When I heard the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) was launching a special exhibit on Sherlock Holmes last fall, I knew I had to go. I grew up reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and have watched a number of the screen versions. For those of us who are Holmes fans, we mentally like to put ourselves in his shoes, thinking we could use our powers of observations to solve crimes. Hubby and I…
Recently, the museum Twitter community was abuzz with a report from the trade union AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), specifically from AFSCME Cultural Workers United. The report, called “Cultural Institutions Cashed In, Workers Got Sold Out,” presents information on the cultural sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, including museums of all types, historical sites, zoos, and botanical gardens. It explains how the pandemic hit the sector in terms of closures and the…
A quick post for this week, inspired by Joe Hoover of the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) during a break at the 2019 Minnesota State Historic Preservation Conference in St. Cloud. (Yeah, yeah, this is my third post related to the conference, but conferences really suggest a wealth of material for blog posts.) Joe puts together MNHS’s email newsletter Local History News, which is a compilation of history events, announcements and job postings from history organizations…
Last week I attended an LSAC meeting at the Beltrami County Historical Society in Bemidji, Minnesota. I’ve been with the LSAC for the past couple of years. When I first joined, I couldn’t seem to grasp what the LSAC was trying to do. It’s not a group with an easy-to-state mission. How did the LSAC arise? The Legacy Amendment In 2008, Minnesota voters passed a constitutional amendment to collect a sales tax to be dedicated…
As a person working in a local museum who has had disaster preparation and recovery training, I think a lot about the safety of our collections. There are items in our museum that cannot be replaced because they are one-of-a-kind. Two Bandolier Bags & a Ledger The two Ojibwe bandolier bags are such items. One of them was gifted by Chief Shab-osh-kung to Nathan Richardson for Nate’s legal work against timber thieves on behalf of…