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. It is designed to provide affordable basic training that is more than a workshop, but less than a degree. This program began as a collaboration between Eastern New Mexico State University’s Distance Learning Program and Museum Development Associates of Santa Fe, New Mexico. To obtain a certificate, participants will need to complete all five Small Museum Pro! courses, which will be offered only online. Each class is worth three Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Spring 2010 1st eight weeks: Building Effective Museum Exhibits (Small Museum Pro! Exhibits) (January 18 – March 11, 2011) 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. Instructor: Jennifer Kinyak (Storyteller’s Workshop, Inc.) is a museum exhibit developer and designer who lives to help create meaningful, compelling experiences for visitors. Her past clients and projects include the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, the Kurdish Regional Government, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Discovery Gateway in Salt Lake City, the state of New Mexico’s Van of Enchantment traveling exhibit, and illustrations for Nina Simon’s book The Participatory Museum. Jennifer’s love for learning has led her through a varied education, including work as a teacher, editor, and writer, and culminating in her Master of Fine Arts degree in Museum Exhibition Planning and Design from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Required text: Exhibit Makeovers, A Do-It-Yourself Workbook for Small Museums (Altamira Press, 2008) ($29.95). 2nd eight weeks: Caring for Museum Collections (March 14- May 13, 2011) Small Museum Pro! Collections Care: Caring for Museum Collections 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 students will: know the major causes of deterioration for museum objects, and how to use that information to enhance the long-term preservation of your collections; know how to handle the objects in your collection in the safest way; know how to examine and document the condition of the objects in your collections; know how to display your collections in a way that prolongs their life; know how to store and house your collections in the way that best preserves them; understand the importance of environmental control for the preservation of your collections; know the best ways to clean your museum; and know how to perform a risk assessment for your museum then, how to use your assessment to write a disaster plan for your museum. Instructor: M. Susan Barger, PhD has been involved in art conservation for over 30 years as a conservation scientist and as an educator, both on the university level and for professional development for small museums. She is a Professional Associate in the American Institute for Conservation of Artistic and Historic Works (AIC). Over the last fifteen years, she has been involved in consulting and professional development for workers in small museums throughout the Southwest. 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 was a co-founder with Barbara B. Hagood of the nonprofit museum services organization, Museum Development Associates and was its Director from 2008 through 2010. Required Text: Odegaard, Nancy. A Guide to Handling Anthropological Museum Collections. Available from WAAC (Western Association of Art Conservators) ($8.95). Coming Summer 2011 (Beginning June 2011) Museum Education: Crafting Great Learning Experiences How to Register Contact Eastern New Mexico University’s department of Distance Education and Outreach, at 575.562.2165 to register (with credit card) or ask questions regarding Small Museum Pro!. Register in person at ENMU’s Education Building, Room 102. Cash, checks, and credit cards are accepted. You may also email rebbecca.gossett@enmu.edu to obtain more information. Small Museum Pro! classes are delivered via ENMU’s web-based learning platform, Blackboard. In order to use Blackboard, a student will need a unique identification number and password. These numbers 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 email address, and he or she will be able to log on to Blackboard. For more information about the Small Museum Pro! program, send email to smallmuseumpro@comcast.net.