Guest Posts

Check the Classifieds…

By Eric Johnson   As readers can probably tell from earlier posts by other members of this committee, mining old #musetech job listings is really a lot of fun. My task has been to scour the last 50 years of New York Times classified listings, pulling together job ads for positions advertising some kind of use of technology in museums. As an aside, there’s some…

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#MCN50 Voices: Chris Alexander & Marty Spellerberg

This year MCN celebrates its 50th anniversary. Just as MCN has established a network of established and emerging professionals, #MCN50 Voices brings members together, old and new, near and far.   In this post Chris Alexander and Marty Spellerberg, who have never met, share stories about projects they have worked on, and museums they have…

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#MCN50 Voices: Leslie Johnston and Miranda Kerr

This year MCN celebrates its 50th anniversary. Just as MCN has established a network of established and emerging professionals, #MCN50 Voices brings members together, old and new, near and far.   Leslie Johnston, Director of Digital Preservation U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and Miranda Kerr, Manager of Digital Learning, Learning Programs, John G….

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Technologist-in-Chief: When Digital Reaches Museum Leadership

By Desi Gonzalez   As digital technologies have come to permeate contemporary culture, social life, and workplaces, museums have increasingly recognized their value. This is nowhere better illustrated than when #musetech reaches museum leadership. In 2014, the Peabody Essex Museum’s Ed Rodley noticed an increase in technology-related C-level positions, sharing that “it was heartening to…

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MCN50 Digital Experience at MCN2017

Planning a 50th birthday takes time. We began planning MCN’s 50th almost 2 years ago but things really started to move forward when Susan Edwards and Marla Misunas agreed to join forces as co-chairs of the MCN50 Planning Committee early last year. For the past 18 months, Susan and Marla have meticulously planned a myriad…

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#MCN50 Voices: Douglas Hegley & Rob Lancefield

This year MCN celebrates its 50th anniversary. Just as MCN has established a network of established and emerging professionals, #MCN50 Voices brings members together, old and new, near and far.     Douglas Hegley (L) & Rob Lancefield (R)   A former psychologist and a sometimes-ethnomusicologist walk into an MCN conference-hotel bar. The former psychologist…

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For the Record: How Times have Changed for Museum Registrars

By Sheila Carey   The MCN job description history team has been mining #musetech jobs over the last 50 years to learn about the evolution of our field. In this post, we’re on the island of registrarial positions. I’m looking at how the registrar’s job has changed over MCN’s lifetime, and in this post I’ll…

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#MCN50 Voices: Darren Milligan & Marla Misunas

This year MCN celebrates its 50th anniversary. Just as MCN has established a network of established and emerging professionals, #MCN50 Voices brings members together, old and new, near and far.   Darren Milligan is a Senior Digital Strategist at the Smithsonian’s Center for Learning and Digital Access and the current Secretary of MCN’s Board of…

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#MCN50 Voices: Essie Lash & Angelica Aboulhosn

This year MCN celebrates its 50th anniversary. Just as MCN has established a network of established and emerging professionals, #MCN50 Voices brings members together, old and new, near and far. Angelica Aboulhosn, public affairs specialist at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, speaks with Essie Lash, Marketing Manager, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, about…

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The Tech It Is A-Changin’: 50 Years of #Musetech Trends

By Sean Blinn   In 1860, the Pony Express started running in the United States. It allowed mail to be delivered from one side of North America to the other in a couple of weeks, not several months. Though it became the stuff of legend, it actually lasted for only 18 months, driven out of…

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#MCN50 Voices: Jane Alexander & Nik Honeysett

This year MCN celebrates its 50th anniversary. Just as MCN has established a network of established and emerging professionals, #MCN50 Voices brings members together, old and new, near and far. Jane Alexander and Nik Honeysett discuss their deep experiences working in museums, from the earliest touch screens in museums to Gallery One (now Art Lens)…

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Mapping islands: Visualizing a job history dataset

By Sarah Outhwaite   A #musetech job has never been an easy thing to find. They only emerge when enough institutional pressure builds up to break the surface. The Job Description History Project team spent this summer hunting not for one museum technology job, but for hundreds. By scraping historic records, we aim to understand…

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