Month: April 2019

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Meet the Museum of Fine Art’s Late Nites: The Most Interesting Party in Boston

by Ashley Thomas

Image courtesy of Caitlin Cunningham Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Based upon social media popularity (over 11,000 interested attendees on Facebook for the March 15, 2019 event), you might suspect the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)’s Late Nite program was a well-established staple in Boston’s cultural scene.[1] Surprisingly, the crowds that party from eight o’clock to two in the morning, are a new addition to the MFA’s events calendar. I loudly replied with a curious, “Really?!” when a staff member at the Gender Bending Fashion edition mentioned that the event was only about three years old. Scanning the hundreds of milling bodies inside the open sections of the museum, and the long line of those waiting to join the fête, I had to know the details behind such a supremely successful outreach. I was met with a shrug of her shoulders – the employee didn’t know the details.

Apparently, neither did the MFA’s website.

A quick Google search was just as fruitless.

Cue a frustrating forty-five-minute Google sleuthing session that finally gave up enough clues to piece together the how and the why of MFA’s Late Nites.

Late Nites as we now know it evolved out of a Fall 2016 program series titled, “#mfaNOW,” which was part of an initiative set out in the MFA’s 2020 Strategic Plan to expand audiences.[2] This first iteration was a bit less structured than what is planned and presented today. Kicking off on September 17, 2016, “#mfaNOW Overnight: Launch Party,” was one of four, literally all-night, sessions hosted over the fall and winter months of 2016. The thought behind the multi-part event was to establish “…a season celebrating contemporary art and artists… [and] …engaging visitors with art, culture and community in new and unexpected ways.”[3] Each session accomplished that vision based around one of four themes – Launch Party, College Edition, State of the Party, and Last Call. Additionally, the event was free to the public and featured new museum exhibitions, as well as local musicians/DJs, artists, and chefs/restaurants. It was a wonderful intersection of international and local that welcomed over 23,000 visitors in total.[4]

The Museum definitely succeed in their “…most ambitious project … undertaken in recent memory… [and] …attempt to make the museum a community gathering space and to engage a younger generation of art enthusiasts.”[5] Hence, MFA Late Nites, the current evolution that continues this unique and celebratory method of outreach. The first Late Nite launched October 13, 2017, netting over 4,000 visitors.[6] And the series has moved forward, with at least two episodes planned for this year – the first just weeks ago on March 15, and the second slated for May. The March event, “Gender Bending Fashion,” was a rousing celebration of gender and sexuality of all forms, through the lens of fashion. Attendees embraced the ability to openly express and put on display their gender and sexual identity. According to Luis Ardila, a friend I attended the event with, such open spaces are a rare occurrence in Boston, in comparison to other cosmopolitan cities like New York. His statement explained why the Museum was so packed with eager visitors – it was a celebration of their icons, their clothing, their identity, their self-image, in a way that is not widely provided.

According to the MFA’s mission statement: “It [the Museum] celebrates diverse cultures and welcomes new and broader constituencies. The Museum is a place in which to see and learn. It stimulates in its visitors a sense of pleasure, pride and discovery which provides aesthetic challenge and leads to greater cultural awareness and discernment.”[7] Indeed, the Late Nites program series is evidence that the Museum takes their mission seriously and intentionally seeks out new audiences.

All are welcomed. Period.

So, hurry up and get your ticket for the May Late Nite, you don’t want to miss out on the most interesting party in Boston.

 

 

[1]. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Billy Dean Thomas, “MFA Late Nites: Gender Bending Fashion” event page, https://www.facebook.com/events/569765813539115/.

[2]. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MFA 2020: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Strategic Plan,” (2016), 5. http://mfas3.s3.amazonaws.com/MFA-2020_Strategic-Plan.pdf.

[3]. “#mfaNOW, a Season Celebrating Contemporary Art and Artists at MFA Boston, Will Feature Exhibitions, Overnight Parties and Programs,” mfa.org. https://www.mfa.org/news/mfanow.

[4]. Matthew Teitelbaum, “The Museum Year 2017 Annual Report – Director’s Message,” mfa.org. https://www.mfa.org/annual-report-2017/director.html.

 [5]. Carly Sitrin, “MFA then is about to meet #mfaNOW,” Boston Globe (Boston, MA), September 14, 2016.

