Minnesota Local History

About a year ago, I sat at a Minnesota Historical Society workshop in Northfield to learn about web design standards from Shana Crosson, trying to create a website for our little city historical society with little time, almost no money and no web design skills.

It took almost a year, but we finally launched our web site in January 2010.  If you're in the same spot we were last spring, perhaps you can learn from (and improve on) our experience.

First  some background: the Edina Historical Society has about 300 members, an operating budget of less than $50,000 and a half-time director (me). We have more than 20 active volunteers but no one with any web design skills. (In fact, most do not use a computer.)

CITY WEB SITE

Prior to this year, the City of Edina generously provided a couple of pages on its website for  our organization and for our programs that we operate in two city parks. However, we seldom changed the pages because we had little control: we had to submit changes to city staff, who updated our content as they had time (sometimes weeks later). The city also had a number of format and technical restrictions, such as no links to outside sites, that limited what we could do.

About two years ago, we wanted more content to promote our programs, particularly our school field trip programs at a historic one-room schoolhouse. Because most of our visitors are schools from out of town, we needed an inexpensive way to reach educators throughout the state without dramatically increasing postage and printing costs.

We asked for more pages and the city agreed - if we paid for the redesign, estimated to be more than $1,200.  At that point, we decided to investigate establishing our own site that we could update as often as needed.

In the meantime, because our information was hard to find on the huge city site, we paid for a domain name to put on our marketing materials to get people directly to our pages.

SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVES

To find out what might work for us, I did what I usually do when we contemplate a new project: I call my colleagues at city historical societies to see what they're doing.

Richfield is lucky enough to have Joe Hoover, a web designer for the Minnesota Historical Society, as a board member and volunteer. He designs and maintains the site using more complicated software than I could handle, but he offered all sorts of free advice on what simpler software was out there, including WordPress that has been discussed in this blog.

My first reaction, to be honest, was to find some great volunteer like Joe to create the site for us. (Unfortunately, Joe wouldn't defect to join EHS.) My board members were sure that some talented high school kid could design a site in a few hours. Despite some volunteer recruiting efforts in the community and with the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, we didn't find anyone.

St. Louis Park and Bloomington each contracted different web designers to create a site for them. The cost was rather modest, but with a budget of $0, we didn't have that option.

So, I tried designing our site with WordPress, which I know many of you know and love but I had a hard time creating the site I wanted. Perhaps the problem had more to do with me than with WordPress. With just 20 hours a week to do everything from exhibit development to PastPerfect data entry to vacuuming, I didn't have much time to spare to develop new skills.

WHY WEEBLY

Through a Google search of recommended free web services, I found Weebly.  It was named one of the "Top 50 Sites" by Time Magazine in 2007 and had earned all sorts of praise about its ease of use from several other publications.

For you non-techies who don't know your HTML from your CSS (like me), Weebly is very simple. The WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) features make creating a web site as easy as creating a newsletter in Word or Publisher. Pick a template you like. Then simply click a button to create a page and drag and drop elements (photo, title, paragraph, etc.) onto the page. Moving pages around, adding pages, changing menus is just as simple.

Weebly continually offers new features based on feedback from users. For example, captions and alt-tags for photos weren't available when I first started designing, but were added soon after. Free features include a blog, photo galleries, reader polls, Google maps, Flickr slides shows, and many other features that I have only begun to explore.

For those of you with technical skills, there's a HTML/CSS interface to fine tune the template. I'm not in that group, but I have used a simple little feature that lets me insert HTML code for widgets such as "Follow us on Twitter" and other "share" buttons. (I found the code through a quick Google search).

Check out the Weebly site for the list of free features: www.weebly.com. For a small additional fee ($71.80 for two years), you get tech support, plus the ability to embed documents, add audio files, video player, password protected pages, up to 10 websites and detailed web stats.

GOALS AND RESULTS
Once I found Weebly, creating the site went relatively quickly. I had worked with a committee to plan our web content more than a year before when we thought we could expand our content with the city.  The driving force behind creating a new site was to build our field trip programs, the biggest source of our income. We also wanted to market new programs (history-themed birthday parties, summer day camp) for parents searching online for something fun to do with their children.

