Small Museum Pro!

Small Museum Pro! is a professional certification program for people who work, or who would like to work, in small, local museums and who need practical guidance and education on running and managing a museum.  This program is a partnership between Museum Development Associates and Eastern New Mexico State University's Distance Learning Program.  To obtain a certificate, participants will need to complete all five Small Museum Pro! courses, all offered only online.  Each course earns students three Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

For more information about Small Museum Pro! program content, see below or contact Museum Development Associates at [info@museumdevelopment.org] or 505.466.3480.

How to Register

The ENMU Continuing Ed catalogue is available online at www.enmu.edu/academics/distance-ed/non-credit/certificate.shtml.

Mail with your course and credit card information, check or money order to: Distance Education and Outreach, ENMU Station 25, 1500 S Ave K, Portales, NM, 88130.

Phone 575.562.2165 or 800.537.5376 (NM toll-free) using American Express, Discover, Visa or MasterCard.

Fax course selection, contact and credit card information to 575.562.2168, attention to Extended Learning, Education Building, Room 102, Portales, NM.

Visit the Distance Education and Outreach office, Education Building, Room 102, ENMU, Portales.

ENMU accepts cash, checks or credit cards.

These courses will be delivered via ENMU’s web-based learning platform, Blackboard.  In order to use Blackboard, a student will need a unique identification number and password, which will be generated by ENMU upon full payment for a student’s desired courses.  The information will then be forwarded to the student’s designated e-mail address, and s/he will be able to log on to Blackboard.  For assistance or questions regarding registration, contact Rebbecca Gossett, Special Projects Coordinator, Distance Education and Outreach, ENMU: [rebbecca.gossett@enmu.edu] or 575.562.4248.

SMP! Course Schedule - Fall Semester 2010

Small Museum Pro! Collections Management:  Managing and Organizing Museum Collections
(Weeks 1-8)  August 18 - October 8, 2010. Register by August 12, 2010

This course will introduce students to the professional principles and practices for managing museum collections. Topics will include collections development, registration and record keeping with an emphasis on the development of Collection Policies and Procedures and what it means to be intellectually and physically responsible for museum objects.
At the end of this class students will have completed the following:
     1.     Developed or identified a collection of objects
     2.     Developed a standardized set of registration methods, records and forms: inventory, catalog, accession, loans
     3.     Learned about various registration numbering systems and how to mark objects appropriately
     4.     Discussed issues related to collecting strategies, mission, purpose and scope of collections
     5.     Developed a broader understanding of legal and ethical concerns of managing collections
     6.     Used computerized collection management software
     7.     Developed a detailed draft of a Collections Policy

Required texts: Daniel B. Reibel. Registration Methods for the Small Museum, Fourth Edition, Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press, 2008. (Paperback - ISBN 978-0-7591-1131-8)  Cost about $28.00.

Instructor M. Susan Barger, PhD  has been involved with museums as a conservation scientist, educator, and small museums consultant for over 30 years. She has designed professional development opportunities for small museums and taught at the university level. From 2001-2004, she served as the Program Manager for the Small Museum Development Project, a federally funded, joint program of the Museum of New Mexico and the New Mexico Association of Museums. In 2005, she co-founded the nonprofit, Museum Development Associates, (www.museumdevelopment.org) and became its Director in 2008. Museum Development Associates developed of the Small Museum Pro! program.

Small Museum Pro! Museum Administration:  Running and Managing a Small Museum
(Weeks 9-16)  October 13–December 10, 2010   Register by October 7, 2010

This course will cover a broad spectrum of topics related to museum administration or those things that need to happen in a museum in order for the collections to be cared for, tracked, exhibited and interpreted.  Topics include the governance structure, the board’s roles & responsibilities, the relationship between the board and the staff, and legal and ethical guidelines and constraints.  As part of the Small Museum Pro! Certification Program this course is geared toward fairly small museums and their staff, staff members who may or may not be paid or who in fact may be on the board and also serve as curator. However, even if you are in a paid position that gets to work mostly with the collections, you will benefit from an understanding of the administrative side of the museum if only to comprehend the actions of the director or the board at bit better.  

At the end of this course you will:
     1. understand the governance structure of most nonprofit museums;
     2. know about the history and unique requirements of the nonprofit sector;
     3. know how important the mission statement is to everything a museum undertakes;
     4. understand the major roles and responsibilities of the board;
     5. have created a Board Member Handbook for board member training at your organization;
     6. know about basic museum accountability, nonprofit corporate law and museum ethics;
     7. know how to assess the board and work toward creating a more effective board through education and evaluation;
     8. know which policies each museum should have in place;
     9. know about museum standards and best practices; and
   10. have a handful of tools and samples to use to help your museum reach these standards and best practices.

