AAM Presentation

Yesterday, I presented at the American Association of Museum's annual conference. I spoke during a session entitled Planning Tomorrow's Collections Today.

Really, quite by accident, or I guess by natural disaster, after the hurricane on Grand Turk I needed some kind of guideline for the long-term planning of collections. I found an online article on the AAM website called "Collections Planning: Pinning Down a Strategy," by Garland and Merritt. I adapted a brief outline based on what I needed at the time.

In the last three years, I have worked on two Collections Management Plans. I don't consider myself an expert, by any means. In fact, both Plans that I have worked were part of the planning process for a larger master plan. And in both cases it was planning as a way to deal with a crisis. In a way, I have been kind of making it up. But, as I sat there in the presentation, it became clear to me that I had twice as much experience as the other panelists. We have been in a rush to complete the Plan at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. But it is much easier and better the second time around.

This is the method of writing a Collections Plan as part of a Master Plan that I presented:

1) What is our audience?

2) How do we engage them?

3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of our collection?

4) What is our ideal collection?

5) Is there anything else we need? What would we take if it were donated?

6) Who has “complementary collections” to ours?

7) What are our needed resources for using collections to build exhibits or programs?

8) What action are we going to take?