Collaborating is key to the success of The History Trust. Here are ways we can learn from each other to preserve and share our collections.
Collaboration and Communities of Practice
- Communities of Practice: A brief Introduction by Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayne (2015)
- Two scholarly articles explore collaboration, or the lack of it, among social organizations:
It’s a good idea to join professional organizations, first local then regional and national organizations as budgets allows. The following three are a good start for History Trust members, and each has annual dues based on the size of an organization’s budget. It’s a great way to learn!
- Maine Archives & Museums ⇗ – Collecting institutions of all kinds, and their directors, staff, and volunteers, are encouraged to join (https://www.mainemuseums.org/MAMMembership).
- NEMA ⇗ – New England Museum Association is good for a wide range of organizations, small to large, various types of museums (https://nemanet.org/membership/museum/).
- AASLH ⇗ – American Association for State & Local History is probably the best national organization for a small, local historical society (https://aaslh.org/membership/).
Code of Ethics for Archives and Museums
Following a commonly agreed upon set of ethical principles and practices encourages member organizations to act beneficially and for the common good of all History Trust collaborators.
- SAA ⇗ – Society of American Archivists Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics are intended to guide individuals who perform archival labor or who work in archival environments (https://www2.archivists.org/statements/saa-core-values-statement-and-code-of-ethics).
- AAM ⇗ – American Alliance of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums is presented as the Framework for Museum Excellence which provides a structure inclusive of AAM-issued standards and best practices, as well as those developed by discipline-specific organizations and issue-specific groups (https://www.aam-us.org/programs/ethics-standards-and-professional-practices/).
Preserving and Sharing Collections
Wondering about collections care and management, or how to share your collections with the public? Here’s info to help.
- Preserve Collections – Resources recommended by the History Trust collections committee and “Stewardship Notes” prepared for History Trust members.
- Share History – Help making historical collections available to all.
Copyright, Fair Use, & Public Domain
The following links were offered in a New England Museum Association 2020 workshop.
- Salem State University, “Copyright, Fair Use, and Plagiarism: Copyright”⇗ (https://libguides.salemstate.edu/copyrightresources).
- Stanford University Libraries, “Copyright & Fair Use”⇗ (https://fairuse.stanford.edu/).
- Cornell University Library, “Copyright Information Center“⇗ (https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain).
Tip: Check your browser’s download folder, you may find the above linked file(s) there.