Museums Alaska is transitioning to a new website in May!
Please pardon any delay in updates during this upgrade.

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Museums Alaska Announces New Executive Director

The Board of Directors of Museums Alaska is very pleased and excited to announce, after completing an intensive search, the hire of Heather Beggs as our new Executive Director. Heather started in her new position on April 1st. Many of you will remember Heather from her time directing the Pratt Museum from 2003-2009. Since that time she has worked abroad for a couple years, managing a project at Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand's national museum, and managing the Peace Corps program in The Gambia, West Africa for the last year. She returned to Alaska two months ago to work for the Alaska Legislature and will continue her work with Rep. Paul Seaton in addition to her work for Museums Alaska. You can reach Heather at Museums Alaska's regular email: museums.alaska@yahoo.com. Please take a moment in helping us welcome her aboard.

Norm Lagasse
President, Board of Directors
Museums Alaska

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RASMUSON FOUNDATION ART ACQUISITION
PROGRAM BEGINS IN APRIL

The Rasmuson Foundation and Museums Alaska are pleased to announce funding for the 2012 Art Acquisition Program. Museums Alaska is once again administering this program and will be contacting all Alaska Museums and Alaska Culture Centers to invite them to participate.

Guidelines and forms are available from the Project Administrator, MIchael Hawfield.

This year, more than $300,000 will be available for art acquisitions. For the most part, the Art Acquisition Fund is unchanged. But there are several aspects that are new.

WHAT IS NEW in the 2012 Program:

In 2011, the Rasmuson Foundation took the opportunity of reviewing the Art Acquisition program to determine if it was meeting the needs of Alaska artists, museums and culture centers, and the overall goals of the Foundation. As a result, new guidelines and a new application form have been created.

In addition, the Foundation determined that each work purchased should have an “Image Use Authorization Form” signed by the artist and the institution so that the Foundation can publish (normally on its website) images of the artwork purchased through the program.

Here is a summary of new provisions in the Art Acquisition Program:

1. Applicants shall submit an exhibition program plan as part of the application process;
2. Funding “caps” for individual organizations has been eliminated, but establishes a fund ceiling of $35,000 per organization;
3. No purchase limit (other than “overall ceiling”) on a single work of art;
4. A digital image of each work will be required at time of application;
5. An “Image Use Authorization Form” is requested for each acquisition.
6. The program has established an application deadline of July 30, 2012. Approval of grants to individual organizations for purchases will take place following the deadline. Any remaining grant funds undistributed following the July 30th deadline will be available for an additional round of applications. Each organization will be notified if another funding opportunity exists.

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Notes from the 2011 MA/AHS Conference:

Now posted on the Conference page: The power point from the Nuts and Bolts of Copyright for Museums and Archives session held on Thursday, September 22, 2011; the Copyright Resources list with website links for references in connection with the Perspectives on Emerging Copyright Law and Policy panel on Friday, September 23, 2011; and the Resources for Found Objects, including the list of databases for stolen objects.

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Conference Evaluation Survey

After the conference, please take the time to fill out an evaluation survey. Evaluations are an important reporting requirement for the grants which support this annual event, and a valuable tool for future conference planning. Your opinion counts! An evaluation survey will be handed out at the awards banquet, or you may take the survey online: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L25N898

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Alaska State Museums Bulletin Online

The Alaska State Museums Bulletin is now available as a monthly, web-based publication. Visit http://museumbulletin.wordpress.com/

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Current Exhibits in Alaska

There is now a page on the Museums Alaska website for featuring current exhibits in Alaska. Check the Museums section to see what's currently on display!

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Emergency Response for Cultural Institutions Affected by Volcanic Ash

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations. Please help make sure that staff members of collecting institutions know to contact AIC-CERT when a disaster--hurricane, flooding, earthquake, fire--has damaged collections. View details (.pdf).

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