Museum Studies in Motion May 2011
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Be at the center of things.
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Volume 3, Issue 3
NEWSLETTER OF THE MUSEUM STUDIES PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
Industrious Delaware Two class projects brought students to the Auburn Heights Preserve in Yorklyn, DE. This historic industrial village includes mill buildings, a mansion, a museum with a collection of steam cars, and park lands. Part I by RETZ MONROE (History, PhD Program) Museum Studies students augmented their knowledge base in the spring of 2011 by taking the archival class Curatorship and Management of Archives and Paper Collections. While learning about managing archival, manuscript, and paperbased collections, along with the issues that arise when handling such collections, students had the opportunity to get hands-on experience. Students made site visits and embarked on a class project as they worked with the archives of National Vulcanized Fibre (NVF) at Auburn Heights.
Christopher Chenier looks through archival files at NVF. Photo courtesy Barry Corke.
Unprocessed pictures, blueprints, labor negotiations and corporate records awaited the students’ perusal. NVF was a family business that stayed under the direct operation of the Marshalls until 1953. The Marshall family commenced their business operations in 1763 with a saw mill. By 1856, they transferred to a paper mill, and finally they produced vulcanized fibre, a laminated plastic made of paper. From 1993 to 2007 the company experienced financial setbacks; NVF filed for bankruptcy three times. In 2007, the company closed for good. The descendants of the Marshall family recently donated their home, the adjacent Auburn Heights property, to Delaware State Parks. According to Daniel Citron, Historic Site Manager, the NVF site is slated to become a museum where the paper making process and the story of NVF will be highlighted. The students were exposed to an archival dream, exciting yet fraught with challenges. They witnessed a collection in its unprocessed state. Mountainous files, a plethora of documents, greeted them. Unprocessed pictures, posters, blueprints, personnel records, labor negotiations, and corporate records awaited their perusal. First-year PhD student and Hagley Fellow Chris Chenier remarked excitedly, "I plan to write a proposal to process the pictorial collection; there’s some really good stuff in it." (continued on page 4)
Dr. Terry Snyder gives instructions to project participants. Pictured counter clockwise from left: Max Dooley, Retz Monroe, Laura Muskavitch, Mary Sidebotham, Jesse Gagnon, and Dr. Synder. Photo courtesy Barry Corke.
In this issue... Auburn Heights Projects, pg. 1
Director’s Message, pg. 2
Museum Studies Photos, pg. 2
Alumni News & Profile, pg. 3 Spring 2011 Graduates, pg. 3
www.udel.edu/museumstudies
Director’s Message KATHERINE GRIER, PHD kcgrier@udel.edu Spring semester 2011 has been busy and challenging, yet also a lot of fun. The Museum Studies Program is fortunate in attracting some of the most interesting graduate students on campus, and we are graduating eleven terrific young professionals at the end of May. On April 8 I was able to host a meeting with all our adjunct faculty. Spending a day together allowed us to do some long-overdue planning and exchange ideas about future initiatives in MSST. In February I was inducted as an Honorary Commander of the 436 Airlift Division at Dover Air Force Base. In this community relations program, I am affiliated with the Air Mobility Command Museum. Last month, I got to fly in a C-17 on a training mission. The photos are on the MSST Facebook page, and this newsletter features a snapshot of my grinning face as I got on the giant plane. It was thrilling! The Museum Studies Program will have a special tour of the AMCM in September.
Museum Studies received an Opportunity Grant from the Delaware Humanities Forum. We are becoming crackerjack grant writers, too. Thanks to the good work of Kate Duffy and Hillary Mohaupt, Museum Studies received an Opportunity Grant from the Delaware Humanities Forum to offer three more workshops on Social Media for small Museums. We offered the first of these on campus on April 16; the second will be on June 25 (stay tuned for registration details). A follow-up workshop, where we help participants in the three workshops consolidate their skills and develop strategies for the use of social media, will take place in September (again, stay tuned for details). To keep up with our interns and program news thus summer, be sure to check in with our website and Facebook page. Kate will continue producing MuseWeekly during the summer, so send us your job, internship, and conference postings. And keep that alumni news coming!
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From top to bottom: (1) Kasey Grier was inducted as an Honorary Commander at the Dover Air Force Base. (2) The Small Museums Association conference held a masquerade banquet with the theme "Night at the Small Museum." We went as museum pests! (3) The Green Museum, our first hybrid online/in-person course, met in our new seminar room. (4) Jesse Gagnon helped clean and organize textiles as part of our Laurel (DE) Historical Society project.
