RideShare to SMA!

Looking for a last minute way to get to SMA? Check out the RideShare event you can join on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/190674281139822/

Good luck and see you soon!

Call for Proposals for SMA 2012 now Available!

The Small Museum Association (SMA) is planning its 28th Annual Conference, which will be held in Ocean City, Maryland, February 19 - 21, 2012. The most important part of that planning is assembling speakers for the 40+ concurrent program sessions that will be presented during the conference. Through this Call for Proposals we invite you to share your knowledge, experience and lessons learned with hundreds of colleagues who – like you – are committed to small museums everywhere. The deadline for submitting all proposals is September 1, 2011.

As the only conference in the country dedicated specifically to small museums, the Annual Conference draws museum professionals from the Mid-Atlantic region and from across the country as our membership and attendee base continues to expand. The conference goal is to support and nurture the small museum community through a mix of invited speakers, contributed presentations, workshops and engaging discussion. The conference provides a unique and comfortable learning environment for individuals and institutions with diverse experiences to meet and learn from each other, to share their expertise, build capacity and increase professionalism. Conference sessions typically provide practical, relevant discussions and examples for small museums and institutions with limited budgets and staff. This year, the Small Museum Conference will offer sessions that address the conference theme, Adapt and Reuse: Fresh Ideas and New Approaches.

We invite proposals based on institutional experience or original research. Proposal topics should explore how organizations can adapt and reuse ideas, strategies, or even materials to create successful programs and healthy institutions, no matter how small. This should be a central theme to any presentation, whether it addresses fundraising, education, curatorial issues, museum boards or volunteers. Sessions should also indicate the level of the information that will be provided, and whether it is most appropriate for a beginner who is new to museums, someone with intermediate experience, or an expert in the field.

Possible session topics include: · Mining your Board - How to take advantage of skills you didn’t know they had · New ways to sell your project - writing winning grant applications · Using every day materials to create amazing exhibits · Turn your volunteers into social media ambassadors · How to be green on a shoestring budget · More with Less - Coping with reduced resources · Which Hat Today? - How to grow your museum with a staff of one.


Proposals should be submitted using the form here, and sent to one of the SMA Speaker Coordinators no later than September 1, 2011.

 SMA's mission is to develop and maintain a peer network among people who work for small museums, giving them opportunities to learn, share knowledge and support one another, so that they, in turn, can better serve their institutions, communities and profession.

Thank you from SMA Conference Chair!

It was great seeing familiar faces and meeting new friends at this year's annual meeting in Ocean City, Maryland. In about a month, the SMA conference planning team will meet to recap the highlights of our time spent in Ocean City and will brainstorm on how to improve all aspects of the conference for 2012. We hope you take the opportunity to review selected sessions online on our blog, which you may have missed during the conference. Please feel free to email us if you have any suggestions for speakers, roundtables, sessions or even ideas for
a future conference theme.
Thank you again and see you next year!
Jason

Sample Press Release from SMA Conference

Did you attend this past week's conference? SMA has a sample press that you can customize to meet your museum's needs. You can either edit a copy here (Google Docs) or copy and paste the version below. If you use the Google Docs version, please download it to your computer versus saving the version on Google. Thank you. If you have questions about using it, please email conference@smallmuseum.org for more information or for an attachment version.


For Immediate Release
Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Media Contact:
Lauren Silberman
Publications Chair
conference@smallmuseum.org
www.smallmuseum.org

MEDIA ADVISORY

The Small Museum Association Hosted 27th Annual Conference

Ocean City, Maryland – [INSERT YOUR MUSEUM NAME HERE] attended the 27th annual Small Museum Association Conference (SMA) in Ocean City, Maryland from Sunday, February 20 – Tuesday, February 22, 2010. Over 260 people from small museums across the country attended the three-day event. The [INSERT YOUR MUSEUM NAME HERE] believes strongly in engaging with other museum professionals and keeping up with best practices and cutting-edge ideas in the museum field.

“In today’s challenging environment, it’s increasingly important for museums – large and small – to come together and work in a collaborative fashion to help preserve our nation’s history and treasures. Many people are not aware that small museums comprise the overwhelming majority of this country’s cultural sites, and as such, it is critical that we find ways for these institutions to endure,” says Ken Hickman, immediate past president of the Small Museum Association and director of Penn State All-Sports Museum in University Park, Pennsylvania.

