Category Archives: Museums

Local History Museum Management

Preservation and Conservation for Small Museums – Videos

Posted on April 29, 2011 | Comments Off on Preservation and Conservation for Small Museums – Videos

Preservation Week 2011 has brought us many examples of how to save our treasures – both those help by families and by our community museums.   I’ve added a link to a Nebraska’s PBS website with several excellent, short, easily viewed videos on problems facing our small museums.  Note also the excellent articles written by experts to enhance those already available from the Library of Congress (see list below).

Our local history museums are our community attics and basements and need support in providing the best care they can for our artifacts, antiques, documents and photographs.  If you are a board member or volunteer of one of our local museums, please take the time to view these videos. They can help you recognize problems and plan for the future!

http://www.netnebraska.org/extras/treasures/

—-Karen
Contact the League by email ———  info at snocoheritage.org

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Posted in Conservation & Collections Care, Digital Collections & Photographs, Museums

Local history museums are like Icebergs

Posted on August 12, 2009 | Comments Off on Local history museums are like Icebergs

Our Historical Society Museums and Genealogical societies are our communities scrapbooks and antique collections – most of what is there is being preserved and in storage waiting for the appropriate exhibit or program to be featured. And managing all of this is complicated.

Congratulations to the Monroe Historical Society for winning the grant for a Museum assessment program. Running a local history museum is hard work. There are many rewards but the obligations can be overwhelming for volunteers and most of our small museums and genealogical groups are totally operated by unpaid history lovers who want to research and share. But there are difficult questions about what to keep for collections and what to say no to, finding volunteers to help keep our collections open, planning the next fresh new exhibit and the endless inventorying and cataloging, not to mention digitizing, publicity, programming…. Sometimes its just nice to get some outside input to help us focus on the big picture as well as the fun of the history. The Monroe museum has a great wealth of historic materials and newly written history on their website to build on for a new museum. Best of luck to them! http://monroehistoricalsociety.org/

The applications for next year’s round are on Association of American Museums Museum Assessment Program – FY 2010 Deadline: February 16, 2010

For conservation assessment grants see –

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/CAP/

Other grants –

National Endowment for the Humanities List of Grant programs

IMLS American Heritage Preservation Program

Karen Prasse
kprasse@yahoo.com
Stanwood Area Historical Society Volunteer www.sahs-fncc.org
& President, League of Snohomish County Heritage Organizations
www.snocoheritage.org

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Posted in Conservation & Collections Care, Funding Resources & Grants, Museums

Snohomish County HB 1386 Community Heritage Grant Program

Posted on June 23, 2009 | 1 comment

June 17, 2009. House Bill 1386 Grant Program

Councilman Brian Sullivan, Donna Ambrose, Sharie Freemantle and Wendy Becker made a presentation to the Historic Preservation Commission Wednesday evening June 16th creating the House Bill 1386 Heritage Grant Program. Councilman Sullivan made it clear that this program would not have been possible in these tough economic times without the help of all the council members and the executive’s office who came together to support this plan.

If the link to the application and guidelines at the bottom of this message doesn’t work, try www.snoco.org front page under “Community Heritage Program.”

There is $45,000 in this fund for this calendar year and we would really like to see this all distributed to support heritage in Snohomish County. There is a ¼ cash match required and a ¼ in-kind match. For this year, the timing is tight. Applications are due by August 10, 2009 for expenditure by December 31, 2009. Next year the cycle will operate on the calendar year.

There is a provision for smaller grants that can be applied for via a letter application.

The application guidelines are not yet up on the web site, so we’ll provide more information later. Any questions can be addressed to Shari Freemantle at 425-388-3559 or sharie.freemantle@snoco.org or Wendy Becker at 425-388-3186 or wendy.becker@snoco.org.

Information submitted by Tracy Tallman, Member of the Historic Preservation Commission lacquer@comcast.net

http://www.co.snohomish.wa.us/documents/Departments/Council/News/CommunityHeritageProgram_5.pdf

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Posted in Conservation & Collections Care, Funding Resources & Grants, Historic Preservation, Museums