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Alumni Profile Erin Titter '02, MA in History Consultant, STORAGELogic of Maryland By KATE DUFFY While serving as a librarian and archivist at the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore, MD, Erin Titter used mobile storage units called Spacesavers. As she worked with the local Spacesavers dealer to select products and design an efficient storage area, Titter was very exacting in her preferences. "[The dealer] told me I had a good sense of space," she said. "He jokingly asked me if I wanted a job." It turned out he wasn’t joking. Titter is now a consultant specializing in museums and libraries for STORAGELogic of Maryland, the Spacesaver dealership. In this role since 2006, she has worked with a number of museums throughout Maryland to meet their collections storage needs. "It’s an opportunity to get into everyone’s basements," she said. “I’ve probably seen every museum in the state.” Titter is passionate about the museum field, and her experiences in the Museum Studies Program and at the Jewish Museum enhance her work. (She also holds an M.L.S. from Clarion University.) Titter can relate to the challenges facing museum staff as they strive to improve collections storage.
More Alumni News! Mary Ames Booker '87 (MA, History) wrote in to say that she and other UD alumni "have history covered" in Wilmington, NC! She and Kim Sincox '86 both work at Battleship North Carolina as curators, while at the Cape Fear Museum Barbara Rowe '87 is a curator and Janet Davidson, PhD is the historian. In January 2011, Mark R. Thompson '04 (MA, American History) was named Executive Director of Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum in St. Leonard, MD. Congratulations, Mark! Pat Young (MA, Liberal Studies) will be keynoting the 41st conference of the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL). Her topic is "Objects of Value: Addressing emergency and disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery; issues and collections." Send news to museumstudies@udel.edu! "I’ve written grants to help pay for this kind of stuff," Titter said. "I can empathize with the plight of a museum professional on a budget who wants to do it the right way. I can help them do it the best way they can."
Congrats to the Class of 2011! Eleven graduate students are receiving certificates in Museum Studies this spring.
Dong Ah Shin MS, Longwood Program in Public Horticulture
Jennifer Matthews MA, History
Laura Schmidt MA, Urban Affairs & Public Policy with concentration in Historic Preservation
Jackie Williams Bruen MA, History
Allison Olsen MA, Urban Affairs & Public Policy with concentration in Historic Preservation
Marina Dobronovskaya PhD, Preservation Studies
Rebecca Sawyer Pineo MS, Longwood Program in Public Horticulture
Kristen Saksa MS, Plant & Soil Science
Robin Valencia MA, History Theresa Handwerk MA, Art History
Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - May 2011
Alana Staiti MA, History
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Auburn Heights Projects, con't from pg. 1 Students were responsible for putting together an archival plan for NVF-Auburn Heights. They appraised the collection and did a proposal on what should be done with the collection, donning out recommendations and associated costs of undertaking the plan—both labor and capital. Essentially, students experienced how to process and manage a collection. Trekking through the archives of NVF provided students with a wonderful opportunity to learn the field and simultaneously render aid to an institution. The project was a great complement to an archival class and tremendous opportunity for hands-on experience!
With the bounty of interpretive possibilities at the Marshall Steam Museum, we knew we would be able to cover a number of different topics in our educational programming, including science, technology, and history, all relating to the power of steam. We divided into groups to create specific lesson plans that could be taught on- or off-site. We tested one lesson plan for preschool-age children at the Hockessin Library at the beginning of May and evaluated its success. At the end of the semester we presented the museum with complete lesson plans, appropriate for preschool age children up through high school, along with supplies to support implementation. We also presented suggestions for development of their educational programming in the future.
Part II by JAQUELINE WILLIAMS BRUEN (History, MA Program) One of the many excellent Museum Studies classes offered this semester was Museum Education and Interpretation, a course taught by Rosemary Krill. In this class we created educational programs for the Marshall Steam Museum at Auburn Heights Preserve. This museum contains a wonderful collection of Stanley steam cars from the early 20th century, and it also has an eclectic collection of other objects.
The class has taken on the task of creating educational programming for the Marshall Steam Museum.
Despite its impressive holdings, the museum currently has no educational programs. As with many small museums, the Marshall Steam Museum has limited staff and does not have the resources to dedicate to the creation of educational programs. A mutually beneficial partnership was formed between the Museum Education class and the Marshall Steam Museum. The partnership works on two levels. On one hand, it allows us, the students, to gain real world experience, and on the other, it fills a void for the Marshall Steam Museum. The class took on the task of creating educational programming for the Marshall Steam Museum from beginning to end. We began with front end evaluation to determine the interest of teachers, community groups, and other groups. We also researched public school standards, children's developmental stages, and other criteria that would affect the usefulness of the programs we create. 4
The Museum Education class meets at Auburn Heights with staff members Susan Randolph and Daniel Citron (front, right).
Contact Us The Museum Studies Program at the University of Delaware 77 East Main Street | Newark, DE 19711 (302) 831-1251 http://www.udel.edu/museumstudies museumstudies@udel.edu Katherine (Kasey) Grier, Director Tracy Jentzsch, Staff Assistant Kate Duffy, Graduate Assistant Subscribe to our weekly email listing of conferences, internships and job oportunities. Email museumstudies@udel.edu to submit news items. Follow us on Twitter. Friend us on Facebook. Link up with our LinkedIn group. Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - May 2011