This year’s conference featured speakers who engaged attendees with a variety of topics, ranging from strategic planning to educating homeschoolers to managing traveling exhibitions. Comprised of seasoned and emerging museum professionals, the speakers helped members solve everything from basic problems like managing volunteers to monumental issues such as dealing with a fundraising crisis. Additionally, they discussed innovative ways small museums can reach their audiences using the latest technologies. The diverse topics were beneficial to every level of museum professional.

In the Museum Resource Hall, attendees visited with 30 exhibitors in a variety of museum-related professions, including exhibition design, software development, and publishing.

Each year, the conference selects a different theme. This year, SMA incorporated a “Night at the Small Museum: Bringing Museums to Life” theme. Attendees dressed as living black and white photographs, artifacts come to life, and more clever concepts. They participated in a “tableau vivant” or living pictures, in which different groups staged famous paintings for the rest of the conference to guess.

The conference featured a silent auction with items from a number of museums, including a plane ride in a historic 1940s vintage aircraft courtesy of the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover, Delaware. Proceeds from the silent auction go to support the scholarship fund for future conferences.

The Small Museum Association is an all volunteer organization serving small museums in the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond. SMA's mission is to develop and maintain a peer network among people who work for small museums, giving them opportunities to learn, share knowledge and support one another, so that they, in turn, can better serve their institutions, communities and profession. Additional information can be found at our website at www.smallmuseum.org, its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/smallmuseumassociation, its blog at www.smallmuseumassociation.blogspot.com, or its Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/smallmuseums.

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Day 1 Highlights!

Before the attendees arrived, some former board members and conference committee members grabbed breakfast at nearby Dumser's.

The pre-conference grant workshop was well attended - three breakout sessions were offered to cater to attendees' needs, such as first time grant proposal writers, collections care grant needs, and writing grant proposals for reaching audiences.

Wow! What a crowded resource hall for the wine and cheese opening evening event.

New this year: Eat and Engage opportunities. I joined the emerging museum professionals (even if I'm not sure that I qualify as one anymore) at Galaxy 66.

And so it begins...

We're only minutes away from opening registration at SMA this year. You can follow all of the activity at our facebook page, which includes links to this blog, our Twitter feed (join the conversation with hashtag #sma11), photos and more. To kick things off, here's a flip-through version of the final program to enjoy. Hope you'll be joining us - live or virtually. After the conference, we'll have information from presenters, podcasts, advocacy information, and much, much more.

Open publication - Free publishing - More program

Conference Presenter: Lindsey Baker

In the spring of 2010, Mary Alexander and I, along with Amanda Wessleman, had the opportunity to present at the American Association of Museums. The three of us put together a session on strategic planning for small museums. We brought the spirit of small museums to the big stage in a big way. Not only did we present to a room full of eager faces, we also took the session virtual and did one of the 10 web sessions as well. We had a blast talking about the ins and outs of strategic planning for small museums. Surrounded by professionals from museums of all sizes, we had fun discussing what special situations arise in small museums--like what to do when your favorite board member who also happens to be your best volunteer and your biggest donor hates strategic planning and thinks it is a waste of time. The special situations that always arise in small museums can be even more interesting when you attempt to get a group of people to plan. Many of the SMA attendees have already been through this process or are dreading the thought of it. We are looking forward to an interesting conversation at SMA with our session's attendees on how to overcome the obstacles to strategic planning in small museums.

SMA Memories from Hotel Coordinator

I attended my first SMA conference back when I was either a sophomore or a junior in undergrad at Goucher College. I remember having no idea what to expect, but really enjoying my time in Ocean City. I had the opportunity to see small museum people let their hair loose on the Monday night banquet and I've been hooked ever since on small museum work. Since that fateful first time, I've attended many SMA conferences but always been an outside observer spending my time mingling with the small museum community I've grown to know and love. This year will be very different. I am the "hotel" person on the SMA Conference Committee--very big shoes to fill because of the excellent job Mike Leister has done in the past. And I will be presenting on several different items--Strategic Planning with Mary Alexander, StEPs with Rod Cofield, and even a book group discussion with Mary Alexander. So I don't think I'll have the same free time I once had to leisurely float from one little group to the other. But I'm hoping that I'll get the chance to chat with old friends and hopefully meet other first-timers--people who are just being inducted into the wonderful small museum world!

