Learning Through the Museum Assessment Program

In this week’s post, I want to highlight one of the most effective museum review processes around –  the American Association of Museum’s (AAM) Museum Assessment Program (MAP).  If you are not affiliated with a museum, the MAP model of mentoring is an ideal for other nonprofits to support their base constituencies.  The MAP process first guides an institution through an intensive period of self-study.  Next, the self-study documentation is assigned to an external peer reviewer, who then visits the institution for an onsite review.  Finally, the reviewer produces a report that is delivered to the institution with recommendations to help guide the museum through its short and long-term tasks for best practices.  Over the past two years at the C.H. Nash Museum, we completed two separate MAP reviews – one that considered our entire institutional operation and a second that focused on our collections.  As a reasonably small museum, we found this process extremely helpful.

Here are our major takeaways from the process:

• During our weekly meetings for the self-study period, all staff, including our graduate assistants met and discussed specific questions in the MAP review.  The decision to engage the entire staff in the study allowed us to build a solid foundation for both the peer review and the final report.  Through the self-study,I learned a great deal about aspects of our operation that are not part of my day-to-day experience at the museum.  The self-study is structured such that it produces a truly holistic assessment of the museum operation.
• Both of our MAP final reports produced superb analyses and recommendations for our museum operation.  The recommendations were organized as short, middle, and long-term goals and further ranked by cost to carry out.  The final report also included resources to guide the implementation of the recommendations.
• Carry the prestige and authority of the AAM, our governing authority and board were very receptive to the final report recommendations.  As a  small institution with perhaps too many pokers in the fire, the MAP process formed a basis for us to strategically reassess our process for the coming years.
• I also appreciate that the MAP program does not end with the final report.  Both of our AAM reviewers extended an open invitation to remain in dialogue as we work through the report recommendations.

As well, MAP now provides a resource for digital interaction with a newly launched on-line community for MAP participants.  Some of the on-line resources include:

• a guide for using completed MAP reports to leverage funding for museum projects and needs
• a set of links for museum best practices
• a series of webinars on a range of museum practices
• and a recently launched blog that will hopefully continue to grow

The MAP program is an excellent resource particularly for the small to mid-sized museums that need to step back and take a fresh look at their total operation in general or as a first step toward AAM accreditation.  The MAP process is a very useful tool as we move into the new realities of sustainable, engaged, and socially relevant museum operations.

Have you benefited from a MAP or similar type of experience?

Visit the MAP weblink for more information about applying for the program.

Technology and Student Engagement

This week’s post is an interview with Jennifer Carey whose blog Indiana Jen focuses on the interface of Education, History, and Technology.  As an educator, Jennifer’s style is engaging and innovative.  She has taught on the collegiate level and in the Johns Hopkins program, the Center for Talented Youth.  Currently she teaches at an independent secondary school is Fort Worth Texas.  In the interview below, Jennifer provides insights on several key issues relevant to outreach and education.

Will you tell us a bit about yourself?  How you developed and meshed your interests in archaeology, education, and technology?

I have always been a history buff. As a child, we took vacations to Gettysburg or Yosemite or other areas of historical significance. When I went to college, I did a double major in History and Anthropology. My freshmen year, I did my first dig in Belize and while I knew Jungle Archaeology wasn’t for me, fieldwork had me hooked. I then went off to UCLA to study archaeology. Technology has always been important in archaeology – think about Evans introducing the “new technology” of photography at the turn of the last century.

My technology love developed separately – we had a home computer when most people didn’t own calculators. I was writing DOS before I could compose a paragraph. I’ve always had a habit for ‘gadgets,’ computers, software, etc. It’s an expensive habit

A couple of years ago you were podcasting your Classical Archaeology class lectures to college students.  How were the podcasts received?