In addition, we operate a museum, with exhibits and a research library that is open to the public just two mornings a week. A web site now gives the public around the clock access. We have finished entering our photo catalog in our PastPerfect database; our next step is provide an online catalog. Weebly has the ability to handle that additional content.

Most of my time has been spent marketing our site, through links on other sites, newspaper articles, Facebook links, postings on alumni web sites, etc. I update the front page every week with news. I also write a blog that I update about three times a week. I write about history resources, new items in the collections, history of stuff that is making news, etc. From time to time, I also feature a "history mystery" in response to questions from readers about puzzling Edina landmarks, such as the bridge to nowhere or the rumored haunted mansion.

Through Google Analytics (another free service partnered with Weebly), I can track traffic sources, popularity of pages, number of visitors, number of visits and much more. In the first three months, we have had more than 850 unique visitors to the site. Site usage has doubled from about 250 visitors in February to almost 500 in March.

We do not have a form to ask visitors how they heard about us, but we do know that we have booked almost three full weeks of summer day camp this year, after struggling to fill one week during our inaugural year last summer, with little additional marketing beyond our website.

Many of our museum visitors tell us that they found out about us through the website. What's more these visitors seem to be much younger than our usual retirees. A 22-year-old reader brought in her mother to research their neighborhood. An Eagle Scout came in to work on a project. A new resident came in to buy history books about her new hometown. Several people have brought in donations for an upcoming exhibit.

I spend about five hours of my 20 hours a week on the website, and have created more work for myself with donations to accession, researchers to assist and program requests to fill. It's a good problem to have, and we hope additional contacts will translate into additional membership dollars.

Marci Matson

Executive Director

Edina Historical Society

Local History Services Office at the Minnesota Historical Society has received several calls in the last couple of months about whether museums should switch over to LED lighting, as suggested by energy and lighting consultants. This question was put to the Society's own museum lighting designer, Rich Rummel, who has studied LED lighting for museums. His response is printed below, and local historical organizations considering their lighting needs should feel free to consult with Rich, as many local historical organizations have successfully done.

Rich replied:

Please be cautious about LED (Light Emitting Diode) lighting, and here are some reasons:

First, LED is not an established technology, and therefore not sustainable. The units bought today will be obsolete as quickly as PCs were in the late 1980s. Museums typically have limited resources, so don't be too eager to spend scarce money to help someone else develop this technology.

Second, a standard 60-watt lightbulb, as simple as it seems, must meet a number of performance standards- measurements for light output, life, and color temperature, which are all defined by government-approved, industry-wide standards. There are no standards for LED lighting systems. While standards for LED are currently being developed, it will likely be a number of years before any are implemented.

Third, LED lights are very expensive and the payback (energy costs saved vs. product cost) usually extends past the claimed life. In other words, the amount you save in energy will not pay for the unit you buy.

Finally, there is not a white LED available that has the color temperature and color rendering ability required for museum lighting.

The most energy- and artifact-conserving option is to use energy-efficient quartz halogen lamps, and where appropriate fluorescent tubes, controlled by occupancy sensors so that lights remain off unless there is a visitor in the gallery.

Richard Rummel, LC

Lighting Designer

Minnesota Historical Society

651-259-3054

Mission Statement

Answers the question, “Why are we doing this?”

Level: Aspirational

Primary Audience: Organization’s governance

Length: One short sentence

Vision Statement

Answers the question, “Where are we going?”

Level: Motivational

Primary Audience: Organization’s workers

Length: 2-3 paragraphs

Values Statement

Answers the question, “How are we going about our work?”

Level: Inspirational

Primary Audience: Organization’s supporters

Length: 4-6 words with explanations

Writing key statements (mission, vision, values) is a delicate business, and there is much - often differing - advice online. The views expressed in this series are informed by the broad and specific experience of Minnesota's historical organizations, and may not necessarily match every organization.

