Monday, February 10, 2014 All activities will be held in the Marriott Shoals Hotel & Spa, 10 Hightower Place, Florence, AL 35630, unless otherwise noted.

7:00 – 8:00am | Vendor Setup

8:00 – 9:45am | Registration

10:00 – 11:00am | Session 1A. DOUBLE SESSION, Part 1 The Secret to a Successful Exhibit by Kathy Kelley, K Design Signs & Exhibits, Memphis, TNThis session will help museum professionals learn the “rules” that will result in a successful exhibit. Topics covered will include The Big Idea, interpretive plans, hierarchy of exhibit, interactives, unity of composition and layout ideas.

B. From Reconstruction to Desegregation: Oral History and the African American Experience in Northwest Alabama by Carolyn Barske, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public History, The University of North Alabama, Florence, and students Hannah Goode-Garmon, John W. Garmon, Kristen Tippett-BriggsThis session examines the experience of African Americans in the Shoals region of Alabama, in particular African American activism as embodied by the Muscle Shoals Missionary Baptist Association in the late 1900s and the movement towards desegregation in the 1950s and 60s as reflected in oral history interviews conducted by students enrolled in the Public History Program at the University of North Alabama.

11:15am – 12:15pm | Session 2A. DOUBLE SESSION, Part 2 The Secret to a Successful Exhibit by Kathy Kelley, K Design Signs & Exhibits, Memphis, TNThis session will help museum professionals learn the “rules” that will result in a successful exhibit. Topics covered will include The Big Idea, interpretive plans, hierarchy of exhibit, interactives, unity of composition and layout ideas.

B. Alabama Quilt Book – A Work in Progress by Mary Elizabeth Johnson Huff, author of the Alabama Quilt Book, textile historian and author of numerous quilt books including the Mississippi Quilt Book, and Carole King, curator for Landmarks Foundation/Old Alabama Town, MontgomeryThe AQBP has been documenting Alabama-made quilts across the state for almost a decade through public quilt share days and private viewings of individuals and museum collections. This project will culminate in the publication of the Alabama Quilt Book. The session will include a review of the fieldwork done statewide and nationwide, a look at some of the most unusual quilts found, and a discussion on ways to hold a successful quilt share day in the community.

Alabama Museums Association Annual MeetingFlorence, Alabama February 10 - 11, 2014

Renewal in the Renaissance City

1

12:15 – 12:30pm | Vendor Break

12:30 – 1:30pm | Lunch & Keynote SpeakerAlfred Russel Wallace, Pioneer Curator: On Museums, Science, and the Public by Michael A. Flannery, Professor and Associate Director for Historical Collections, the University of Alabama at BirminghamIn 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection and considered by his generation as (next to Darwin) Britain’s most illustrious naturalist, published a fascinating paper titled “Museums for the People.” Reissued in his collected essays, Studies Scientific and Social (1900), Wallace proposed that museums of natural history were particularly well-suited to instruct the general public in geography and geology, minerology, zoology, botany, and many other scientific fields. Moreover, he saw the museum as the means “best fitted” to interest the masses in the value and worth of scientific endeavor, thus making them the agents of scientific promotion and advancement. While some of Wallace’s ideas are now commonplace, his paper remains interesting as a historic manifesto of the value and worth of museums in utilizing physical object as a means of public education and the promotion of science. In addition, Wallace gives detailed advice on the “situation and plan of museums” that is still valuable today. Wallace’s very first publication was “An Essay on the Best Method of Conducting the Kington’s Mechanic’s Institute” (1845), which demonstrates his early professional efforts as a lecturer at the Institute in Neath, Wales, and as curator of the Philosophical and Literary Society’s museum there. The purpose of this paper is to place Wallace in historical context as an important figure in the development of popular museums in Great Britain and as a significant advocate for the support of popular museums generally. Many of Wallace’s ideas about the importance and value of museums remains as pertinent today as when he first proposed them nearly 150 years ago.

“Museums are well adapted to illustrate all those branches of knowledge whose subject-matter consists mainly of definite movable and portable objects.”

— Alfred Russel Wallace, “Museums for the People,” Macmillan’s Magazine, 1869

1:45 – 2:45pm | Session 3A. Applying the Attention-Value Model to Visitors by Stephen Bitgood, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL, and John Kelton, Principal, Kelton Design, Huntsville, ALThe attention-value model will be described, evidence for it presented, and applications to exhibit design explored. The model argues that good exhibit design: (1) manages attention capture and engagement; and (2) motivates visitors to engage by providing experiences with high value (i.e. high utility per time and effort expended).