I started my podcasting as an experiment and the University largely supported me as they saw it as a potentially great marketing tool. I was primarily nervous that students would stop coming to class. I told my students that if attendance dropped off, I would stop. To my surprise, attendance didn’t drop. In fact, what happened was that my students stopped writing down every word on my PowerPoints, stopped taking so many notes, and focused more on what I was saying and engaging in a discussion – they could always go back to hear what I said. My experience was that there was more *learning*. The really, really good students would often tell me that they put the podcasts on their iPods and listened during their commute or at the gym. I also had a number of students with learning differences that told me that the podcasts helped them to perform better in the classroom.

You are now posting a regular blog Indiana Jen: History, Education, and Technology (not to be confused with another blog called Indiana Jenn).  Besides the obvious difference of lecture based podcasts and briefer topical blog posts, in terms of communication, how are the two different?

Blogging takes more time and planning than Podcasting did. My podcasts were literally just recording my lectures. My blog takes more planning and research. However, it’s also more interactive – which can be great fun (and sometimes a little frustrating). However, if I have a thought or idea as an academic or a teacher I now have a venue for sharing ideas and engaging in communication.

Your work is primarily focused in the academic setting.  Have you done much educational work in bringing archaeology to the broader community?

As I am now out of Academia and firmly in education (teaching history at a private school) my goal has definitely become more expansive. I really like to bring interesting topics to the ‘main-stream,’ which is why I’ll write up stories that I think will interest most people – child sacrifice in the Andes, the destruction of Pompeii, cannibalism of the Donnor party, etc. You’ll notice I don’t write a lot about syncretism in Roman Britain or dialectical exchange of colonial cultures. Ultimately, my goal is to make history less intimidating (it’s not about dates and names and $5 words) and to open people up to broader experiences.

In a recent article Insistent Questions in Our Learning Age (Journal of Museum Education Vol. 35, No. 3) Beverly Sheppard writes about the under utilization of museums by public schools. In archaeology and history, what role do you see museums playing in the classroom setting?

You know, I would wholly agree with this, especially in non-urban settings where museums are far away. “Field Trips” are expensive, stressful, and a logistical nightmare. For example, I teach AP Art History with 11 kids. Sounds like loading them all on a bus and taking them to a museum would be easy. However, I have to find the funds for the bus, track down another chaperone, arrange lunch, make sure our insurance covers it, get them out of their other five class (which could be things like AP Calculus and English), and keep track of them while they’re wandering. Because of these issues, a lot of teachers and administrators “just say no.” This is just a shame – my students experience so much more at the museum – they *see* the objects they’ve been studying, they *apply* what they have learned, and they are exposed to a broader spectrum of information.

I’m hoping that the recent trend of Museums putting their collections online and things like the Google Museum Project can help to bring the experience to the classroom. Still, there is no substitute to the ‘real experience.’

As an advocate for technology in the classroom, what are the new trends that you find exciting?

Here are a few examples that are of interest to me – Cell Phones in the Classroom (my current talk topic), 1:1 initiatives, 3D Tours of Museums and sites, Preservation of Archaeological sites (e.g. the 3D Rome Project with Google).

In Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirkey notes that technology does not create the behavior, rather technology enables a better implementation of an existing behavior.  How do you see that playing out in your classroom and beyond?

You can’t simply throw technology at people and say ‘go’ – you have to teach them to use it properly as well as a digital citizenship aspect.

I teach students from 9-12 grade. I lay down ground rules for behavior online and in the classroom with our tools. I believe that this is an evolutionary process – my younger students are much better at following the rules and listening to input. However, my older students (who have been using these tools for years) live by their own rules and are more resistant to what they see as restrictions.

I believe that educators should not only be saying “Use PowerPoint” or “Make a Video” or “Social Network,” but explain things like digital footprints, Learning Networks, and Digital Citizenship (cyber bullying is pervasive). It will be interesting to see where we are in five years in terms of our online behavior.

You have students create blogs in the classroom.  Has that process been successful in your teaching?

