Positioning Your Museum as a Critical Community Asset: A Practical Guide(American Association for State and Local History)

In this how-to guide, practitioners at cultural heritage venues share their experiences in building sustainable relationships with their geographic and demographic communities. The volume includes practical discussions of activity types that museums can employ to build relationships with their communities including education, advocacy, co-creative, while serving as a community asset and resource. Case studies include direct application of successes and lessons learned with an emphasis on small to medium sized institutions with limited staff and budgets. Highlights include: Thematic discussions on topics such as building an advocacy network between the museum and community; developing cultural heritage institutions as critical and essential components of educational systems; museum response to community expressed needs through a co-creative approach; the varied means for developing community members as cultural heritage stakeholders; and positioning the cultural heritage institution as an integral community asset.Twenty case studies directly apply the thematic discussions in small to medium-sized museum contexts. Extensive list of resources including digital links to forms, workbooks, and guides produced in the case studies.A list of national organizations and an extensive bibliography on community museum engagement. Specifically addressed to smaller institutions with limited budgets and limited or no full-time staff, the volume includes cost-effective projects that can be completed for $1,500 or less.

Table of Contents:
Introduction- Robert P. Connolly and Elizabeth A. Bollwerk Part 1 - Communities Making Meaning in Museum Education – Jody Stokes Casey Case Studies Developing High School Curriculum: The C.H. Nash Museum and Freedom Prep Charter School Project – Nur Abdalla and Lyndsey PenderCreating a Museum in a School: Cultural Heritage in Nivín, Perú– Gustavo Valencia Tello and Elizabeth Cruzado Meeting Teacher Needs: Digital Collections in the Classroom – Shana CrossonUsing Postcard Collections as a Primary Resource in the Classroom - Brian FailingWords, Stone, Earth, and Paint: Using Creative Writing to Engage a Community with Its Museum – Mary Anna EvansPart 2 – The Value of Open(ing) Authority and Participatory Frameworks for Museums – Elizabeth A. Bollwerk Case Studies Oral History For, About, and By a Local Community: Co-Creation in the Peruvian Highlands – Elizabeth Cruzado and Leodan Alejo ValerioWorking with a Private Collector to Strengthen Women’s History: Sewall-Belmont House & Museum – Rebecca Price.Reconnecting a University Museum Collection with Hopi Farmers through an Undergraduate Class– Lisa Young and Susan SekaquaptewaOur Stories, Our Places: Centering the Community as Narrative Voice in the Reinterpretation of an African American Historic Site - Porchia MoorePart 3 – Advocacy for Heritage Professionals During the Crisis and the Calm – Sarah E. Miller Case Studies Making Advocacy Everyone’s Priority – Ember FarberImpact Statements – Demonstrating a Museum’s Public Value – Robert P. ConnollySmall Fish, Big Pond: How to Effectively Advocate in Your Community – Melissa PrycerPart 4 – Museums Engaging With People As A Community Resource – Robert P. Connolly Case Studies Taking Steps to Make a Museum Special Needs Friendly – Colleen McCartney Incorporating Descendent Community Voices: The Whitney Plantation – Ashley RogersHow Community Input Can Shape a Mission: The Proposed Eggleston Museum – Allison HennieBuilding a Community History at the University of the West Indies Museum – Suzanne Francis-BrownTelling Our Town’s History: The Muscatine History and Industry Center – Mary WildermuthWorking to Address Community Needs: The Missouri History Museum – Melanie AdamsPart 5 – Engaging User Audiences in the Digital Landscape – Brigitte Billedeaux and Jennifer Schnabel Case Studies Creating a Digital Library for Community Access: A. Schwab on Beale Street – Brigitte BilledeauxSeparating the Glitz from the Practical in Social Media at the National Underground Railroad Museum – Jamie Glavic and Assia JohnsonHow a Simple, Inexpensive Podcast Engaged an Entire Community: Chick History, Inc – Rebecca PriceRecording the Neglected Sports Stories From the Backside - Holly SolisSmall Museum Website Creation with a Limited Staff and Budget: The Arden Craft Shop Museum – Kelsey RansickPart 6 – Resources

About the Author :
Robert Connolly is active in the museum field as an independent consultant and President of the Advocates for the Poverty Point World Heritage Site. He has over 25 years of experience in museums and community engagement most recently as an Associate Professor in the Museum Studies program at the University of Memphis and the Director of the C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa. His PhD is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. Elizabeth A. Bollwerk is currently an Archaeological Analyst for the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS, www.daacs.org) at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation based at Monticello. She received her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2012.

Review :
Happily, this volume is not yet one more call for museums to engage with the communities they serve –as its editors note, that would be nothing new. Rather, the book is a “how-to” guide, illustrated with case studies drawn from a wide variety of contexts, and including a digital resource guide (linked to ancillary online content) compiled by the book’s contributors. This volume demonstrates how reciprocal, mutually empowered community engagement is a profoundly co-creative process which benefits both communities and the museums which serve them. Positioning Your Museum as a Critical Community Asset: A Practical Guide is a major contribution to studies about community engagement and participatory strategies in museums. Encompassing examples from more than two dozen contributors, the book is a valuable manual of tested and inexpensive "bottom-up" or "co-creation" approaches. This is a must-read not just for museum professionals but also for everyone in the critical museum studies field.