-- Lindsey Baker, Hotel Coordinator

Conference Presenter: Rebecca Lawrence

As we get closer to the big conference next month (have you applied yet?), we will be hosting some blog posts from various presenters, committee members, and others involved with the conference. This post is from Rebecca Lawrence, who is leading a session on Monday, February 21, 2011 entitled, ROUNDTABLE - SMA Book Club: Audience Participation and Nina Simon’s The Participatory Museum.

I'm excited to be part of the first SMA book club about Nina Simon's The Participatory Museum. Her text raises key questions about how a museum defines its relationships with various audiences, addresses key trends in technology, how creating participatory programs cross traditional department lines, and ultimately how one participates in a museum! Information about her book can be found online at http://www.participatorymuseum.org/.

It is a text that's inspired me to change the way I think about education programs at the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, our institution's presence on social media networks, and how our exhibit themes and objects relate to our visitors. Her real world examples and applications to the museum context even serve as great creativity exercises (for example, consider how the personalized voice we see in most major marketing campaigns can impact your institution in a positive way). Simon also provides a participation model you can modify for your own institution, that you can consider as you evaluate your projects.

• How has reading her book left an impact on your practice? 
• What questions has it raised for you? 

We hope to engage in a book discussion on one of the most popular books in our field.  If you've just started reading, what phrases, thoughts, examples resonate with you? Join me, Rebecca Lawrence, and engage in a discussion about the many ideas in Nina Simon's The Participatory Museum. Bring some of your own examples with you to our session and share with us on the SMA blog before and after the conference!

Conference Presenter: Miriam Musco

As we get closer to the big conference next month (have you applied yet?), we will be hosting some blog posts from various presenters, committee members, and others involved with the conference. This post is from Miriam Musco, who is leading a session on Monday, February 21, 2011 entitled, What Do They Want From Us? Understanding the Needs of Homeschoolers in Museums.

Here's a short quiz for everyone:  

When you see a homeschool group walk through your front doors, do you:

A) Scratch your head in confusion?

B) Cringe?

C) Jump for Joy?

If you answered A or B, I would suggest attending my presentation, "What Do They Want From Us?  Understanding the Needs of Homeschoolers in Museums".  You'll learn about the different types and philosophies of homeschooling and what each of them wants from a museum visit.  I hope that by the end of end of my session, you'll be able to answer C to this quiz.

Conference Presenter: Dean Krimmel

As we get closer to the big conference next month (have you applied yet?), we will be hosting some blog posts from various presenters, committee members, and others involved with the conference. This post is from Dean Krimmel, who is leading a double session on Monday, February 21, 2011 entitled, So What? How to find BIG compelling IDEAS that make your historic site worth visiting.

Ever been challenged by the dreaded “so what?” question? I can hear my professor’s voice now—more than 30 years later. Tell me why you want to research this topic. What can we learn? Why does it matter?

I’m hearing it more and more these days in my work with historic sites and history museums. Except this time it’s coming from the public—usually the local community. Well, the truth is, I’m sensing it rather than hearing the words. People aren’t asking us directly; they’re simply voicing their skepticism by staying away. In growing numbers.

So, what do we do?

First, let’s agree that it’s our responsibility to change people’s perception. Denial and anger only makes it worse. Second, let’s stop relying on mission statements, however well crafted, to communicate our interpretive messages and bring people through the doors. 

What we need are some BIG compelling IDEAS that have the power to stop a distracted public in its tracks, make our sites livelier, and energize our staff, volunteers and board. We need to begin asking ourselves the “so what?” question. We need to dig a little deeper into our mission and the history we interpret.

Are you up for it? Join me and your colleagues at “So What? How to find BIG compelling IDEAS that make your historic site worth visiting.” Together, we’ll get reenergized about the sites and stories we’ve come to love—and discover new ways to convince the public that we matter.

The Pre-Conference Program Has Landed!

The mailer will be shipping out soon, but here's your first taste of what's in store for this year's conference!