Right now, my student blogs are all set to private, so they do not get a ‘broader’ perspective. However, I have noticed that it gives them opportunities to write, write, write, and write some more – a skill that we all need to develop. They are writing for a public forum, which tends to make them more aware of their words. They also share this information with one another. In some of my classes, this plays out better than others. For example, in my AP Art History Class, my students blog a weekly report on a piece of art. At exam time, they all went back and reviewed one another’s work – so the collaborative aspect is immensely powerful.

What advice do you have to offer anyone interested meshing archaeology, education, and technology as you have done?

It’s all about experimentation – you won’t know if it will work until you try it. Things I thought would be an epic fail – like podcasting – turned out to be an amazing success. Other things that I thought would be amazing – Mind Mapping during lectures – turned out to be an epic fail. However, experiment, experiment, experiment. Also collaborate with your peers – few of my ideas are my own. I learn a lot from others and then implement them as I see fit (perhaps with some modification). Then share your ideas.

You can reach Jennifer via email or subscribe to her blog.

How to Get Published in Anthropology & Why

An issue that I pursue rather relentlessly with students is the need to publish their research.  I argue the point less from the “publish or perish” perspective of higher education  - a view that is undergoing radical revision now and will continue to change as the very concept of what constitutes a “peer-reviewed” product evolves.  Rather, I argue the point from several different perspectives.  First, I look at my file drawer of graduate school papers and projects filed and forgotten after the end of long-ago semesters or when another commitment came along, despite the potential of the research.   Second, I point to our obligation to inform the public who foot the bill for the research projects through grants, tuition waivers, and fellowships.  Third, I note that having a GPA between 3.5 and 4.0 is not a big deal in today’s era of grade inflation.  The student or emerging professional needs a mechanism to have their abilities and accomplishments stand out from the rest of the pack when applying for graduate school or entry level jobs.

A publication can be the mechanism to highlight the student’s ability, whether in a peer-reviewed journal such as American Anthropologist, American Antiquity, or Curator, online peer-reviewed journals such as Tennessee Archaeology, Museums and Society, or even in blogs.  (See this link for an interesting discussion on the use of blogs in tenure and promotion processes.)

A colleague, Judson Finley requires graduate students in his courses to write and submit a book review to a professional journal for publication.  This practice seems a good first step for students to take toward publishing.

Another tool is the recently published How to Get Published in Anthropology: A Guide for Students and Young Professionals, edited by Jason E. Miller and Oona Schmid, published by AltaMira Press.  Like the Anthropology Graduate’s Guide that I reviewed last spring, Miller and Schmid’s volume answers many of the questions students either did not know or felt they should know and therefore were afraid to ask.  The book is divided into three parts.

Part 1 contains five chapters that lead the reader through basic instructions and advice that follow a logical progression from the initial concept for a presentation through to publication in a professional journal.  The chapter subjects include the relevance of attending professional conferences and the process of participating in and organizing sessions, creating posters for conferences, paper presentation techniques and skills, and turning dissertations and conference papers into publications.

Part 2 contains five chapters that address the specific publication considerations of anthropology subdisciplines including archaeology, applied, physical, sociocultural, linguistic, medical and visual fields.  The individual chapters discuss the types of publications and advice specific to each subdiscipline.  The individual chapters also take up more universally applied themes such writing styles, deadlines, web resources and more.

Part 3 contains four chapters that review topical areas specific to the publication process such as press and author agreements, issues of copyright, and author collaboration.  Hugh Jarvis’ final chapter “Online Opportunities and Challenges” is a good read on several levels.  Jarvis, a true pioneer in Anthropology on the internet, challenges the reader to consider their online persona, along with the worth and limitations in online publication, and the internet as an information source.

Two appendices list peer-reviewed anthropology journals and publishers of anthropology monographs.

