Last month, I got to represent The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future at the 2011 American Association of Museums conference. I was awarded a Texas Museum Professionals Fellowship so I could be one of the 5,000 national and international attendees. The 105th AAM Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo was held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from May 22-25, 2011.The theme of this year’s conference was “The Museum of Tomorrow”.
I spent most of my time attending sessions geared towards my professional interests and duties here at The Women’s Museum – Exhibitions and Collections. The sessions that I found most enjoyable and applicable to my day to day work were “And Other Duties as Assigned: Prioritizing Collections Management in Small Museums” and “Registrars: Let’s Get This Show on the Road!” These sessions offered case studies and tales from the trenches of museum work, which are extremely helpful to hear and discuss!
Networking is very important for museum professionals – a trusted circle of professional contacts can be crucial when you are looking for specialist advice related to exhibitions, collections and other aspects of museum work. I made some great contacts with other Texan museum professionals but also met people in the museum field from as far away as Peru and Kazakhstan! I was also part of a Fellowship Recipients Breakfast where we got to meet Ford Bell, President of AAM and Susan Hildreth, the Director of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Everyone at AAM enjoyed time in Houston away from the convention as well, visiting the local museums and exploring downtown. There was a great public art display right across the street from the Convention Center that used Portable on Demand “PODS” to create site-specific art pieces.
On the last day of the conference, the final AAM General Session program was held. Opening remarks came from AAM President Ford Bell, who spoke about the importance of advocacy for museums in the United States.
The outgoing director of the Dallas Museum of Art, Bonnie Pitman, received the Award for Distinguished Service to Museums for 2011.
The keynote speaker was Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the National Museum of Natural History and host of the PBS program “Nova scienceNOW”. He gave a great lecture on scientific illiteracy and how museums can help educate and inspire their visitors and communities.
Attending the 2011 AAM conference was a great experience. I was able to promote the exhibits and programs of The Women’s Museum while making connections with other museums with similar missions and programming. Using the professional guidance and lessons from my AAM sessions, I will work with museum colleagues and volunteers towards continued success in exhibit programming and collections management.
