I can't recall if this was already posted here: I saw it come across
H-Museum...

---Amy West

>
>From: "Brent Jackson" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: NEMA Annual Conference (October 27-29 in Burlington, Vermont)
>Date: Wed,  6 Oct 2004 07:04:36 -0700
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>New England Museum Association (NEMA) Annual Conference 2004
>
>The Museum, the Baby, and the Bathwater
>Authenticity in the Information Age
>
>Burlington, Vermont
>October 27-29, 2004
>
>Even as society confronts a seemingly bewildering digital future, its
>museums are widely held to be trusted, safe, and authentic keepers of
>culture, history, art, and science. How can museums build upon that public
>trust? How do we embrace the reality of the digital age without rejecting
>what has worked in the past? How do we ensure that contemporary culture
>continues to value transformative experience in the presence of real objects
>and thoughtful interpretation?
>
>Interactive websites featuring virtual museum tours. DVD kiosks as exhibit
>components. Internet fundraising. Digitized collections databases. The
>museum community scrambles to keep pace with new information technology. Yet
>most New England museums can afford only small, incremental steps in the
>expanding digital universe, and few museum professionals can anticipate with
>confidence the impacts of emerging technologies on audiences,
>communications, and professional practices. Straddling the digital divide,
>how can we make wise use of the tools of information technology to support
>and enrich the authentic experiences sought by our visitors? How do we
>balance digital literacy (our own and that of our audiences) with our
>commitment to objects, scholarship, learning, and memorable experience?
>
>Though these questions are not new, they become increasingly urgent as the
>experiences and expectations of our audiences change. Young audiences
>navigate and manipulate the digital realm with alacrity and confidence. For
>them, digital literacy is fundamentally transforming logic, grammar,
>knowledge, aesthetics, markets, and values.
>
>At the same time, the American population is aging, and, while the boomer
>generation lags behind its children and grandchildren in digital literacy,
>the daily experiences of boomers are increasingly mediated by digital
>technology, from travel bookings to online shopping to satellite television
>to the programmable coffeemaker. As digital technology offers more Americans
>the power to control and customize their choices from the comfort and
>isolation of their homes, what experiences do Americans seek from their
>cultural institutions?
>
>Vermont is the perfect setting for exploring this set of issues. Suspended
>between its pastoral past and its digital future, Vermont embodies the
>tension between the authentic and the virtual. Green mountains, maple syrup,
>dairy cows, and white church spires dominate Vermont mythology, yet I.B.M.
>is the state's largest private employer. In much of the state, "real
>Vermonters" have ceded the landscape to the aspirations and capital of
>"flatlanders," who often seek sanitized rural experiences without gritty
>rural hardships.
>
>In Vermont a profound public debate rages about which characteristics of its
>landscape, communities, civic discourse, and heritage are authentic,
>inviolable, and worthy of preservation and which are anachronistic,
>nostalgic, irrelevant impediments to economic and technological progress.
>
>As NEMA convenes in the beautiful and vibrant setting of Burlington,
>Vermont, museum professionals are similarly encouraged to explore the role
>of the real, the tangible, and the authentic in a societal web that is
>increasingly woven from virtual, digital strands.
>
>Please see the preliminary conference program book:
>http://www.nemanet.org/pdf/PreliminaryProgram2004.pdf
>
>The Early-Bird deadline has past, please call the NEMA office if you would
>like to register for conference:
>
>New England Museum Association
>22 Mill Street, Suite 409
>Arlington, MA 02476
>TEL: (781) 641-0013
>FAX: (781) 641-0053
>www.nemanet.org
>
>--
>H-MUSEUM
>H-Net Network for Museums and Museum Studies
>E -Mail: [log in to unmask]
>WWW: http://www.h-museum.net

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).