Overall, the volume is balanced and practical in its approach.  The reader however is cautioned not to take the advice as gospel.  For example,  the admonition to heed the maxim of “No chapters in edited volumes until tenure” (p. 39) assumes that all readers are tenure track academicians, a notion that is simply out-of-step with career trajectories of not just anthropology but the social sciences in general.  In such instances, the volume would benefit from taking the broader intent that the editors note in the Introduction that the “book focuses on publishing that plays a role in your ability to secure a job and have a career as an anthropologist” (p. ix) regardless of where that career might be.

As I note at the outset of this post, the public presentation of research should not simply be a means to achieve tenure but an integral responsibility of all public research efforts.  If we are not vigilant in this regard, then folks such as the Florida Governor can rant away about the inconsequential nature of anthropological research. Regardless, How to Get Published in Anthropology is an excellent primer for getting your feet wet in the publishing business.

Engagement and Sustainability in Museums

Engagement and sustainability are the two words that come to mind when thinking of the challenges facing museums in 2012.  As a small institution, at the C. H. Nash Museum in 2011 we had the luxury to step back a bit, think through those two concepts, without the burden of a huge infrastructure and payroll to preoccupy our every action.

We started off the year by completing a program restructuring to assure we met the expressed needs of our visiting school groups.  We also surveyed our e-newsletter readers to get their input on program priorities for our museum.  We made certain that these discussions were firmly situated within our mission statement.

In April, we led a 12 paper session called “Re-imagining the Engaged Museum” at the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings in Seattle.  This was a fantastic opportunity to hear from other museum professionals on efforts to make their institutions socially relevant.

This year we completed our second Museum Assessment Program (MAP) study.  A key part of both our 2010 Institutional MAP study and the Collections based study this year focused on sustainability.

This fall, visitation by school groups dramatically increased at our museum compared to the past few years.  We attribute the increase to our revised programs. word of mouth advertising, and an aggressive and consistent social media presence.  We have also developed a reputation for having a staff that is very focused on visitor service.  As we remind each other regularly, the only reason we are a museum is because of our visitors.  Without visitors, our function would be that of a repository or research center.

This fall, in staff discussion of our programs for 2012, a common theme was that all of our museum offerings need to be driven by the community that we serve.  I have posted before that our anticipated upgrades and redesign of the main hall exhibits will first solicit the input of key stakeholders and users, along with the casual visitors to our museum.  As well, all of our substantive projects for 2012 including the medicinal plant sanctuary, reconstruction of prehistoric houses, and excavations of the 1930s era Civilian Conservation Corps Camp will only occur with the active participation of our key stakeholders and users – the very same people who will inform our exhibit redesign.

In 2012 and beyond, sustainability of our institution will only be accomplished as a result of community engagement.  We will heed the advice posed by Nina Simon and others that the Participatory Museum should not simply be a hands-on experience for the sake of being a hands-on experience.  Rather, the Participatory Museum’s goal is to fully engage the visitor in the public institutions of which they ultimately have responsibility.   I remain convinced that the long-term sustainability of our cultural institutions will occur when the public for whom we perform the function of stewards for their collections are effectively engaged in the entire museum process.

What challenges do you see for 2012?

How Virtual Can Lead to Real Time

A concern expressed by museums for presenting collections online is that the practice will reduce museum attendance.  On the surface, this argument is rather self-serving and suggests an institution’s real purpose  is not their mission statement but to maximize real-time visits.  The Museums and Society 2034 report from the American Association of Museums noted that “According to research by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, 43% of museum visits in 2006 were remote, predominately via museum websites.”  Of course, the report predicted this trend will increase and argued that remote visits can serve as a vehicle to drive more people to visit real-time.

Less scientific, but rather instructive, during the last meeting of my Museum Practices class this semester, I asked “Does any student know of, heard about, or can you cite any instance where an individual did not visit a museum because they had experienced the collections online?  Have any of you canceled your trips to Amsterdam because the Google Art Project has placed so many of Van Gogh’s paintings online?”  Of course the answer was an emphatic NO to the latter question, and no one could point to an example of the former.  As a general statement, the strident position of seminar students five years ago in opposition to the concept of a virtual museum today is considerably more moderate.

