in short: News | Grants | Events | Ideas | Webinars | Jobs

Photographer Bill Hecht traveled around Cayuga County with his drone in hand through the fall of 2015 and spring of 2016.  Images cover the Village of Aurora with Wells College, the Village of Moravia, the Village of Union Springs, the City of Auburn, as well as neighborhoods and farmlands of Genoa.

The traffic to New York Heritage is doing well, as you can see here, and if you want to dig down to your own collections, check the Granular Traffic report here.

This challenge grant, in which the amount you raise in a month affects how much you're eligible for through the grant, can support a community garden. Maybe you could plant heritage herbs and vegetables? Or offer some programming about historic gardening practices? Consider the possibilities!

The next round of Action Grants through Humanities NY are due on February 1, 2022 and can be used to fund projects next summer. That means now is the time to think and plan, so check out the requirements.

The next round of free Planning & Assessment Services from DHPSNY are due this Friday, November 5.

Matching Museums Empowered grants for $5,000-$250,000 for museums are available from IMLS, with the application due on November 15. Inspire! Grants for Small Museums have no matching requirement and are also due November 15.

Grants of $2,500 to $40,000 are available for the preservation of cultural heritage materials. Read more.

Congratulations to the History Center in Tompkins County, who received a grant from IMLS through the Museum Association of NY. This list of projects from around the state is full of good ideas!

Zoë Van Nostrand of the History Center in Tompkins County is co-presenting a very cool blend of art and history with Laura Rowley of Illuminated Press. They're printing archival images to teach kids and adults about this local history story (the famous Ithaca Kitty) in a workshop that looks very fun.

Here's another great event idea from the Corning Museum of Glass. They're offering a free webinar in which they'll describe the history of glass perfume bottles. The webinar is free but attendees are invited to purchase an accompanying kit of materials to be shipped to them for the whole olfactory experience.

Yates County History Center is offering an in-person, outdoor blacksmithing demonstration with Durand VanDoren, made possible by a Decentralization Program grant.

Chemung County Historical Society has a new exhibit, Chemung County in the 1910s, which features food introduced in that decade like Marshmallow Fluff and Campbell's Tomato Soup. They're sweetening the deal by giving out candy invented in 1914 for anyone who finishes a scavenger hunt.

CCHS's longtime curator, Erin Doane, has left after 10 great years. Forward the job listing (found below) to a good candidate! I also wanted to bring your attention to CCHS's nice post about volunteers.

The Greater Oneonta Historical Society will be holding its largest annual fundraiser on November 19. They have an auctioneer and free admission, with food and drink available for purchase through the venue, Quality Inn. They will also hold a week-long online auction leading up to the live auction.

GOHS has also completed a handful of COVID-19 oral histories with local leaders, and the collection looks especially nice on their new website, https://oneontahistory.org/.

Fenimore is repeating their very successful preschool programs over Zoom starting this month. The museum has extended its free admission for ages 19 and under through the end of December, so you can bring the kids to check out their exhibits on Arthur, elegant clothing from NYC, contemporary Haudenosaunee textile artwork, and more.

The Cortland County Historical Society is teaming up with the Cortland Free Library to offer local history for kids in the form of a storytime and activity in a series called Time Travel. This November, they'll be sharing the story of how Chipmunk Got Tiny Feet, a Native American folktale.

Happily, I think, you won't be able to imitate this kind of work exactly, but I did find it inspiring to see what archivists are capable of doing for the public good.

This is one article in a three part series written by Denver Public Library's archivist for Archives month in October. Addressing the general public, she describes the complicated balance of considerations for digitizing their immense collections. This kind of blog post is a nice way to remind your audience that digitization is more than "scan and save" and that you really do have quite a bit on your plate!

This article from the American Alliance of Museums provides food for thought about hiring practices. Should you always prefer someone who can "hit the ground running," or might you lose out on a useful fresh perspective? Are you focusing too much on urgency when you hire a replacement?

The National Council on Public History will have an in-person conference in Montreal, March 23-26, 2022. They're looking for participants in different working groups. One that stuck out to me as interesting was "Records, Repair, and Reckoning: Productive Collaborations for Archivists and Public Historians." If you think you'd like to attend the conference and be a part of that conversation, apply by November 7.

If there's an audience that would appreciate a blog post all about historical fasteners, it may be this one. This post from the National Archives talks about ribbons, wax and other pre-password security measures.

Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 12 pm

Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 5 pm

Monday, Nov. 8 at 2 pm

Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 10 am

Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 11 am

Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 4 pm

Wednesday, Nov.10 at 10 am

Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 11 am

Friday, Nov. 12 at 10 am

Friday, Nov. 12 at 11 am

Monday, Nov. 15 at 2 pm

Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 10 am

Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 1 pm

Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 11 am

Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 11 am

Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 10 am

Tuesday, Nov. 30 at 2 pm

Thursday, Dec. 2 at 2 pm

Tuesday, November 9

MANY's Central NY Partnership Forum in Syracuse

Monday, November 15

MANY's Capital Region Partnership Forum in Cohoes

Wednesday, December 1

That's all for this month! Send me an email if there's anything at your organization you'd like me to include in the next newsletter: [email protected] | Claire Lovell, Digital Services Librarian