Advice and help with building history capacity.
The Minnesota Historical Society’s Local History Services helps Minnesotans preserve and share their history. This blog is a resource of best practices on the wide variety of museum, preservation, conservation, funding, and non-profit management topics. We’re here to help.
Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest
By: Joe Hoover
| Interpretation
| July 3, 2012
The Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest's opportunity to house its entire collection at the University of Minnesota's Anderson Library has freed up the organization to allow it to develop and focus on interpretation, outreach and education.
Mitson House Museum - Canton Historical Society
By: Joe Hoover | June 26, 2012
While the Canton Historical Society is one of Minnesota's newest historical organizations, the Mitson House Museum has been around since the 1970's. Along with the Canton Depot, the Mitson House Museum is undergoing changes with the community's renewed interest in their historical assets.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:12 — 48.7MB)
Minnesota African American Museum Grand Opening, Minneapolis, Minnesota
By: Joe Hoover | June 6, 2012
After many years of planning and fundraising the Minnesota African American Museum opened its doors on June 1st, 2012 Minnesota now joins the 44 other states that have a museum dedicated to African American history. The Museum is housed in the 128-year-old historic Coe Mansion in Minneapolis' Stevens Square Neighborhood. The museum's first exhibit, devoted to the history of black baseball in Minnesota, and its effect on the Upper Midwest.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 8:12 — 59.1MB)
Beltrami County Historical Society - Bemidji, Minnesota
By: Joe Hoover | May 23, 2012
Beltrami County History Center is located in the restored 1912 Great Northern Depot. As the video shows, the museum maintains both long term exhibits and some shorter term rotating exhibits developed either in house by the Beltrami County Historical Society or statewide traveling exhibits. These frequently changing smaller exhibit allows visitors something new to see when returning to the museum.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:08 — 187.6MB)
Firefighters Hall and Museum
By: Joe Hoover | May 15, 2012
The Firefighter's Hall and Museum, in Northeast Minneapolis, is dedicated to preserving vintage firefighting equipment as well as running a research library and a meeting hall for area firefighters.
The museum which features fire trucks, fire engines and rescue equipment going back over 100 years also provides interactive exhibits as well as fire safety training for children.
The museum which features fire trucks, fire engines and rescue equipment going back over 100 years also provides interactive exhibits as well as fire safety training for children.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:04 — 47.8MB)
Saint Louis County Historical Society
By: Joe Hoover | May 8, 2012
Saint Louis County Historical Society, much like the Minnesota Historical Society, is a full service history organization. In addition to its own exhibits on lumbering, mining, and many other locally significant stories, SLCHS operates Veteran's Memorial Hall on behalf of the Saint Louis County Commissioners. Civil War veterans began Vets Hall, which like SLCHS also started in the Saint Louis County Courthouse. SLCHS has won national awards for a number of its exhibits. The expertise shown in the video is shared with affiliate history organizations throughout Saint Louis County. The reuse of the Duluth Union Depot, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, as a cultural center of many local organizations has preserved the historic use as a community gathering space.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:58 — 48.2MB)
Swift County History Museum
By: Joe Hoover | May 2, 2012
The Swift County History Museum is located on the west edge of Benson off of U.S. Highway 12. The museum features artifacts that depict the history of Swift County. Many of the artifacts are displayed in period room settings – dining room, living room, bedroom, general store, church, school, etc. The museum also features decade exhibits for 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:12 — 48.4MB)
Tri River Pioneer Museum
By: Joe Hoover | April 20, 2012
The Tri-River Pioneer Museum is the only building built to be a museum in Red Lake County. As the video shows very well, it is a fairly typical local history museum led by a very dedicated group of volunteers who have sacrificed much in order to make the history of the Plummer area much more accessible.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:58 — 46.0MB)
Grant Workshop with Access Philanthropy
By: Joe Hoover
| Funding
| April 17, 2012
Full day grant workshop at the Blue Earth County Historical Society with presenter Steve Paprocki, President, Access Philanthropy.
This is a combined podcast with all four sessions for a combined length of 4 hours. Watch the presentation or download the audio.
This is a combined podcast with all four sessions for a combined length of 4 hours. Watch the presentation or download the audio.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:56:59 — 444.7MB)
MHCG: Planting the Seeds of the Green Revolution
By: Joe Hoover
| Information Technology
| April 3, 2012
On site review of the Minnesota Historical and Cultural Grants funded project with Elisabeth Kaplan, Head, University Archives & Co-Director, University Digital Conservancy, University of Minnesota Libraries. June 17, 2011.
The University of Minnesota Libraries received funding support to digitize the records of the principals of the Green Revolution, the worldwide collaborative effort to expand food crop production that traces its roots to the University of Minnesota in the first half of the 20th century. The project’s centerpiece is the Norman E. Borlaug Papers, which are complemented by the collections of his colleagues and mentors, including Elvin C. Stakman, John Gibler, and Helen Hart, and the Plant Pathology departmental records, and are frequently used by students, faculty, and independent scholars.
University Archives selected approximately 58 boxes of materials directly related to the Green Revolution for digitization. These comprise a variety of formats including photographs, correspondence, field notebooks, and other materials. With this project, University of Minnesota Libraries expanded use of the Green Revolution collections by creating digital surrogates of the materials, delivered via a web-based, publicly available, full-text searchable database.
The University of Minnesota Libraries received funding support to digitize the records of the principals of the Green Revolution, the worldwide collaborative effort to expand food crop production that traces its roots to the University of Minnesota in the first half of the 20th century. The project’s centerpiece is the Norman E. Borlaug Papers, which are complemented by the collections of his colleagues and mentors, including Elvin C. Stakman, John Gibler, and Helen Hart, and the Plant Pathology departmental records, and are frequently used by students, faculty, and independent scholars.
University Archives selected approximately 58 boxes of materials directly related to the Green Revolution for digitization. These comprise a variety of formats including photographs, correspondence, field notebooks, and other materials. With this project, University of Minnesota Libraries expanded use of the Green Revolution collections by creating digital surrogates of the materials, delivered via a web-based, publicly available, full-text searchable database.
The University of Minnesota Libraries received funding support to digitize the records of the principals of the Green Revolution, the worldwide collaborative effort to expand food crop production that traces its roots to the University of Minnesota in the first half of the 20th century. The project’s centerpiece is the Norman E. Borlaug Papers, which are complemented by the collections of his colleagues and mentors, including Elvin C. Stakman, John Gibler, and Helen Hart, and the Plant Pathology departmental records, and are frequently used by students, faculty, and independent scholars.
University Archives selected approximately 58 boxes of materials directly related to the Green Revolution for digitization. These comprise a variety of formats including photographs, correspondence, field notebooks, and other materials. With this project, University of Minnesota Libraries expanded use of the Green Revolution collections by creating digital surrogates of the materials, delivered via a web-based, publicly available, full-text searchable database.
The University of Minnesota Libraries received funding support to digitize the records of the principals of the Green Revolution, the worldwide collaborative effort to expand food crop production that traces its roots to the University of Minnesota in the first half of the 20th century. The project’s centerpiece is the Norman E. Borlaug Papers, which are complemented by the collections of his colleagues and mentors, including Elvin C. Stakman, John Gibler, and Helen Hart, and the Plant Pathology departmental records, and are frequently used by students, faculty, and independent scholars.
University Archives selected approximately 58 boxes of materials directly related to the Green Revolution for digitization. These comprise a variety of formats including photographs, correspondence, field notebooks, and other materials. With this project, University of Minnesota Libraries expanded use of the Green Revolution collections by creating digital surrogates of the materials, delivered via a web-based, publicly available, full-text searchable database.