Archaeologists and other cultural heritage professionals are beginning to experiment with placing collections online.  Here are a couple of sites that took or today are taking the lead in this work:

In 1998 Carol McDavid created a groundbreaking website for archaeology at the Levi Jordan Plantation, the place where a ”plantation was built in 1848 by Levi Jordan, his family, and the people who worked for them as slaves and, later, as tenant farmers and sharecroppers. This web site attempts to discuss the lives of ALL of these people, and covers a period from 1848 until about 1888-1890.”  Although rather crude by today’s standards, and in an exchange with Carol last year, she was somewhat surprised that the site was still live, the experiment provides a model for the future.  Scanning the Table of Contents for the website shows the considerable amount of information placed online.  Were one interested in cursory information or detailed scholarly research the Plantation website would be a first stop.

A modern version of the Levi Jordan website is in place for New Philadelphia site in Illinois.  The website notes that ” New Philadelphia was founded by Frank McWorter, a free African American, in 1836. Shortly after purchasing his freedom from the estate of George McWhorter, Frank invested in acquiring land in a largely undeveloped area of Pike County, Illinois . . . He and his family moved to Pike County in 1830. . .  and legally registered the town . . . New Philadelphia was the first town established by a free African American before the Civil War.”  The wealth of data available on this site is truly outstanding, including a full set of archaeological fieldwork reports, something reasonably unheard of in the past and even today.  Along with census records, newspaper archives, descendent genealogies, surveys and maps, as with the Levi Jordan Plantation, the website created for New Philadelphia is a first stop for both in-depth research or casual interest.

Here is the punch line for me on both archaeological sites as cultural heritage venues – I first learned about each of them in the book  Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement edited by Barbara Little and Paul A. Shackel.  After reading the book’s articles about these two locations, I tracked down the above websites.  I have never visited a museum at either of these locations because none exists – all readily available documentation is in either published articles or online.   However, movement toward museums or other cultural heritage institutions is in process at both Levi-Jordan Plantations and at  New Philadelphia.  Arguably at both of these sites, the very presence of a robust internet presence argues for a significance that will support their future development.  Were it not for the Internet presence, to me, both of these locations would fall into the long ago and far away category.

Levi Jordan Plantation and New Philadelphia are two examples where the virtual presence will be instrumental in generating the exposure and support for movement toward a real-time presence in whatever form that might take.

Your thoughts?

Educational Holiday Gift Giving

This week I received an email from one of our volunteers and supporters at the C.H. Nash Museum – Gwen Calleo a pre K-3 teacher at the Ridgeway Early Learning Center in Memphis.  Gwen’s email perfectly illustrates the important points Maureen Molloy makes in her blog post about Public Archaeology that I recently shared.  In her email Gwen wrote “I am not sure if I ever shared a “light-bulb” moment I experienced volunteering at Chucalissa.   I was working with another volunteer, college student, and we were discussing how the samples were taken.  I never felt comfortable recording information from the bags because I know I did not have the background to understand what I was writing.  This student began explaining to me how the ground is laid out during an excavation.  Although I had seen pictures, I never made the correlation to graphs / grids/ axis’ until that moment.  For the first time, I understood the “z” axis.  The moment was good and bad.  Bad, because if I had met him a few years before, I possibly would not have failed calculus II.  Twice.  The good news was I realized now that I could explain, roughly, “z” or 3D to four year olds.  Not only could I explain it but I could show it to them if I were able to obtain the resources.”

To help Gwen provide similar “light-bulb” experiences for her students, I ask that you consider supporting her fundraising project at Donor’s Choose to get the needed supplies for her classroom.  I am a big fan of Donor’s Choose as a means of providing materials for the grossly underfunded public education system in the United States.

