In my youth this was the time of year you went out to the beach and curled up with a book under an umbrella. But these days, both vacations and attention spans seem shorter so maybe sitting in your backyard with a tablet will have to suffice. If you do I encourage you to spend some time with the JMM blog posts – short stories, (mostly) non-fiction that explore topics related to our collections, our exhibits and American Jewish history.
If you haven’t visited our blog posts before, summer is a great time to start. Our regular crew of staff and volunteer bloggers has an infusion of talent from our summer interns – great writers in training. I recently re-read Ellie Smith’s post on her internship experience (and it reminded me of the excitement I felt when I first started in museums thirty years ago. I have asked Rachel to share some other highlights of what you’ll find on our site.
~Marvin
Did you know there are over 2,000 posts on the JMM blog?!? That’s a bit overwhelming for anyone’s to-read pile, even a digital one. So below are some great starting points for exploring all of the great content we’ve been creating – I’ve shared 5 of my favorites below along with some suggestions from two of my newest colleagues at the Museum!
As the blog manager I’m always excited when Marvin signs up for a post, because I know I’m going to learn something new and often unexpected! His most recent post on a meeting with Maryland Secretary of State John Wobensmith is a fun look at how many of the best stories and pieces of history our discovered – through coincidence.
But I think my favorite post from Marvin might be this one from a year ago – “Originalism” Run Amuck,which connects objects from our collection to American history and current events still relevant now.I also strongly recommend reading Joanna’s recent post A Single Suitcase. As our director of collections and exhibits, Joanna Church has a wonderful talent for telling the stories of objects in our collections – in this post she uses a suitcase to help illustrate the story of one family’s trials to rescue their parents and create a new life in America.This spring, director of learning and visitor engagement Ilene Dackman-Alon wrote a post that touches on the core of how we think about museums here at JMM – as places to connect. She shared her experience at this year’s Council of American Jewish Museums conference and following along with her adventure made it a learning experience even for those unable to attend the conference.And you definitely don’t want to miss the post that kicked off our #MugShotMonday campaign: But First, Coffee! from deputy director Tracie Guy-Decker. This post has it all – a personal story, a book recommendation, a tie to our collections, and a boost for our social media channels; there’s something for everyone!
Paige Woodhouse, our visitor services coordinator, picked one of my favorite blog post series – intern posts! From Paige:
“JMM’s Interns bring a new voice and a fresh perspective to the daily “behind the scenes” of the Museum. My favorite blog posts of late (I have two) both come from interns providing a “behind the scenes” look at the work done at the JMM. Marisa brilliantly described the way our education team works to develop educational programming in Zen and the Art of Education Programming. Ash provided some thoughtful insight into her work with our scrapbook collection in Unfolding Narratives – Scrapbooks and Their Interactive Stories. Interested in reading more from our interns? Take a look here.”
And I love this selection from director of development Tracey Dorfmann, which really shows the power of digital and also includes a book recommendation:
“I just celebrated my year anniversary of living in Baltimore. As a resident “tourist” I love to research the city’s history. While pursuing information about Druid Hill Park I encountered a photo of sheep grazing in the park in the early 1900s. (Sheep grazed there until 1945.) A Google search lead me to source of the image ––I was thrilled to discover that it came from the JMM database (!) and was part of a JMM blog post by our Director of Collections, Joanna Church. In her blog post she discussed a young adult novel entitled The Hired Girl. Her post inspired me to read this short historical fiction piece with an eye out for Baltimore landmarks and as a possible gift for the young adult readers in my family. Joanna did a terrific job illustrating that time period in Baltimore’s Jewish history by aligning JMM database images with scenes that take place in the story. Enjoy!”