[6]. Dorene McCourt, “Patron Program Committee – MFA 2020: The Museum Plans for the Future,” mfa.org, published January 25, 2018, https://www.mfa.org/membership/patron-program/news/2018/winter/mfa-2020.

[7]. “Mission Statement – Adopted by the Board of Trustees, February 28, 1991,” mfa.org, https://www.mfa.org/about/mission-statement.

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Meet Scott Wands, Manager of Grants and Programs at Connecticut Humanities

by Alli Smith

Scott Wands is an advocate. He advocates for humanities programming at institutions across Connecticut. He advocates for building strong relationships with and within in the community. He advocates for rolling with the punches. In fact, he just returned from the American Alliance of Museum’s Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., where he met with five legislators, making the case for continued federal funding and support for museum interests.

Scott knew early that he wanted to work with museums, and so he began his path in that direction at Amherst College, earning a bachelor’s degree in American History. He then entered into the Winterthur program in Early American Material Culture at the University of Delaware, where his tiny class of ten essentially learned to be curators. It was here that Scott realized he wanted to focus on education, and he worked as a museum educator for five years after earning his master’s. He also began volunteering with the Connecticut League of History Organizations (CLHO), where he ran workshops and awards programs. In March of 2008, Scott began his work with Connecticut Humanities (CTH) as a provider of professional development and training.

Connecticut Humanities is a 501(c)3 affiliate for the National Endowment of Humanities, providing grants to historical societies and other institutions across Connecticut for exhibitions and programming.  Scott explained that in the early 1970s, when the endowments for the humanities and arts were first created, the arts affiliates at the state level became state departments while the humanities affiliates became independent non-profit organizations with both receiving federally appropriated funds. This funding is decided upon using a formula based on population size for each state.  Ninety percent of CTH’s funding comes from state or federal dollars and, as Scott says, “it’s tough to split that pie.”

Connecticut Humanities was successful in its mission, however, owed in large part to the work of Scott’s predecessor Bruce Fraser. For decades, Bruce single-handedly advocated for CTH, emphasizing the importance of state-level support of cultural heritage institutions. The thinking was that an investment in CTH from the federal level allowed for the organization to then invest in heritage and humanities programming, attracting users and infusing the community with tourism revenue. Sadly, Bruce passed away in the early aughts, erasing a needed connection to a network of supporters. The economy also took a dive in 2008, and Connecticut Humanities is still recovering in some ways. A staff of twenty became a staff of six, and the organization has moved to different facilities.

Despite these issues, Scott moved through the ranks of the organization over the years and is now the Manager of Grants and Programs. His daily activities run the gamut, and he highlights the need to be a “jack-of-all-trades.” For institutions seeking grants, Scott provides a start-to-finish service. He assists applicants through the application process, helping them develop project ideas and write their grant applications. He also processes those applications and makes decisions alongside board members on which projects are most deserving of funding. He even assists institutions with final reports they pen.

Outside of the grant process, Scott also implements direct CTH programming. One such program, StEPs-CT, is a self-study curriculum designed to help institutions evaluate their work against national museum standards. The program is based on a national curriculum “Standards and Excellence Program for History Organizations”(StEPs), which was developed by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). The Connecticut offshoot was created in partnership with the Connecticut League of History Organizations (CLHO) and the Connecticut Historical Society.

In addition to his work with AASLH on the StEPs-CT program, Scott is also now a board member, which has afforded him a network of contacts from across the country. It is the cultivation of relationships like these, and others, that contribute, in large part, to the success of Connecticut Humanities. This is a never-ending endeavor; seats for state and house legislators, for example, are constantly changing. Scott says, “You are never done reminding people of who you are, what you do, and why it is important.”

Concluding our interview, I asked Scott if he had any final take-aways about his work in outreach and advocacy. His answer? “You’ve got to be adaptable.” With the challenges Connecticut Humanities has faced during Scott’s tenure, it is a testament to his own adaptability that he has been able to develop and maintain successful programming in an ever-changing world.

 

 

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Death, Corsets, and Opera, Oh My!: Nichols After Dark Events at the Nichols House Museum

by Jasmine Bonanca

Louise Homer, portrait in the Nichols House Parlor

In March of 1902, the Nichols family hosted a performance by Metropolitan Opera singer Louise Homer in their home on Beacon Hill.  More than 100 years later, the Nichols family’s home, now the Nichols House Museum, brought opera to Beacon Hill once more through the performance of Boston-based soprano Jacqueline Novikov, accompanied by pianist Yelena Beriyeva.