Done well, mission statements communicate succinctly and clearly the organization’s purpose. Unimaginative or out-of-date mission statements can cause confusion, or worse can suggest that the organization is irrelevant on account of perceived passivity. Many modern historical society mission statements often create additional challenges by imposing unnecessary limitations through expressions of what, how or for whom.

How did we arrive at unimaginative, out-of-date, or limiting mission statements? Why don’t many historical organizations have vision or values statements?

In 1922 the Minnesota Historical Society produced a standard template mission statement for historical organizations:

The objects of the _________ Society shall be the discovery, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge about the history of ________ County and the State of Minnesota, more particularly its objects shall be:

Sec. 1: To discover and collect any material which may help establish or illustrate the history the county or state, their exploration, settlement, development and activities in peace and war and their progress in population, wealth, education, arts, science, agriculture, manufactures, trade and transportation, printed material such as histories, genealogies, biographies, descriptions, gazetteers, directories, newspapers, pamphlets, catalogues, circulars, handbills, programs and posters; manuscript material such as letters, diaries, journals, memoranda, reminiscences, rosters, service records, account books; and museum material such as pictures, photographs, paintings, portraits, scenes, aboriginal relics and material objects illustrative of life, conditions, events and activities in the past or present.

Sec. 2: To provide for the preservation of such material and for its accessibility, as far as may be feasible, to all who wish to examine or study it; to cooperate with officials in insuring the preservation and accessibility of the records and archives of the county and its towns, villages and institutions; and to bring about the preservation of historic buildings, monuments, and markers.

Sec. 3: To disseminate historical information and arouse interest in the past by publishing historical information and material in the newspapers or otherwise; by holding meetings and addresses, lectures, papers and discussion; and by marking historical buildings, sites, and trails.

Solon Buck wrote this standard mission statement to help those that wanted to know more about the important work of history. Many organizations in Minnesota to this day are still using this historic 1922 mission statement or one of the several updates to it, all of which contain some vision and values. Modern mission statements, however, are more about the motivating purpose than “what, how, or for whom” of our work, and vision and values state the public use of and define the approach to the mission.

At the Spring 2009 Local History Workshops we were encouraged to rethink our key statements to meet the needs of the twenty-first century. Some organizations have reported how hard it is to convince funders of their worth when they are pitted against social organizations. One even stated that an elected official asked why he should support the historical organization when the requested allocation could help put another K-9 police unit on the street or expand services for a battered woman’s shelter. All three are actually very important to the public’s quality of life.

Local historical organizations are worth every penny and more. In order to demonstrate that worth, historical organizations need to mature their mission-vision-values statements to meet the twenty-first century.

What would stronger key statements look like? Each organization should have statements that reflect local conditions, but I might suggest as a place to start this discussion, the following:

Mission: The [History Entity] improves people’s quality of life by preserving the present and the past.

Vision: Specifically, this organization:

1.      Informs sound public policy through the direct experience of the past.

2.      Provides a neutral healing environment for people to address the affects of events on their lives.

3.      Empowers people to make solid civic and environmental choices.

4.      Enables understanding of today.

Values:

History Ethic

The organization will faithfully and patiently coach the public to incorporate history as an equal value in its consideration of important civic and environmental issues.

Service

The organization will constantly capture and preserve history as it happens in order to provide accurate, complete, honest, and publicly accessible information for future users.

Professionalism

The organization will strive to meet, adapt, and apply professional guidance in every aspect of its work.

Stewardship

The organization will strategically apply its limited resources to leverage its vision.

In the coming weeks we’ll take a look at the nature of mission, vision and values statements. Then we’ll discuss the four suggested vision statements, which are meant to be outcomes, and that are based on some excellent examples from Minnesota historical organizations. And finally we’ll discuss the values that underpin our intent and likewise come from the collective experience of Minnesota historical organizations.

Feel free to post your mission, vision, or values statements here. Also, it would be good to hear from those that have recently updated their key statements on specific challenges faced in the process.