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DO'S FOR SMALL COMMUNITY MUSEUMS

1. Do nurture your volunteers.  They are priceless (i.e., irreplaceable AND unpaid).

2. Do some marketing of your treasures.  Do it professionally (even if you can't afford a professional.  There's always a volunteer who can do a first-rate job).

3. Post directional signs all over town, and I do mean at every turn in the road.

4. Post a prominent sign ON the museum (Some buildings do not look like museums).

5. On the door, post a list of volunteers that visitors can contact.

6.  When you hire a seasonal employee, train that person.  Give the trainee daily tasks that will contribute to the visitor experience (e.g., read a history book; research an artifact; interview an old-timer; compose a newsletter).  Give him or her information to memorize, daily, followed by a quiz.  Keep score.  Reward success.

7.  Institute an educational program for local people.  Every single resident must know where the museum is, when it is open, which volunteers to contact when it isn't open, and know, even if only  in a very general way, what the museum's mandate is.  Every year a few selected citizens should be dragged into the facility and incarcerated for half an hour.  But, confiscate their cell phones first.

8. Think about this: the only compelling reason for the vast majority of passers-by to stop at your community is the fact that you have a museum or historic site.   Think about this constantly.

9. Monitor the directional signage as well as the interpretive signage for historic sites in your area.  Then, identify the parties responsible, provide advice, and follow up.  You have to.  You.  Who else will do it?

10. Do vote for and do support politicians at all levels of government who support the museum's mandate.  Keep score.  Reward success.

- List created by E.J. Lavoie

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