The event was part of the Nichols House Museum’s Nichols After Dark event series, which began running in October of 2017.  The Nichols House Museum (NHM) tells the story of the socially and politically active Nichols family, particularly Rose Standish Nichols, a life-long pacifist, traveller, suffragist, and one of America’s first female landscape architects.  Through stories of their lives and home, told during a 1-hour guided tour, visitors can get a glimpse of what life was like on Beacon Hill at the turn of the century.

That tantalizing glimpse can give visitors a desire to hear more, and the NHS staff certainly has more to share. The Nichols After Dark events allow the NHM’s staff to further their educational mission by giving staff members a chance to dig deeper into stories and historical themes that usually only get mentioned in passing during tours.  The cliffnotes version of Louise Homer’s 1902 performance, for example, is typically told in the second floor parlor room during the tour, but during the Night at the Opera event the museum staff introduced the performance with a fuller retelling of the story that included quotes from the family’s letters and information about the prominent Bostonians who attended.

Not only does the NHM get to dive deeper into the family’s stories through these events, but according to the NHM’s Program and Collections Coordinator Laura Cunningham, the Nichols After Dark events also gives the museum the opportunity to reach out to a younger, broader audience while re-engaging their traditional audience and long-time constituents.  According to Cunningham, Nichols After Dark targets younger audiences by “embracing pop-history themes.”  One previous Nichols After Dark event “Dearly Departed: Death and Dying in 19th Century Boston” looked at Victorian mourning practices, while another, “Corsets and Courtships,” showcased 19th-century undergarments loaned from a sister institutions to explore the love lives of the Nichols family  members. The NHM has also used the Nichols After Dark events as a chance to develop multisensory programs that allow visitors to experience the museum’s historically furnished rooms in ways they can’t typically achieve on a guided tour.

The Nichols After Dark events invite visitors to experience the museum as a place to relax and be social.  Each event in the series ends with a mixer featuring wine, beer (served by a TIPS-trained bartender), and small eats, transforming the museum from a purely education space into one where people can connect over their shared experience.

The NHM hopes that the Nichols After Dark events will inspire audiences and institutions beyond Beacon Hill, and start a dialogue in Boston cultural heritage institutions about the roles of historic house museums and cultural institutions in today’s society.  According to Cunningham, the NHS is deeply invested in keeping house museums relevant through the 21st century and “aims to do so not only by adopting an inclusive and self-critical approach to history telling, but also by reinvigorating our programmatic calendar and allowing ourselves to go ‘off script.’”

This exciting events series has been a success in more ways than the museum hoped for.  While Cunningham said that the museum’s goal was to bring in first-time visitors and give everyone a unique experience, she also said that the Night at the Opera event created a chance to connect with some potential donors after the performance.

Developing such exciting events are a team effort.  The NHM only has three full-time staff members, and though as the Programs and Collection Coordinator, Cunningham spearheads efforts to actualize these events,  everyone contributes ideas for events and works together to make them happen.

Overall, the Nichols After Dark events are an exciting way to get out and experience a beautiful house museum in an innovative, thought-provoking way.

Curious about what’s next on the Nichols House Museum’s events calendar?  Check out their website and Facebook page:

http://www.nicholshousemuseum.org/index.php

http://www.facebook.com/NicholsHouseMuseum

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Out Books on Wheels at the Sexual Minority Archives

by Maureen Coleman

The Sexual Minorities Archive (SMA) is in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The archive is a small community archive and is housed in a large pink house, dubbed the Pink Lady. The Pink Lady has multiple floors that are filled with a variety of materials, including print resources, digital resources, ephemera and art all related to the LGBTQI community. Visiting the collections at the SMA is done by appointment only, but the archive is very responsive and flexible in scheduling the visits. The appointments as well as any questions for the SMA can be done via phone, social media, or their website’s contact page. The SMA offers something for everyone within the queer community as well as those who do not fall within that category.

One of the many exciting parts of the SMA is the Out Books on Wheels library that is housed on the second floor of the Pink Lady. This library was officially opened at the Holyoke location on October 21, 2017. The library is a lending library allowing visitors to check out materials to take home. The library collection consists of fiction (adult and young-adult) and nonfiction books as well as some older periodicals and movies. The SMA website states that the library includes over 4,000 titles. Although the website does not offer a searchable catalog for specific titles in the Out Books on Wheels, it does offer an extensive list of the categories of materials that can be found. These categories include lesbian, transgender, intersex/middle sex, gay, queer, LGBTQI history, and children/youth materials amongst others.