A resource to give funds to equally needy museums is through Shop for Museums.  At their website you specify the museum you wish to donate a percent of your online purchases from hundreds of online outlets such as Amazon, Target, and Barnes and Noble.  The news media reported over 1 billion dollars in sales on “Cyber Monday” this year.  There are about 1200 museums registered at Shop for Museums.  The low-end of the donations made by online companies for Shop For Museum purchases is 2 percent.  If all the online sales just from Cyber Monday were purchased through the Shop for Museums site, each of the 1200 registered museums would receive a check for over $16,000.00!  I have used the Shop for Museums website for a couple of years now without a glitch.  I urge readers to consider Shop for Museums to support your favorite cultural heritage institution – at no cost to you.  Of course, we listed the C. H. Nash Museum at Shop For Museums.

Finally, consider mailing your favorite museum a check specified for community outreach or educational programming –  or drop some extra cash in a museum’s donation box during your next visit.  At the C.H. Nash Museum, we accept online donations that we use specifically to enhance our educational programming with visiting school groups.

Consider supporting your favorite cultural heritage or educational institution this year with a holiday gift!

Public Archaeology from Project Archaeology

This week I am sharing a post from Project Archaeology blog written by Maureen Molloy.  Maureen is the Manager of Education and Outreach at the Society for American Archaeology (SAA).  In Maureen’s guest post she traces some of her experiences in Public Archaeology over the past 25 years.  Over that period Maureen has worked in a diversity of museum and archaeological park settings, including at the National Museum of Natural History and with the National Park Service.  She created innovative educational materials in archaeology such as the 30-hour course Archaeology and Multicultural Education for the Maryland Department of Education and co-edited the volume Archaeologists and Local Communities:  Partners in Exploring the Past published by the SAA.

Maureen also now serves as the Chesapeake Region Coordinator of Project Archaeology Coordinator.  Project Archaeology “is a comprehensive archaeology and heritage education program for everyone interested in learning or teaching about our nation’s rich cultural legacy and protecting it for future generations to learn from and enjoy.”

I have yet to meet Maureen in the flesh, though we have corresponded via email and on the phone about matters related to public education in archaeology.  Maureen’s blog post provides an excellent understanding of where Public Archaeology has come from and where it can go.

My Favorite Free Downloads for Archaeology, Museums, & Outreach

There are many resources relevant to Archaeology, Museum and Outreach now available on the internet as free downloads.  Below are some of my favorites  as they relate to the general focus of this blog and are not already referenced by everyone and their brother/sister.  Here goes:

• The New Media Consortium Horizon Project has just published their 2011 Museum Edition as a free pdf download that “is a co-production with the Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the Arts (MIDEA) and examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in education and interpretation within the museum environment.”  The report begins with an executive summary followed by “Time to Adoption” discussions of different technologies. For example, under the Mobile Apps heading are the following discussions: Overview, Relevance for Museum Education and Interpretation, Mobile Apps in Practice, and Further Reading.  Of particular value, each technology discussion includes links to many live examples. This publication is an excellent resource for investigating the potential of digital outreach.
• The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide published by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2009 is one of my favorite think pieces.  The 30-page free pdf download has nine discussion themes such as building sustainable institutions, evaluating program impact, and sharing authority with the public.  Each theme contains real-time examples and discussion questions that are as relevant to the small county museum as to the professional organization evaluating their outreach program.  I am using this document as the basis for the final exam in my Museum Practices graduate seminar next week.
• In a similar vein the Center for the Future of Museums site has several excellent reports on current and future trends.  The 2008  Museums and Society 2034 discusses demographic, economic, communication, and cultural forecasts.  Each section includes proposals on how museums must evolve to meet these shifting trends.  The 2020 report Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums focuses specifically on ethnic demographic trends in the United States and the need for museums to shift their orientations to serve the evolving public.  Both reports are available as free pdf downloads.
• The Society for American Archaeology’s Archaeological Record is a fantastic resource for exploring different outreach themes of the discipline.  I previously posted about the Careers Issue of the Record.  Other themed issues of interest include a history of archaeology in the media and applied archaeology curriculums,  Published five times per year, the magazine is available as a free pdf download.
• Kevin Smith at Middle Tennessee State University provides a prime venue for archaeology outreach with the Tennessee Archaeology journal.  Each issue is available as a single free pdf download.  Although I am certain formats will continue to evolve through time, the journal is in the vanguard in providing a readily accessible public resource for the types of archaeological reports that either never make it beyond conference proceedings or are buried in hard to find regional journals or Cultural Resource Management Reports.  Tennessee Archaeology is a step forward in the discipline’s need for public accountability.
• For one stop preservation and conservation needs you cannot beat the National Park Service for their Tech Notes and the three-volume National Park Service Museum Handbook, all free pdf downloads.  The latter is of particular value as a comprehensive “reference guide on how to manage, preserve, document, access and use museum collections.”  I find these publications ideal to assist interested lay persons in preserving family heirlooms and other privately held cultural heritage objects.  The straightforward style of these reports provides an excellent opportunity to educate the public on stewardship issues.
• The Visitor Studies Association provides free pdf downloads including articles from their bi-annual peer-reviewed journal Visitor Studies.  The VSA is the “premier professional organization focusing on all facets of the visitor experience in museums, zoos, nature centers, visitor centers, historic sites, parks and other informal learning settings.”
• The proceedings from the 2011 Museums and the Web Conference held in Philadelphia this past April are accessible on-line in a variety of formats.  With sessions covering topics such as data storage, gaming, organizational changes, e-book publishing, the proceedings provide current thinking on a range of museum online issues.  Some of the online resources are typical conference paper texts, others link to Slideshare PowerPoint files, and others link to institutional websites that host not just the presentation but related materials as well.

The above list just scratches the surface of available online downloadable resources for Outreach efforts in archaeology and museums.  What other downloads have you found particularly useful?

Marketing Museums and Archaeology

At the C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa, we do a reasonably good job of marketing on a limited budget.  We have a monthly e-newsletter with a 1700 person buy-in circulation that includes 200 press contacts.  We receive consistent press coverage of our events.  Our Facebook page has grown to over 800 likes with a moderate level of engagement.  We have a good regional distribution network for our rack cards.  We are attentive to off-site events in which we can take part.  Also, we are fortunate that the University of Memphis administers and promotes our Museum.

But we still fall short in taking advantage of many opportunities.

Related, this week a very common event occurred at the Museum.  I was at the front desk chatting with two visitors in their late 50s headed toward California.  After learning their general route was along Interstate 40, that they had plenty of time and a strong interest in Native American culture, I recommended several stops along the way.  First, I told them about the Mississippian era Parkin Archaeological State Park about 45 minutes into Arkansas from Memphis.  Next, we talked about Spiro Mounds, just across the Oklahoma border and within 20 miles of the Interstate.  Finally, I highly recommended the complex of Chickasaw Nation of cultural heritage venues including museums and a new Cultural Center south of Oklahoma City centered in the Sulphur/Ada/Tishomingo area.  The two visitors were most appreciative as they were not aware of any of these venues.

Here is the punch line to that story.  Were I not standing at the front desk, did not engage the visitors, they possibly would not have found any of these museums and archaeological sites.  We had no brochures for the locations (our fault) but even more so, there is no website, brochure, or other resource that is a one stop shopping for, how to “plan your road trip west if you are interested in museums and archaeology”

What are some solutions?