Required texts: Thomas Wolf. Managing a Nonprofit Organization in the Twenty-First Century.  New York: Fireside, Simon and Schuster Inc., 1999.  (Paperback – ISBN-13: 978-0-684-84990-4).  Cost about $14.50.
Marie C. Malaro. Museum Governance:  Mission, Ethics, Policy. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.  (Paperback – ISBN 1-56098-363-9).  Cost about $18.00.

Instructor Julie Baird served as Director of the Farmington Museum for ten years expanding the museum from one 10,000 sq. ft. facility with a staff of three and annual visitation of 14,000 to a museum system consisting of four facilities, totaling over 40,000 sq. ft. and five miles of interpretive trails, with a staff of thirteen, and annual visitation of 45,000.  Julie also served as Deputy Director of the Georgia Museum of Art for two years coordinating financial information for use by the director, curatorial staff and board members and managing daily operations.  She has served on the New Mexico Association of Museums board as secretary and president.  Julie received her Master of Arts degree in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

SMP! Course Schedule - Spring Semester 2011

Small Museum Pro! Exhibits:  Building Effective Museum Exhibits
(Weeks 1-8)

This class is about how to put together an exhibition, from deciding what it will be about and why, to gathering, creating and arranging all the elements for visitors.  You'll learn a lot from your classmates – from their own experiences and from the resources that they share with all of us.  And you'll learn the best way: by doing – you will develop an actual exhibit over the course of the class.

At the end of this course, you will have:
       At the end of the course, you will:
     1. know how to develop, create and evaluate an exhibition – you will have developed a real exhibit
     2. be familiar with other resources for more information; and
     3. have a network of small-museum professionals with whom to confer on future exhibits.

Required text: Exhibit Makeovers, A Do-It-Yourself Workbook for Small Museums (Altamira Press, 2008) ($29.95).

Instructor Joyce Cheney has been a cultural worker for decades. Originally a storyteller, folk musician and community organizer, she transitioned backstage to museum exhibit development and non-fiction writing.  As Principal of Focus Communications, (www.focuscommunications.us) Cheney has developed exhibits on everything from botanical history, recycling, basic physics, the Mississippi River and cardio-thoracic health, to the Freemasons, Mark Twain, UPS, and ethnographic textiles. Cheney holds a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies (University of Missouri), an MA in Education (Goddard College) and a BA in Communications (U. Michigan). She has developed and taught communications and museum studies courses (online and classroom) for five universities.

Small Museum Pro! Collections Care:  Caring for Museum Collections
(Weeks 9-16)

Collections Care is concerned with the physical care and preservation of your museum collections. This course will be very practical and will cover how collections age and deteriorate, handling collections, storage requirements, environmental considerations for museums, housekeeping, and risk management.

At the end of this course you will:
     1. know the major causes of deterioration for museum objects and how to use that information to enhance the long-term preservation of your collections;
     2. know how to handle the objects in your collection in the safest way;
     3. know how to examine and document the condition of the objects in your collections;
     4. know how to display your collections in a way that prolongs their life;
     5. know how to store and house your collections in the way that best preserves them;
     6. understand the importance of environmental control for the preservation of your collections;
     7. know the best ways to clean your museum; and
     8. know how to perform a risk assessment for your museum, and then, how to use your assessment to write a disaster plan for your museum.

Required Text: A Guide to Handling Anthropological Museum Collections, Nancy Odegaard. Available from WAAC (the Western Association of Art Conservators), $8.95.

Instructor M. Susan Barger, PhD See the biography above.

SMP! Course Schedule - Summer Session 2011

Small Museum Pro! Museum Education:  Museum Education: Crafting Great Learning Experiences

Museums are places to store, conserve, display and learn about things. This course is about the last of these processes, learning. At the end of the course you will know something about:
     1. how learning occurs;
     2. how museums can facilitate learning;
     3. resources to assist you in future development of learning experiences; and
     4. how to develop and implement learning experiences – you will develop one!

Required Text: The Museum Educator’s Manual: Educators Share Successful Techniques by Anna Johnson, Kimberly A. Huber, Nancy Cutler, Melissa Bingmann and Tim Grove, 2009, Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press (Paperback -ISBN-13: 978-0-7591-1167-7). Cost about $27.00.

Instructor Terry Reynolds, PhD did informal educational and interpretative programming for children and adults for over thirty years and taught museum studies formally at the university level.  She was a small museum curator and/or director for over a quarter of a century.  Dr. Reynolds directed a museum studies program at University of Denver and was the chair of the Committee on Museum Professional Training for the American Association of Museums. She also has done market and social research. She recently retired.