MCN is thrilled to host the conference in Lawrence this year. This bustling college town offers a vibrant cultural hub complete with world-class museums, a lively downtown scene, and easy access to outdoor adventures. Get ready to be wowed by all this charming Midwest city has in store.
By Samantha Norling, Digital Collections Manager, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields As an early-career archivist I found myself working as a “lone arranger” in an art museum—a setting in which I had no previous experience. Early on, I learned from my colleagues in departments throughout the museum about the many organizations and groups in…
This week, we sent out acceptances for the MCN 2016 conference program. Whew! The overall quality of proposals was exceptionally high this year and we are so excited about all the sessions we have lined up. That being said, due to the high number of proposals we received (nearly 300), we have unfortunately had to reject…
In the blink of an eye, once-crowded museums sit empty. We’re preparing ourselves for social distancing and potential quarantine. This is the time for museum technology to step up and fill the void. The potential of online collections, virtual tours, and social media campaigns have always been there, but now the opportunity for impact is…
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…
By Koven Smith The nature of how museums use technology and digital tools has changed significantly in the last ten years. Perhaps even more critically, the expectations of what museums should be able to produce using digital tools have increased significantly in the last decade. Given this, what is a museum of the 21st Century…
In mid April, we held a Virtual Town Hall that gathered about 88 members of the MCN community to discuss the decision to take the 2020 annual conference virtual this November. MCN Board President Matt Tarr and Executive Director Eric Longo shared introductory thoughts. Conference Co-Chairs Andrea Montiel de Shuman, Andrea Ledesma, Mimosa Shah, and…
Developing a website is always an adventure, especially when building improvements onto a live site like mcn.edu. This blog post is to share some of the behind the scenes of an incident that occurred this morning, including why it happened because we want to be transparent about all of the development activities around the website…
After moving a few million cells around our Program Team Google Sheets, the schedule for MCN 2018 is complete and will be going live soon. Here are a few highlights from this year’s program: In addition to three pre-conference tours and eight workshops, we have a new Tuesday offering—a pair of “MCN Field Trips,” combining…
Reflections on the MCN 2015 keynote speech by Haitham Eid, Assistant Professor/Interim Director, Master of Arts in Museum Studies Program, Southern University at New Orleans. I have just returned from Minneapolis after attending the MCN conference for the first time. It was a very rewarding experience and I had the chance to meet with some wonderful and intelligent…
By Rachel Ropeik, Manager of Public Engagement, Guggenheim Museum I’ve been wanting to attend an MCN conference for years now, and I was excited and grateful that the scholarship made it possible this year. I’m a museum educator who’s always been interested in how digital tools can impact visitors’ experiences in museums. I expected to…
The annual conference is next week in Denver and we couldn’t be more excited for the amazing program lined up. Of course not everyone’s able to attend the conference, and everyone at the conference won’t be able to attend every session they want. So we’re relying on speakers (and anyone else they can recruit…