• Gozaic is a service that attempts to fill the void, but after two years, judging by their website they have not been very successful.  Neither Parkin, Spiro, or the Chickasaw Nation Cultural Center show up on their searches. Administered through Heritage Travel Inc., a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Gozaic has the potential of Culture 24 in the United Kingdom that hosts pages and links that direct the visitor to venues by type, such as prehistoric.
• Trail guides, such as the Louisiana’s Indians Mounds of Northeast Louisiana, the Megalith Trail of the Morbihan region of France, or the Archaeological and Heritage Trails around Inverness, Scotland UK, are becoming increasingly popular as a means for cultural heritage travel.  However, most of these resources stop at modern state or county political boundaries.  The Great River Road website is an example of a tool that might be of more interest to the regional traveler as it traces cultural heritage venues along the entire Mississippi River corridor in the United States.
• Perhaps most effective, but least efficient is for each cultural heritage venue to stock the rack cards and basic promotional information for everything within a few hundred mile radius of their site.
• I wrote about Kent Vickery last week, a former professor of mine who retired to Woodland Park Colorado.  About one year ago, a couple stopped into our Museum.  Again, by coincidence I was at the front desk, asked where the couple were from and they said Woodland Park Colorado.  I asked if they knew Kent Vickery.  They replied they went to the same church as Kent, and he advised them on museums to visit during their trip.  This story and countless others, show that word of mouth seems one of our best promotional tools.

How do you market your site or museum to the cultural heritage traveler?

Thanksgiving for Kent Vickery – Public Archaeologist

This Thursday is the Thanksgiving Holiday in the United States.  Appropriately, I was thinking about a thanksgiving to an individual who influenced my approach to public archaeology – Dr. Kent Vickery, my M.A. program advisor at the University of Cincinnati.  He passed away this June, just a few years into his Colorado retirement.

Dr. Vickery and I were not always on the best of terms.  He was a serious taskmaster where no research project ever seemed completed.  In his classes, he started to lecture when he walked in the door and did not stop until the bell rang.  No pictures, all words.  One year, running behind in his lectures, he passed out 25 pages of typed notes the last day of class that would be on the final exam.  Our classroom styles are quite different.

But when it came to applying archaeology outside the lecture hall, he proved a key mentor for the  practices I try to use today:

• His door was always open to students.  There are many archaeologists who published more than Kent, and many a good bit less, but Dr. Vickery clearly ranked in the upper 5% of professors committed to their students.  He always had time for a discussion or to offer advice. He was a walking bibliographic reference on all things related to his fields of research.
• Outside of the classroom, Kent believed in hands-on learning.  He provided students the materials to take on a range of laboratory analysis projects.  Of importance, he also encouraged his students to present their findings at professional meetings and to publish their results.  He worked hard up until his retirement to organize and publish the field work he had done over the years.
• Kent promoted his students in the profession.  In conversation, he was more likely to talk about the important work of his students than of his own.  He could spill a tremendous amount of red ink over any paper forcing the student to defend their assertions.  We butted heads quite a bit over my M.A. Thesis.  I was shocked to find that he had written a lengthy proposal and successfully had my M.A. Thesis nominated as one of only two from the University of Cincinnati for the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Thesis Award.  He didn’t ask me if I wanted my thesis nominated, he just did it.
• Whether through work with Boy Scouts or avocational archaeologists Kent expended an incredible amount his time taking archaeology from the academy to the public.  He was a standard fixture at the avocational organization Central Ohio Valley Archaeological Society meetings.  Every Tuesday night in his lab an assemblage of students, professionals, and avocationals worked late in the evening on a diverse set of projects.

Kent and I kept up over the years.  The last time he “put the bite on me” was to create a composite map for the hundreds of features recorded from excavations at the State Line site.  I regularly got Christmas cards from he and Karen, including last year.

I don’t know that Kent would have considered himself a Public or Applied Archaeologist.  I have to believe that if he were starting out in the business today, he would fall right in with the best of community outreach.  Immediately after his death there was a flurry of emails among his former students and friends.  The common thread in those comments was that Kent’s fingerprints were all over the archaeology of the Greater Cincinnati area and that he had trained most of the archaeologists working in the region today.  These practitioners include museum professionals, leaders in the field of cultural resource management, and more than a few professorial types.  His former students that shared their thoughts of Kent at his passing are people today committed to public outreach in both museums and archaeology, demonstrating, that the apple does not fall too far from the tree.

Thanks Kent.