Michigan Museums Association

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Workshops

We will offer a variety of hands-on workshops on the first and final days of the conference.

This year, workshops will take place on Monday, October 19th from 9am-12pm and 1pm-4pm, and on Wednesday, October 21st from 1pm-4pm.

Workshops require pre-registration and have additional fees.

Monday, October 19 9am-12pm

Field Trip Experience at the Troy Historic Village (9a-12p)

60 W. Wattles Rd, Troy MI 48098

Alex Konieczny, Troy Historic Village
Jen Peters, Troy Historic Village

Shadow a typical Field Day 3 at the Troy Historic Village with a local Troy School and Village Education Staff. Attendees will meet up before the field trip for an introduction to the Village and how we run our field trip programs. Attendees will then divide up among three classes to experience the field trip firsthand. Follow-up questions and discussion will be available as time allows or at a conversation station later in the conference. Breakfast snack and lunch snack provided.

$35

Destination Cranbrook: Breaking Down the Walls (9a-12p)

Cranbrook Institute of Science Auditorium

1 Institute Way, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304

Lyla Catellier, Cranbrook Art Museum, along with a variety of Cranbrook Educational Community staff members

Join the staff of the Cranbrook Educational Community for a series of conversations and presentations focusing on their public entities. These discussions will offer a behind-the-scenes look at running over 300 acres of property, managing historic buildings, and creating welcoming educational and entertaining experiences for the public at our cultural institutions. There will be an emphasis on practical tips, actions, and best practices for an audience of much smaller institutions managing some or all of these similar issues.

Meet in the auditorium at Cranbrook Institute of Science. Expect to join in on three panels with four 10-minute presentations by each presenter, followed by group Q & A session after each set of presentations

9:15am Maintaining the Grounds and Historic Buildings: Hear about maintaining our historic campus including the recent renovation of our Japanese Gardens, managing actively used spaces with historic designation and long-term capital planning.

10:15amCollections & Stewardship: Hear about how we work with living artists, support Detroit’s art communities, manage contemporary collections, and expand the archives.

11:15am Creating Engaging Programs & Exhibitions: Hear about how we have changed programming models to engage broader public audiences, investing in advancements in technology in our historic planetarium and designed tours that have something for everyone.

The cost of your registration includes a boxed lunch.

$50

Monday, October 19 1pm-4pm

Intro to Disaster Response and Hands-On Water Salvage Workshop (1p-4p)

Mallory Bower, Cultural Heritage Consultant
Louise Stewart Beck, The Henry Ford

Whether it's a burst pipe, a slow leak, a flood, or the result of firefighting efforts, water is a major threat to Michigan's museums and their collections. In this workshop led by Mallory Bower and Louise Stewart Beck, participants will learn the basic concepts related to disaster response. The workshop will include an overview of categories of disasters, planning for a disaster, and what supplies to have to best equip you for disaster response. The second half of the workshop will consist of hands-on practice salvaging collections during a water event. All participants will receive personal disaster response supplies.

$55

Accessibility Boot Camp (1p-4p)

Caroline Braden, The Henry Ford
Nicole Smith, Detroit Institute of Arts
Kayla Dietz, Alzheimer's Association
Denice Blair, PhD., MSU Museum

This engaging workshop will provide an overview of accessibility audiences, program offerings, and training tips. Through information and hands-on activities shared by the presenters, you will leave with ideas, tools, and shareable examples for enhancing accessibility at your institution for people who are blind/low vision, d/Deaf/hard of hearing, on the autism spectrum, and living with dementia. Whether you are experienced with accessibility-focused work or looking to get started, this session will deepen your knowledge and build your skills.

$50

Exhibit Design Boot Camp (1p-4p)

Keeney Swearer, Exhibit Designer, Mackinac State Historic Parks

Exhibit Designer at Mackinac State Historic Parks Keeney Swearer will guide participants through the Exhibit Design process. All elements of the exhibit design process will be covered including:

Concept design & basic flow floor plans.
Exhibit design including interactive and artifact integration.
Graphic design and integration into 3D exhibit design.
Designing and specifying museum grade object cases, graphic panels, and other exhibit elements.

Participants will leave the workshop with a basic understanding of the Exhibit Design process and the tools required to begin designing exhibits at their institutions.

$25

Wednesday, October 21 1pm-4pm

Metadata Refinement for Museum Collections (1p-4p)

Matthew Patulski, Poplar Media LLC

This workshop takes participants through metadata refinement concepts delivered through a series of hands-on exercises using common office apps like Google Sheets and Excel. We will work with samples of actual collection data and work together to learn best practices for refining descriptive, technical, and administrative metadata to improve discoverability, consistency and scholarship of their collection. We will also cover ways to leverage AI while also protecting data from unintended uses.

$50

Fire Salvage and Behavior for Cultural Institutions

Jared Yax, Cultural Heritage Emergency Response Consultant
Brian Jaeschke, Mackinac State Historic Parks

This workshop will cover how fire behaves within collection and exhibition spaces. We will cover how fire damage can be mitigated by room design, suppression systems, and fire extinguishers. Health and safety will be a focus to address the hazardous carcinogens that can cover a fire affected artifact. After the lecture portion of the workshop we will have hands on training for the handling, packing and basic cleaning of fire affected objects.

$25

2026 Conference Partners

The Michigan Museums Association is supported in part by an award from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

313-334-7643

P.O. Box 5246

Cheboygan, MI 49721