The SMA provides information on the Out Books on Wheels collection on their website as well on their social media pages. The SMA provides updates on its Facebook page about particular donations to the library collection, including a recent post about a member of the trans community who donated approximately 100 titles to the SMA some of which were titles to be included in the Out Books on Wheels library. A post from July of 2016 outlines the goal of the Out Books on Wheels, which they state is “to fill the huge information and knowledge gap that is not met by mainstream libraries and schools.” (Sexual Minorities Archive, 2016) To assist with continuing to make the library and materials available to the most people, the SMA will at times request voluntary donations through their website and social media pages.

The library is staffed by dedicated volunteers who are available for several hours per week; however, even if they are not on site, visitors are able to access and explore the library. Both the volunteers and the curator of the SMA are receptive to questions and can offer guidance to visitors who may be unsure of what materials at the library would be the best fit for their particular interests or needs. In addition to being free, there is no membership or library card required to check out materials. The check-out process consists of providing certain information in a notebook within the library. The information required is the title of the material(s) you are borrowing, your name, e-mail address, and the date you borrow the item. There is no official policy on when a library user must return items but is rather a sort of honor policy. Another service that is provided is that the Out Books on Wheels library will deliver materials to community organizations for use at their locations or events.

The SMA offers many services and materials to community members, including the Out Books on Wheels. Having been a visitor at the archive and borrower of materials at the library, I can attest to the ease at which one can borrow materials and the helpful assistance that is easily accessible while at the archive. The curator and the volunteers ensure that the visitors find what they are looking for and enjoy the process. The benefits of the services offered by the SMA and the Out Books on Wheels should not be understated and if you haven’t visited yet, I recommend a visit soon.

To find out more visit the SMA website  or check out their Facebook page!

 

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@TheMERL

by Gaia Cloutier

On April 9, 2018 the Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) tweeted an image of an extremely fat and woolly Exmoor Horn ram, captioning the image “look at this absolute unit.”  The Internet went wild.  The tweet currently has more than 109K likes, 31K retweets, and 750 comments and was featured in a Twitter Moment, Buzzfeed, the BBC, Mashable, and The Times.  Looking at the tweet, it is not a surprise that the internet loved it.  The internet loves few things more than memes and pictures of cute animals, and the MERL tweet has both.  The MERL’s ability to capitalize on this single viral tweet, however, is just as impressive as the glorious ram itself.

The MERL is a University of Reading run museum, library, and archive dedicated to the history and culture of farmers, craftspeople, and other people living in rural England.  The MERL has over 25,000 museum objects, 50,000 books, 1 million photographs, hundreds of hours of film, and 4.5 kilometers of archival holdings.  In addition to its services and events for scholars and affiliates of the University of Reading, the MERL also engages with local farmers and craftspeople, families, and other members of the greater Reading community.  Historically, however, the Museum was not reaching as diverse an audience as it would like and their digital engagement was not very effective.  This was especially a problem when it came to engaging young people with the collections.

With the success of the ram, however, the MERL saw a new way forward with digital engagement.  Led by Adam Koszary, the programme manager and digital lead who wrote the absolute unit tweet, the MERL has completely revamped its approach to Twitter.  The central philosophy of this new approach is to have fun and to embrace the social aspect of Twitter.  Twitter is not just another forum for posting exhibit copy, catalog metadata, or marketing material.  It is an opportunity to think creatively about the Museum’s collections and to engage with people directly.  The original ram tweet was a funny picture and a fun use of a meme.  But the engagement that happened after that tweet is what helped the MERL become a Twitter sensation.  Koszary joked with followers, posted more images of livestock, tweeted about the history of the image in the tweet, answered questions, made a poll, and generally treated responses to the tweet as an opportunity to have a conversation.

