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| 1850 newspaper ad found through the LoC's Chronicling America site |
The main reason I attended the Small Museum Association
conference was to give a presentation on travelling exhibits and to share the
IVDM’s experience turning Gold Fever! into a successful and fun exhibit. While I have attended conferences, I had never given a talk at a conference
before. My time slot was the last
slot on the last day and I admit I was convinced most people would head out
early and skip the last talks altogether, let alone show up to hear me.
20 people were interested enough to attend my session and it
ended up being pretty awesome.
They not only listened, they took notes, asked questions, and we had a
really great talk afterwards about ideas everyone could implement. I refused to make the classic mistake of
having a PowerPoint presentation that was all words, or that I read from. Instead, my slides were almost entirely
pictures from our exhibit, highlighting different features as I talked about
them. Many people commented on how
cool the exhibit looked, and congratulated the museum on a job well done- which
I still really take pride in even though the exhibit itself has come down. It reminded me how much I enjoyed
building the supplemental exhibits, and challenged me to make our next
travelling exhibit even better.
Taking a minute to blow my own horn I also got a lot of positive
feedback on the presentation itself, how I gave it, how informative it and
helpful it was. Several people said this
should have been one of the sessions SMA filmed (as soon as I heard they were
filming sessions I checked to make sure mine wasn’t one of them.
Newbie nerves can only take so much at a time!) A few people asked for
my card so they could email me with questions as they worked on exhibits of
their own.
It was a hugely positive experience for me to hear so many
encouraging things from professionals who have been in the field much longer
than I have, and to hear them say that both the museum and I are headed for
great things. In a way, I think
this was the first time I felt like I was also a “professional” not a student, and
these were my colleagues. That I
now have experiences and ideas that make me worth listening to on certain
subjects blows my mind a little. I
hope I can hone in on something I’m equally passionate about
for next year (and, more importantly, might have a fresh perspective on). I’ve now set a
challenge for myself both in building exhibits and in giving presentations.
Warning for my non archival friends: the next few blogs will probably end up focusing on the conference from a more professional point of view. This may bore you, but if you decide to read them, I'll try to make them worth your while.
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