all these training opportunities will be announced soon, so watch the Beacon.

3. Letter to Minister of Communities, Culture, Tourism, and Heritage

At the fall regional heritage group meetings ANSM asked museums to join us in an advocacy campaign to Minister Dunn and the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism, and Heritage.  We had a great response to these letters and look forward to following up with an in-person meeting with the minister this month.  

In order to build on this work, ANSM is trying to start an Advocacy Working Group.  We know from the regional meetings there is a lot of passion for this work, but ANSM cannot lead this alone. We have received some interest in joining this group from the Central region, but this will not work if all four regions are not involved.  If you think you can be part of this group, please email Maggie director@ansm.ns.ca. In your email, please include your resume and a short note saying why you would like to be a part of this group. 

In addition to these news items, we are actively moving forward on other activities that began last year:

Unlocking Collections

During the summer and fall sessions, we acknowledged that this work was just beginning. We committed to sharing an update on progress by the end of the year. Updates went out to community partners in December, and we updated our website so that everyone can see the session recaps (one for each cultural group which includes key discussion themes and calls to action) and work that has happened since we met in person.

CollectiveAccess & NovaMuse

After 11 years with the same hosting company, we have switched to a new one which better meets our growing needs. We are very pleased to see NovaMuse and the databases running faster and smoother, and are excited to have some room to grow. We have two funding applications pending adjudication that would let us make some exciting improvements to the database and website: assessing audiovisual materials, working with CNSA on archival features, and stepping into digital storytelling. We will be sure to announce if our applications are successful, and ask everyone to keep their fingers and toes crossed!

Partnerships

We are excited to strengthen relationships and partnerships this year that will benefit our member museums and the communities they serve. 

A number of these partnerships are with post-secondary institutions as we strive to support emerging professionals. We are currently in talks with MSVU to host a Child and Youth Studies student over the winter months. They would be tasked with NovaMuseEd work that directly responds to the Unlocking calls to action. We have also confirmed with SMU that Karin will continue teaching the Museum Fundamentals and Unlocking Collections course, and this year ANSM will be helping to find part-time summer placements in museums for the students. Additionally, ANSM will be a guest lecturer in two Dal public history courses.

We are on the cusp of launching our annual Fleming College class assignment. This will be the 12th year for this project, and over the years students have edited and enriched over two thousand records from almost 60 museums. Wow. We have all learned so much from the process and research work. This is such a great example of what can be done through collaboration. 

Looking ahead, we have circulated a summer internship proposal to three museum studies schools in the hopes of bringing someone on board to assist with Unlocking calls to action from May through August. Opportunities feel almost endless, and we see this as a chance for an emerging professional to get some great experience that helps museums and communities move forward.

And last but not least, we are pleased to share that we have a new volunteer starting with ANSM. Naomi reached out to us after seeing our presentation on Unlocking Collections at the CNSA's annual conference. After a very fun brainstorming time we have hit upon a great big task that she's excited to start - adding cultural affiliations to the Made in Nova Scotia profiles of artists, craftspeople, manufacturers and makers. It's been a while since any work has been done on this data, so we're all keen to see what she discovers over the coming months and years. Yes that's right, she wants to work on this over the coming years. How amazing is that?!

November 2022 Update

TRACK Updates

Pilot sites are working through the draft assessment document and meeting with us to talk about the assessment process. 

Thank you to the 70+ people who joined us for Mi'kmaq Community Engagement Day. We've heard very positive feedback from the facilitators and participants, so are talking with community partners about doing similar training in other parts of the province. This is such an important learning journey. Stay tuned for more! 

Also keep in mind that in January we are partnering with SMU to delivery an online workshop called Unearthing the Impacts of Unconscious Bias and Microaggressions. Dr. Rohini Bannerjee and Deborah Brothers-Scott will lead participants through learning and self-reflection with the goal of mitigating the impacts of these issues in your museum. Click here to register for the January 17th workshop.

If you want to catch up on TRACK news or access previous training recordings, visit our website.

Regional Meetings

We had a great time travelling around the province for regional meetings this month, and really enjoyed the conversations we had with everyone. We know that there are questions about some of the advocacy and TRACK decision-making discussions; people waiting to hear about decisions and follow-up actions. We are working through input from the meetings with the TRACK working group and board. We know you're eager for news and will share more as soon as we can. 