The account’s more recent moments of Twitter fame, like a duck pic battle with other museums and the saga of Merlin the bat, have built upon this model: tweet an image, usually of an animal, tell a fun or interesting story about the image, have a generally humorous approach, and keep the conversation going past the original tweet by directly engaging with people’s responses.  It is a simple formula, but it only works because it is authentic to the Museum and its mission.  The MERL is a museum about rural life, so animals are a major subject of their collection.  Unlike corporations coopting memes to sell hamburgers or shoes, the MERL uses them in a spirit of fun and genuine social engagement.  This authenticity keeps the account fresh, fun, and relevant.

The MERL’s new approach to Twitter has exponentially increased the Museum’s digital engagement.  The account’s followers jumped from 9.7K to 118K in the past year.  40K people visited the MERL website in April of 2018 alone.  These numbers indicate a massive increase in engagement with digital projects like the website’s blog, digital collections, and digital exhibits.  It also means that more people are seeing the Museum’s tweets about events and resources at the physical building.  Whether or not this increase in digital engagement translates into an increase in visitors to the physical Museum remains to be seen.  Meanwhile, the MERL’s Twitter account will continue to be a place where the Internet can gather to enjoy animals, memes, and whatever is going on here:

More information about the MERL’s digital engagement can be found in Adam Koszary’s report on the viral tweet as well as on his blog.

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The National Museum Lives!

by Diana Beltrao de Macedo

The National Museum of Brazil was founded in 1818 by Dom Joao VI. Initially called Royal Museum and located at Rio de Janeiro, the space was created with the purpose of stimulating the scientific knowledge in the kingdom. At that time the royal family had recently moved out from Portugal and settled in Brazil, giving the status of most important colony to Brazil. With a collection of over 20 million objects – the biggest in Latin America – the museum has long been recognized as a landmark for natural history and anthropology research. Among some of its most famous pieces were Luzia, the oldest fossil found in the American continent, and the meteorite Bendegó, Brazil’s biggest meteorite. The museum was also recognized for its Egyptian collection – the largest in Latin America – which was inherited from the Imperial family.

In 2018, the Museum celebrated 200 years of existence but the present it received was not one everyone expected: on September 2nd, a fire consumed 92.5% of the collection along with the museum’s main building (a historical structure that once was home to the Imperial family). The loss was incalculable; objects thousands of years old became ashes within an hour. Since that day, the museum’s employees and researchers have been working on a series of initiatives to rebuild the institution while keeping it active at the same time. A campaign entitled “The National Museum Lives!” was crafted by the staff with the purpose of developing initiatives to promote what was left of the museum after the fire.

In one of these initiatives, the National Museum, in partnership with Google Arts and Culture, has created a webpage for people across the world to be able to experience a little bit of what the museum was before the fire. Through this link,  viewers can learn more about the institution’s history and go inside the museum on a guided tour with Google’s street view. The website also features highlights of the collection, like the fossil Luzia, where the viewer has access to high definition pictures and can read descriptions of these objects. The website is written in English and it is 100% open to the public.

Another initiative is called “Meeting with the Community.” Every Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the museum’s educators and volunteers set up a tent in front of the burned building to showcase materials from their teaching collection and promote educational activities to the public. In this free initiative, the staff selects different materials in accordance with the week’s theme. Some past themes were evolution and marine biodiversity, for example. The teaching collection contains over 1800 zoological, geological, and paleontological materials that were not affected by the fire. Besides attracting people to the museum and educating them about natural history, this program is also an opportunity for the museum to show this collection and advertise that it is available for rental by individuals or institutions.

After a few months, the rescue team still works assessing the damage as well as trying to find a way to recover the old structure. Through this very detail oriented work, the team has been able to find pieces – or part of them – that were lost in the fire. These findings, along with documents from the museum’s library – that was not affected by the fire – are now being displayed in an exhibition. The National Museum, in partnership with the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), built an exhibit, which is being displayed by the later, with the motivation of promoting the museum and showing the public what the rescue team has been able to recover so far. Entitled “The National Museum Lives – Rescue Archaeology”, the exhibit is free for the public and displays around 180 objects – of these around 103 have been rescued after the fire – with the purpose of showing the public that the museum is still alive and producing knowledge.

Even though the fire was a devastating event that marked the National Museum’s bicentennial history, they have been fighting every day to overcome the difficulties and thrive. Projects like the Google Arts and Culture website, the “Meeting with the Community, and “The National Museum Lives – Rescue Archaeology” exhibit are just some examples of what the institution is doing to remain active and productive despite the recent events.

