Next Meeting

The next planning/still getting everyone on board meeting for the IMLS grant will be June 17th at 1:00, Hynds Lodge at Curt Gowdy State Park. The meeting facility is free but please bring your own snacks. We will be meeting immediately after the first joint meeting of the Cheyenne and Laramie museums.

We'll review where we are in the grant planning process and identify counties/communities that still need representatives (Cheyenne is one of them).

If you've offered to be a contact in your county, please bring or send me an idea of what meeting facilities are in your area, rental costs, cost of advertising/invites, GAS, travel, etc. Essentially, I want to know how much you think it will cost to get all the museums, archives, libraries, etc. in your community to one central location for planning, education on the HHI results and training to take the survey once we get the grant. I'll need these figures for the budget.

I'll also need an idea of your hourly salary, whether or not you will be donating your time in-kind or wish to be reimbursed. Also, for ease of the survey, I'll need a list of all the institutions in your county that have collections. I'll need their name, address, phone, primary contact (ideally the individual who cares for the collections) and a secondary contact, i.e. the director.

This list should include all the museums, libraries, archives, etc. Even if the institution is only open part time or volunteer run.

Thanks for your interest, help, support, and positive mental attitude! I can't wait to improve the state of Wyoming's collections and set the bar higher for the next generation of museum professionals!

A More Polished Plan

CWAM is closing in on its IMLS grant application! At the last meeting in Sheridan we decided that we would ask for funds to do the following with the initial planning grant ($40,000).

1. Identify and work with community leaders in each 23 counties that have the ability to rally and dialogue with all the museums, archives, historical societies, Federal entities, and libraries in their area.
2. Ask this leader to host an inclusive meeting (using funds from the grant) with all interested parties in their county to discuss the four points of the Heritage Health index and prepare any collection holding cultural institution for the upcoming survey.
3. CWAM will develop a Wyoming specific survey using the key questions from IMLS’s Heritage Health index to gather data about the following:
a. Conditions of collections
b. Emergency plans; disaster/risk management
c. Assigned responsibility for collections care
d. Public and private support for, and public awareness about, collections care
4. A survey company out of the University of Wyoming will distribute the questions among any institution with collections, approx. 200 museums, 23 libraries, and ?.
5. A part time employee (hired with grant funds, administered through CWAM) will work with the survey agency to gather and interpret the data.

The data from the survey will be used to write the second part of the IMLS grant, implementation and action. 1/2 a million is on the line! Museums and libraries with similar needs, as identified through the survey, will be grouped together for training and action steps.

If you are interested in being a leader in your county, please contact me at: tbeyer@state.wy.us.

Next Meeting

The next “Connecting to Collections Grant for Wyoming” meeting will be held during the Colorado Wyoming Association of Museum’s annual meeting in Sheridan, WY. We will meet on May 9, 2008 at the Best Western bar in Sheridan at 4:45 p.m.
For information on the annual conference, please visit: http://www.cwamit.org/