MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS:

The Minnesota Association of Museums, a state-level non-profit association for museum professionals, was organized in 1975 following a Midwest Museums Conference in Springfield, Illinois. The Association was incorporated in October 1975 as the Minnesota Museum Educators Roundtable and published its first newsletter in June 1976. In 1981 the name was changed to its present form. According to its mission statement, the association exists to raise professional standards, to promote excellence in museum activities, to promote Minnesota museums as educational and recreational resources, and to provide representation and communication among other professional museum organizations.

The Association is governed by a steering committee and an executive committee. From 1972 to 1989 a number of functions were added, including a long range planning committee, a membership coordinator, and "affinity groups" that included education programs, exhibits, and a northern Minnesota regional group. Workshops, seminars, conferences, and related activities have been the association's core activities.

Historical information was taken from a historical sketch by Timothy C. Glines (1990) and is available in the collection. This sketch also includes lists of chairpersons and meeting programs (1975-1990).

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The largest series in the collection are minutes of the executive (1979-1982) and steering committees (1975-1996, 1999-2000). The latter includes agendas, accompanying correspondence, financial records (fairly complete after 1980), lists of board members, some reports, and related materials. Also included are materials pertaining to annual meetings and conferences which were held in April and June of each year.

The minutes are fairly detailed from the 1980s on and include information on dates of future meetings; topics for programs; changes in committee personnel; amendments to bylaws; some evaluations of annual meetings; workshop schedules; committee duties; long range planning items; and many other activities and issues involved in the operation of the association.

Long range planning files include detailed reports for the years 1983, 1987, and 1990 that include information on goals, professional standards, organizational and committee structure, public relations, and similar subjects.

Program committee files are incomplete, containing mainly agendas, handwritten notes of meetings, plans for programs, sample evaluation sheets, and program ideas.

Substantial files relating to workshops, seminars, and conferences sponsored by the Association (1975-1994, 1997) contain programs, reports, correspondence, financial information, and other records documenting these activities.

Other substantive files include membership files, containing fairly complete lists and directories (1975-1996).

Smaller files contain information on affinity groups (1984-1993) for museum educators, museum exhibits, and northern Minnesota museum directors; celebrations of International Museum Day and Minnesota Museum Week (1980-1995); Midwest Museum Conference activities (1987-1994); and miscellaneous pamphlets, booklets, magazine articles, museum programs, and similar files (1984-1994).

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Minnesota Association of Museums Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 15,175; 15,618; 16,320

Processing Information:

Processed by: Kathryn A. Johnson, December 1995; Monica Manny Ralston, February 2002; Shelby Edwards, August 2011.

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Catalog ID number: 990017329010104294

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Newsletters published by the Association and its predecessor, Minnesota Museum Educators Roundtable, are in the Minnesota Historical Society serials collection.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Historical museums -- Minnesota -- Societies, etc.

Museums -- Minnesota -- Societies, etc.

Professional associations -- Minnesota.

Congresses and conventions -- Minnesota.

Organizations:

Minnesota Historical Society.

Minnesota Museum Educators Roundtable.

Document Types:

Proclamations.

Occupations:

Museum curators--Minnesota.

Museum directors--Minnesota.

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