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Botticelli: Heroines + Heroes at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

by Hannah Elder

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was created as the vision of its founder and namesake. Isabella Stewart Gardner created the museum as an aesthetic space, surrounding visitors with beauty and inviting them to think about the ways different arrangements of objects and art made them feel. Although she often rearranged the art in the museum, she wanted her vision to be preserved, and wrote a clause into her will that effectively prevented the rearrangement of the collection.  For many years, this restriction limited the museum’s exhibition program, but in 2012, the Gardner opened a new wing of the museum, designed by architect Renzo Piano. In this space, the Gardner has been able to use items in its collection in new ways, bringing them out of the context of Mrs. Gardner’s arrangements and bringing new perspectives to them.

The museum’s latest exhibition, Botticelli: Heroines + Heroes, uses contemporary cartoons to interpret Renaissance depictions of ancient Roman stories and brings those stories to a modern audience. The center of the exhibition is a pair of paintings by Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli: the Story of Lucretia and the Story of Virginia. They depict the stories of two women whose deaths brought about political change in ancient Rome. They were painted as a pair, but are now in separate collections; the Gardner owns Lucretia, while Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy owns Virginia. This exhibit is the first time they have been reunited. In the exhibit, the Gardner pairs the paintings with cartoons it commissioned from Boston-based graphic artist Karl Stevens.

    One set of cartoons tells the story of how Mrs. Gardner acquired the Story of Lucretia. They are the first pieces of art the visitors encounter and help establish the importance of Botticelli’s work. The rest of the cartoons highlight the paintings’ relevance in the modern world, both stylistically and in terms of content. When the paintings and cartoons are placed side-by-side, it’s easy to see how Botticelli’s bold lines and bright colors relate to the work of today’s graphic artists. The cartoons also draw the viewers’ focus back to the women at the center of the stories. While looking at Botticelli’s work, where there are several scenes of a story in a single panel, the modern viewer can lose sight of the women’s central roles. The cartoons focus on the women and their experiences and are easier for the modern audience to understand. While it’s not clear whether the exhibit was originally designed with the intention of connecting the museum’s collection to the #MeToo era, the cartoons make the connection clear. The combination of the original paintings and the cartoons invite the viewer to contemplate the role that violence against women has played in politics and major events throughout history.

    The museum is using a few methods to advertise the exhibition. They often use ads on public transportation, like the sides of buses and posters on the T, to promote the museum, and they used them for this exhibition. They are also using sponsored content on social media, probably with the goal of reaching people outside of the Boston area who appreciate art and  museums. They also feature the exhibit in their non-sponsored content, including frequent posts and an opportunity to have questions about the exhibit answered in the Stories feature of the museum’s Instagram account. The exhibition was also featured in many publications, including Forbes, The Boston Globe, and Architectural Digest.

    In addition to the exhibition itself, the museum  scheduled a variety of programs to compliment it. They included a staged reading of an opera about the lives of Virginia and Lucretia and  talks on violence in Renaissance art, the art of Botticelli, and connections between the art and today’s social activism. The events appear to be successful; two of the three upcoming events are sold out and there was high attendance at the opera.

    Botticelli: Heroines + Heroes brings the collection of the Gardner museum into the modern world, exploring themes relevant to today and across time. The exhibition is open through May 19, 2019. For more information, visit https://www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/botticelli-heroines-heroes.

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Touch This Page! Exhibit

by Rachael Allen

“Ask yourself: what might it mean for reading—and knowledge—to be universally accessible? What would that look, feel, or sound like?” This is what the exhibit Touch This Page! Making Sense of the Ways We Read asks its readers, who access the exhibit by touch, sound, or sight. Touch This Page!, an online exhibit on the multisensory experience of reading, endeavors to follow its own premise.

Created in partnership among Harvard Library, Northeastern University, and

Figure 1 Screenshot of exhibit webpage

Perkins School for the Blind, the digital exhibit consists of 6 narrative sections that focus on the early experimentation with raised text for visually impaired readers, correlating these early ideas to current discussions on universal design. The exhibit highlights in particular the Boston Line Type which was developed in the early 19th century by Samuel Gridley Howe, the first director of the Perkins School for the Blind. Unlike Braille, this text could be read both visually and by touch.