Unlocking Museum Collections

We ended up postponing our Amherst session. The ANSM office got hit by the cold/flu plague going around, and our community partners wanted more time to build interest in the session, so we will be rescheduling in the new year. 

The next step for this work is to write the 'digitization strategy'. As we've said before, the conversations extended far beyond collections and digitization, so we are know this document won't be what was originally planned. It will be more of a roadmap for decolonizing museums. Yes there will be a heavy focus on collections and digitization because we need to make sure information gets back into communities, but there will be other elements too. 

We will also be sharing an update before the holidays so that everyone can see how we've been making progress on this work. There are a lot of calls to action and things to do that won't happen overnight, but we're all in this together and have some great collaborations in place and in the planning stages. We heard loud and clear that some communities have consultation fatigue, and feel like people come in and make promises and are never heard from again, so we want to make sure that we don't do this to anyone. So again, stay tuned for more info. This is exciting work. 

CollectiveAccess Updates

The exciting news about CollectiveAccess is that we're in the process of migrating two museums so will soon have a lot more Acadian and African Nova Scotian content on NovaMuse; thousands of new objects and stories to share. In addition to this, we've seen a decent amount of activity in the databases this month, with 585 new records and 1,588 new images being entered. That means that collectively, there are 361,314 records and 334,805 images entered in the databases.

Here are the regional stats:
Southwest: 154,763 records and 109,673 images
Central: 110,016 records and 115,003 images
Northeast: 63,074 records and 83,358 images
Cape Breton: 33,461 records and 26,771 images

Your image lesson of the month is a bit of a laundry list...reminders about how to get a good photo. The object is a small black address book with gold accents. The cover is fairly glossy and reflective. If I were digitizing this object, here's what I would do:
- Use a flatbed scanner rather than camera
- Using the preview mode, I would crop and adjust the image before making the actual scan
- If there are any markings or decorations on the back cover, I would scan the back. 
- I would repeat this process for key pages, but depending on the age of the address book would not make these images accessible to the public. 

If this were a 3-dimensional object rather than a book, here's what I would do:
- Swap out backdrop fabric so that a white or light cloth would contrast with the dark object. This will make it really pop to the eye. 
- Move the scale to the lower left corner, hugging the object without actually touching it. 
- Use umbrella lights and turn off the camera flash so there is no flash burn - the bright spots in the middle and bottom of the book cover.
- Change the orientation of the camera so that it aligns with the shape of the object, and fill the frame neatly and tightly.
- Crop any uneven edges.

Educational Partnerships
We said goodbye to Olivia last week as she wrapped up her MSVU Child & Youth Studies placement. We are so proud of all that she accomplished and are slowly releasing her new and updated resources to NovaMuseEd. 

It's that time of year to prepare for our annual Fleming College data cleaning project. Emails have been sent out to the next museums in the list, so if you received one, please respond asap and let us know if you want to participate. If not we'll move on to the next museum in the list. This is a great project that gets an extra set of eyes and research hands in your database, and this year we'll be linking it up with our Unlocking work. We are already looking forward to what the students have to say about this next group of 220 objects. 

We are about to make our pitch for a summer 2023 intern to several museum studies programs. If you have ideas for internships but aren't sure who to talk to, feel free to reach out. The students will begin searching for their placement in January so now is the time to plan.

In case you missed it...

Karin writes a reflective blog post for Remembrance Day. This year it reflects on the message we heard over and over again at Unlocking sessions - museums need to tell the whole story, to tell the truth even if its uncomfortable. To read the post, click here. 

October 2022 Update

Strategic Planning

This month the ANSM board and staff gathered together to talk all things ANSM. There was good food, a lot of laughter, and a lot of serious conversation about where we are and where we need to go as an organization. We worked with a graphic facilitation team this time, which means we have a really cool infographic-style poster to share with you in the near future. As we talked, information and ideas were added to the poster. We all left feeling optimistic and even a little excited about the future of ANSM, and how we can better serve museums. 

TRACK Updates

The long-awaited assessment document has been circulated to pilot sites and meetings with these museums have started. We've been really enjoying getting out to regional meetings to share updates and brainstorm about this new program. 

Two more learning opportunities are coming up. First up is M'ikmaq Community Engagement Day at the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre in Halifax. Theresa Meuse will be our facilitator for a day of discussions around Culture 101, Truth and Reconciliation, bias in the workplace, how we can work together, and more. This session will run from 10am-3pm and the small registration fee of $25 will cover lunch and nutrition breaks. Click here to register.