Click here for the pre-conference mailer.
(Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

AASLH In Person and Online Conference

I know many of you will be attending AASLH's Annual Meeting this week in Oklahoma. If anyone would like to report on the meeting for the blog, please email us at conference@smallmuseum.org. If you're not able to attend the meeting, consider taking part in their online conference, which includes six sessions and a bonus podcast. We'd also love your post on the blog for the online conference as well! Have a great time learning and networking, small museumers :)

First Glance at the SMA Save the Date Card!

Within the next few weeks, SMA member institutions will be receiving the new save the date card for this year's conference in their mailboxes. We wanted to give you a preview!

Call for Proposals: Annual Conference

There is still time to get your proposals in!! Contact us today.

Small Museum Association
2011 Annual Conference Call for Proposals

The Small Museum Association (SMA) is planning its 27th Annual Conference, which will be held in Ocean City, Maryland, February 20 – 22, 2011. The most important part of that planning is assembling speakers for the 40+ concurrent program sessions that will be presented during the conference. Through this Call for Proposals we invite you to share your knowledge, experience and lessons learned with hundreds of colleagues who – like you – are committed to small museums everywhere. The deadline for submitting all proposals is September 1, 2010.

As the only conference in the country dedicated specifically to small museums, the Annual Conference draws museum professionals from the Mid-Atlantic region and from across the country as our membership and attendee base continues to expand. The conference goal is to support and nurture the small museum community through a mix of invited speakers, contributed proposals, workshops and engaging discussion. The conference provides a unique and comfortable learning environment for individuals and institutions with diverse experiences to meet and learn from each other, to share their expertise, build capacity and increase professionalism. Conference sessions typically provide practical, relevant discussions and examples for small museums and institutions limited budgets and staff.

This year, the Small Museum Conference would like to offer sessions that address the conference theme, Night at the Small Museum: Bringing Museums To Life. We invite proposals based on institutional experience or original research. Proposal topics should explore how organizations can find new and exciting ways to make small museums relevant, lively and sustainable. This should be a central theme to any presentation, whether it addresses fundraising, education, curatorial issues, museum boards or volunteers. Sessions should also indicate the level of information that will be provided, and whether it is most appropriate for a beginner who is new to museums, someone with intermediate experience, or an expert in the field. Possible session topics include:

Diversifying the Museum Board
Creative Fundraising
Successful education programs that engage new audiences
Volunteers - Mining new sources and sustaining engagement
Professional Development and Staff Unity
Marketing and PR – Changing the image of small museums
Collections Care for the 21st Century

Contact SMA Speaker Coordinators Helen Wirka, helenwirka@gmail.com, or Jennifer Ruffner, jagmuseweb@gmail.com with questions and to receive the CFP form. Forms must be submitted no later than September 1, 2010.

Behind the Scenes at SMA: People Profiles

Name: Jason Illari

SMA Position: SMA Conference Planning Committee Chair

Museum: Executive Director Blount Mansion Association Knoxville Tennessee

When did you first become involved with SMA?
Attended my first SMA conference as a scholarship recipient in 2005. I have been attending ever since!

Why did you want to join the board?
I wanted to somehow be of service to the many small museum professionals who are themselves striving to serve local communities and audiences from diverse backgrounds.

What is the best thing about SMA?
It really should be called SMF... Small Museums Family.

What do you hope to see SMA do in the future?
Make the annual conference and its resources more accessible to a larger number of Small Museums.

CFP in Word Form!

Last week, we posted the Call for Proposals for the Small Museum Association's 2011 Conference in PDF form. In case you'd like it in Word form, you are in luck! Download it here.



Photo: Attendees at 2010 SMA Conference.

Call for Proposals for 2011 SMA Conference

Our annual call for proposals for the sessions for our 2011 conference is now available!

Access the information here.

The conference is Sunday, February 20 - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 in Ocean City, Maryland.

Submission deadline is September 1, 2010.

For more information, email our speaker chairs here and here.

Photo from SMA Conference 2010.

Resources from SMA 2010 Conference

This website contains resources from the 2010 SMA Conference presenters. It will continue to be updated as more resources become available from presenters. If you have any questions or materials to share, please contact SMA at conference@smallmuseum.org. Thank you.