Visitors can read the narrative sections of the exhibit multiple ways—visually through digital text, auditorily through an audio recording, or tactilely by downloading a file to 3D-print raised text. Each section also includes 3D digital replicas of Boston Line Type and other designs, copied from examples in the collections at the Perkins Archives. Visitors can view these objects, which include a map of Massachusetts and a diagram of a moon eclipse, directly on the website or can hear them using a screen-reader. Alternatively, they can be downloaded as audio or 3D printing files.

While the digital exhibit is ongoing, there are also 4 pop-up exhibits located around Greater Boston between January and April 2019. Excited about an exhibit on multisensory reading, I decided to visit the in-person exhibit at the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center, which is inside the Copley Square Branch of the Boston Public Library.

Figure 2 Kiosk at the map center

The pop-up exhibit, which I found easily right outside the Center’s entrance, consisted of 3 double-sided kiosks—6 exhibit sections in total. While I hadn’t explored the online exhibit before attending in person, the physical exhibit was essentially a direct translation of the online version. Each section included visual text, a Braille version of the text, and a sort of cupboard below containing a 3D-printed block with raised lettering and designs, as well as visual and Braille text explaining the objects.

I enjoyed feeling the 3D models and interacting with the exhibit overall, although I found that it took a lot of energy in the moment to read through the narrative. I ended up reading through only 2 or 3 of the sections, and thus didn’t view the complete story. However, the next day I was able to look through the full exhibit online at a relaxed pace in the comfort of my own home. In this way, the online and physical versions of the exhibit complement each other, multiplying the ways in which we can access and experience the exhibit.

In addition to the exhibit at the Boston Public Library, the 3 other pop-up exhibit locations include Harvard University’s Lamont Library, Northeastern University’s Snell Library, and Perkins School for the Blind. While the University exhibits require affiliate IDs for entrance and the Perkins exhibit access is by appointment only, each institution expands the audience for the exhibit to reach its own community. The physical exhibits also provide a chance for visitors who don’t have access to 3D printers to examine the raised type replicas.

Far from a one-off exhibit, Touch This Page! will still be available online even after the pop-up exhibits close. In addition, corresponding events include the companion exhibit Tactile Books: Making Sense of the Ways We Read which is open to the public at the Houghton Library until April 15, 2019, and A Symposium on Ability, Access, and the Archive at Northeastern University and Harvard University from April 4-5, 2019. For those wishing to contribute to an ongoing dialogue on the exhibit, there is a section on the website to submit responses to Touch This Page!

 

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Meet Nadia Dixson, City Archivist for the City of Somerville

by Jade Mejia

Nadia Dixson, City Archivist of Somerville

In my interview with Nadia Dixson, the City of Somerville’s archivist, we had an illuminating conversation on advocacy and the many ways it can be expressed. During our conversation we went over three main points:  1.) What her institution does and who they serve 2.) What her position entails and who she serves (3. How she feels her advocacy and outreach translates into her work, and what advocacy and outreach means to her as a city archivist.

As the city’s website states, “The primary purpose of the City of Somerville Archive is to maintain the permanent records created by city employees, elected officials and boards and committees in the course of their work,” so it makes sense that Dixson’s priority patrons are city employees. However, she also made the comment that “history has intrinsic value to government” that
the archives can support.  In our discussion she told me that her primary goal was to serve city internal departments, specifically the law office and grant office because those are two offices that deal with long term institutional memory, which the archives are readily available to help with given their collection policy. What I gleaned from our conversation is that an important
part of Dixson’s position, which I feel is a largely overlooked part of advocacy work in archives, is showing non-users how they can use and engage with the archives, which will create, as Dixson said, more allies/collaborators.

What really struck me during our interview was our discussion on outreach and advocacy, and the fact that advocacy can be the archivist advocating for the archives.  When Dixson stated, “You absolutely do want to be available to advocate for the communities that you support, but if the archives doesn’t exist it can’t do it, ”,it hit me that I was looking at this from such a limited one-way idea of what advocacy is and what it should look like.  Dixson reminded me that advocacy can also come in the form of self-advocacy. Once you have created this network of departments and supporters you will be able to gain a lot more motion in projects and collaborative efforts. And by framing the projects as the archives helping a department document their history,  it can establish the support network and will, hopefully, help the archives
gain more opportunities to collaborate with other departments that might have seen the previously completed project.

I am very grateful for the chance to have spoken with Dixson, she gave me new ideas on advocacy, and gave great insight on how creating collaborations and networks with users. It is a fantastic way to showcase the archive and what you can provide a multitude of users, while also fulfilling the mission and goal of the archive.