The second is our rescheduled Unearthing the Impacts of Unconscious Bias and Microaggressions workshop. Our friends at SMU are facilitating this one. Dr. Rohini Bannerjee and Deborah Brothers-Scott will lead participants through learning and self-reflection with the goal of mitigating the impacts of these issues in your museum. The workshop will take place on January 17th at 1030am. Click here to register.

If you are looking for general information about TRACK, or want to access recordings of previous learning opportunities, visit our website.

Regional Meetings

Last week the Fall regional meetings kicked off in the southwest at the Queens County Museum. These meetings are such a great chance to connect with museum peers and to learn about what's going on around the province. As mentioned above, we're going to talk about TRACK, and we will also be talking about an important advocacy opportunity. 

The Central Region meeting is tomorrow, Cape Breton's is Thursday, and the Northeast meeting is Friday. If you haven't yet registered for one of these meetings, visit our website. Meetings are free to attend and lunch will be provided. Hope to see you there!

Unlocking Community Museum Collections

We had a lovely time in Chéticamp this month to talk about how museums can better serve the Acadian community. As we've said with other sessions, this one was unique and fascinating. It was another step towards building bridges of understanding. The final Unlocking Collections session is happening November 17th in Amherst, with the Cumberland African Nova Scotia Association and Black Cultural Centre. To learn more and register, click here. 

CollectiveAccess Updates

Now that so many museums are closed for the winter, database activity has slowed down even more. What's really encouraging though is that the disparity between number of records and number of associated media files continues to lessen. There are now 360,729 records and 333,217 images entered in all the databases.

Regionally, here's how that translates:
Southwest: 154,717 records and 109,506 images
Central: 109,739 records and 113,927 images
Northeast: 62,812 records and 83,013 images
Cape Breton: 33,461 records and 26,771 images

We've talked before about the need for a methodical approach to collections management work - to build a good foundation first so that additional details can then be added in a logical way. A number of years ago we worked with museums to develop customized game plans so that workers would have specific and unique instructions on conducting database, inventory, and digitization work. If you don't have this, reach out! We will help you develop one. We've seen such great work from museums that use this approach. Game plans get everyone on the same page and working toward common goals. If you don't like the the building analogy, think of it like reading a book with your colleagues. It's a tome, but that's okay because you're all getting through it together.

Our image lesson of the month is seasonal. Fall in Nova Scotia means apple picking, right? And one of the wonderful things we have in museum collections that links to this tradition, is the barrel stencil. These are functional, artistic, and full of fantastic historical detail. You can learn about company names, families involved, business or farm location, and see logos or other branding in use. These are super cool. But because they are made out of very thin, cut metal, they can be really hard to read on an angle. This photo is a great example. We can tell that words have been cut out of the metal, and we can even read a few. But we can't easily decipher the entire object. Imagine the frustration of your online audience, staff member, volunteer, or researcher when they are looking at your museum's collection on NovaMuse or reviewing records in your database. Everything else in the shot is great - good framing, good lighting, good scale placement. But you can't truly see the object. 

Now let's look at the same barrel stencil with a slight adjustment. Wow right?! Treating this stencil like an artwork and shooting straight-on makes a beautiful, legible, amazingly clear shot. You can frame this and hang it in your home. Maybe without the scale, but you get the idea. Someone took the time to set up the shot and the result is impressive. Now imagine those same people looking at your record online, or working in your database in-house. You've sent a message to your external audience that your museum is professional, respectful, thoughtful, and an excellent caretaker of the collection. They may not sit there and think these things about you in a conscious way, but they will be understanding them on the subconscious level. Don't minimize the power of that message. 

Educational Partnerships

Last week we all went to the Social Studies Teachers Association Conference to share NovaMuseEd with teachers. The response was overwhelmingly positive; teachers like what they see and are excited for more. They also shared some ideas on how we can further improve this resource. So with that in mind, the great news is that Olivia has finished up four educational resources for NovaMuseEd this month. She has lots of ideas and is excited to see what else she can do before she wraps up her practicum in early December (that's the bad news...she isn't with us forever). If anyone wants to get their museum's educational programs online, feel free to reach out. 

In case you missed it...

We've quietly pre-scheduled a number of blog posts over the coming months. These were written by our recent interns, SMU students, and ANSM staff. So in case you missed it, we want to draw your attention to one written by Madeline on cleaning up the culture field in CollectiveAccess. Click here to read about what we found and how we can all use this field to its full potential.