B. Museums Connect: How Your Alabama Museum Can Forge an International Partnership by Laura Caldwell Anderson, Archivist/Oral History Project Director, Birmingham Civil Rights InstituteAttendees will learn about Museums ConnectSM – an international collaborative program made possible by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the American Alliance of Museums – and about one Alabama museum’s experience with it. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute partnered with the Apartheid Museum in the Mandela House Museum in South Africa on a youth exchange project that reached beyond the partners’ physical walls to directly engage their respective communities.

2

3:00 – 4:00pm | Session 4A. Renewal Roadmap for Fundraising Success by Susan Perry, Executive Director, Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC), Atlanta, Georgia, and Lori Green, Director of Development, School of Education, University of Alabama at BirminghamDiscover the roadmap for fundraising success. From prospect identification to recognition, learn the practical steps to fundraising. Begin with an effective development plan and strong leadership. How do we engage the board and volunteers? How do we cultivate and deepen relationships for a capital campaign or planned giving program? With giving downturn and shrinking funding sources, where do we find new means of support, approaches to fundraising, and grant opportunities? Evaluate the cost, time, and potential return on special events. Explore the potential of online giving, the role of social entrepreneurship, and the future of fundraising.

B. Muscle Shoals and its Music by Judy S. Sizemore, Director, Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area, University of North Alabama, and Carolyn Brackett, Senior Field Representative, National Trust for Historic PreservationThe session will share the success of the recent Muscle Shoals documentary and the national attention it has garnered for Muscle Shoals. The session will also present the development of the Roots of American Music Trail, which will showcase the musical heritage of northwest Alabama. Presenters will share the process of developing the music heritage trail and lessons learned that may help other heritage sites in Alabama that are considering development of thematic heritage sites and trails.

3

...ending @ the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts

Monday Evening EventsWe will begin with appetizers and drinks in the newly renovated Florence/Lauderdale Tourism Bureau and a special mini-session presented by ExpoDisplays.

The evening will continue with dinner served in the beautiful Southall-Moore House in downtown Florence and dessert offered next door in the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, a gallery, educational facility, museum, and center for the coordination and promotion of cultural activity in the area.

4

Tuesday, February 11, 20148:30 – 9:30am | Vendor Breakfast

9:45 – 10:45am | Session 5A. DOUBLE SESSION, Part 1Artifact, Textile and Paper Record Preservation: Incorporating Best Practices in Your Shop by Tracey Berezansky, Assistant Director for Government Records, and Ryan Blocker, Curator, Alabama Department of Archives and History, MontgomeryThis session is designed to provide brief overviews with resource listings about the best practices established for identifying and preserving records, artifacts and textiles. Practical preservation methods will be demonstrated and session participants will have a hands-on experience in using the demonstrated techniques.

B. Helping Students and the Community Win through Public Internships by Pam Sterne-King, History Professor, the University of Alabama at BirminghamThis session will show how to connect good history students with their communities by letting them earn credits, learn what public historians do, and assist historic preservation organizations, archives, museums, and community activist groups advance their missions. UAB’s Public Internship Program offers students the chance to “network” and explore the many professional options available to history graduates.

11:00am – 12:00pm | Session 6A. DOUBLE SESSION, Part 2Artifact, Textile and Paper Record Preservation: Incorporating Best Practices in Your Shop by Tracey Berezansky, Assistant Director for Government Records, and Ryan Blocker, Curator, Alabama Department of Archives and History, MontgomeryThis session is designed to provide brief overviews with resource listings about the best practices established for identifying and preserving records, artifacts and textiles. Practical preservation methods will be demonstrated and session participants will have a hands-on experience in using the demonstrated techniques.

B. No Bells or Whistles: A Low Tech Educational Program by Robin Person, Historic Jefferson College, Washington, MississippiInexpensive wooden blocks can be used to express ideas of art, history and natural history, as well as creating critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It’s HANDS-ON, y’all!

12:00 – 12:20pm | Final Silent Auction and Vendor Punch Cards

12:30 – 1:30pm | Lunch & Business Meeting

1:30 – 2:00pm | Silent Auction Payment

2:00 – 4:00pm | Free Visitation to City of Florence Museums