Further reading:
Brett, Jeremy, and Jasmine Jones. ” Persuasion, Promotion, Perception: Untangling Archivists’ Understanding of Advocacy and Outreach. ” Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists 31, no. 1 (2013): 11.

Grabowski, John. ” Keepers, users, and funders: building an awareness of archival value. ” The American Archivist 55, no. 3 (1992): 464-472.

Finch, Elsie Freeman. ” Archival Advocacy: Reflections on Myths and Realities. ” Archival Issues (1995): 115-127.

Here is the link to a tool kit that lists archival advocacy efforts:
What Is Advocacy? & Archival Advocacy Efforts

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Meet Vic Mastone, Director and Chief Archaeologist for the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources

by Emily Mathay

Vic and two field school students at the Ada K Damon shipwreck in Ipswich

Victor T. Mastone (he insists you call him ‘Vic’) is an expert on shipwrecks. As Director and Chief Archaeologist for the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources (BUAR), he’s the one to call about any project involving water: “The ocean, the intertidal, every river, lake, pond, stream, puddle…basically if it’s got standing water in it, I have regulatory jurisdiction. And the state owns the resource if it’s cultural.”

Vic’s Boston office is an explosion of paperwork, with clippings of archaeology-themed comics from the Sunday papers and photos of family and friends on the walls. As I walk in, my eye is drawn to a poster of Albert Einstein tacked onto a cabinet door that reads: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Vic started out as an engineering student before transferring to University of Massachusetts Boston to get undergraduate degrees in both history and anthropology and ​received both an MA in anthropology (archaeology) and an MBA in arts administration from SUNY Binghamton, while also working on archaeology projects inland and along the coast of the Northeast. (“I didn’t get to go to all the fun places like Alaska or Morocco.”) While in his MBA program, he interned at the Peabody Museum of Salem (now the Peabody Essex). Through this work, he became connected with the BUAR, who hired him in 1987 as their first staff archaeologist and appointed him Director in the early 90s.

The job of chief archaeologist is part regulatory and part public engagement. A self-described “policy-wonk,” Vic spends much of his time working with permit holders, evaluating projects for environmental or statutory compliance issues, conducting research, and giving technical advice to other agencies or members of the public. All-told, he reviews about 1,000 projects a year. As engaging as he finds this regulatory work, he calls outreach his “salvation” — sharing his love of shipwrecks and underwater archaeology with the public helps recharge him for the work that needs to be done in front of a computer.

Vic divides his outreach into two categories: intentional and spontaneous. Intentional outreach involves answering reference questions, responding to calls from people who have found odd things on beaches, writing articles, tutoring with the Nautical Archaeology Society, conducting summer programs with local schools and community groups, giving public talks, and various other education programs. Spontaneous outreach occurs when he’s been summoned to a particular site and interacts with random passer-by while he takes measurements and notes on the shipwreck: ”I’ll tell them the story — what we’re doing, what we’re seeing…providing real-time interpretation. To me, everyone is a student.”

As in other cultural heritage institutions, work in the government sector requires a proactive approach to internal advocacy. For example, Vic works to ensure that policies and regulations cover cultural heritage sites, explaining to lawmakers why such sites are important to Massachusetts history. He also forms partnerships with and performs grant reviews for federal agencies and serves on various boards and committees. Because he is a department of one, inreach is critical to maintaining his position, so he makes himself an indispensable regulator, collaborator, and resource for other agencies. This is where Vic’s practicality shines — he prioritizes requests from both his and other government departments, triaging what’s important and responding quickly and efficiently. He also phrases his responses in ways that relate to their projects. One example he gave was a shipwreck that was in the way of some expensive machinery. Vic’s argument was that the machine would need to be replaced once it rammed its way through the wreck, which would cost much more than simply avoiding the wreck in the first place.

Vic is retiring soon. He hopes that through his outreach efforts, people developed a deeper appreciation of cultural resources. It’s not about saving everything — Vic doesn’t mind people climbing all over the wrecks, since this helps disabuse them of the notion that these artifacts are “sacred.” Instead, outreach is about encouraging people to take a second look, rather than being dismissive of strange things found on the beach. He hopes that in the end, we can all see that “these things have worth, and that it’s important to us as human beings…the past is important to us.”