By Bill Clarke, Restigouche Regional Museum
Right now, we’re in the middle of what could be called the Blah season. It’s cold outside, the snow is piled up to the window sills and most of our museums are in a state of suspended animation, just waiting for summer so they can wake up, stretch, and prepare for a season that’s all too brief. Could there be a better time to increase our knowledge, hone our skills and indulge in a bit of inspiration?
Those who are involved with collections realize that cataloguing is only part of the business of caring. Protecting the things that have been placed in our care is vital, but how do you go about it? Fortunately, there’s a program of webinars designed with small museums in mind. The Connecting to Collections Care Online Community, is part of the Institute for Museum and Library Services, an American initiative that supports museums, libraries and related institutions. You can find more about both on their websites.
But the great thing about the community, aka C2CC, is that it produces a whole series of webinars every year. You have to register, but apart from that the webinars are free. They do have some priced sessions, but we’ll focus on the free ones. And, even if you’ve missed them (or some of them), you can still get access to most of them. On the website listed above, click “archives” and you’ll get see a list of years. Click one of these, and you’ll get a list of subjects.
Each webinar lasts an hour – sometimes a bit longer, and has questions and answers at the end. Accessing the past webinars doesn’t allow you to ask questions the way you would taking part in a live one, but the information is still there. Often, there are handouts which may include all sorts of useful information.
Do you want to know more about caring for plastics? There was a webinar about that. Do you want to know how to handle disasters? There have been webinars about that. There are webinars dealing with the care of dolls, motor vehicles, metals, leather and fur, just about anything. And there are others dealing with using social media to tell the stories of your collections, and building public support. While some things, like finding funding, are specifically aimed at American audiences, most of the things are appropriate anywhere. IN FACT, there’s frequent mention of the Canadian Conservation Institute.
Another good source of information is the Texas Historical Commission. They have a series of webinars that address all sorts of interesting subjects. There’s also a listing of archived webinars. Although designed for Texas users, anybody is welcome.
And, if you’re looking for something more elaborate, check out FutureLearn. This site offers a whole collection of university courses. In fact, you can even get a degree. While only a couple of the courses are actually aimed at museums, there are others that people might find useful. These include a six week course on genealogical research, a shorter one on preserving heritage sites, courses dealing with marketing and lots more.
There are others, and anyone who does some surfing can find additional sources, but these three offer diverse opportunities to learn things that, not too many years ago, wouldn’t have been available outside some distant and expensive institution, if at all. Next time, we’ll share some truly inspirational offerings.
Bill Clarke is Director of the Restigouche Regional Museum in Dalhousie (NB). He is also Editor Emeritus of the Campbellton Tribune, AHNB board member, and AHNB Founders Award recipient.
