Today I was able to learn how to edit the donor contacts list using a website called Eleo. I thought that it was an interesting experience since keeping connections with Donors is something that we don’t normally think about in the work that goes into keeping a museum or historical site running. It is just as important as creating exhibitions or maintaining an archive. The museum is hoping to reach out to teens and I’m definitely out of touch with what their interests are, even as a young adult. I’m trying to brainstorm ways that I can possibly get teens interested in becoming volunteers and help us create and set up the flower wall. We really want to drive home that this space is for them and we want to keep their vision in mind. I’m not sure about the best way to reach out other than maybe contacting the education department and seeing if they have any tips or recourses.
The timeline is going well, now that I have a “backbone” of dates, I can put more detail into certain events or find any missing gaps. For example, we did not have anything originally for the 1940s which was strange, thinking about all of the impacts of WWII, so there had to be an impact on Blacksburg. I was able to find out that a home nicknamed “Solitude” was used as a place for returning veterans to have dances and parties. In the present day, it resides on the Virginia Tech campus for the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. I’m very excited about linking up parts of the timeline to areas of the museum’s website, so if a visitor wants more information it just takes a single click to get to an article or blog post on the topic. I hope to add some images when I can in hopes that they will appeal to other visual learners like myself. Otherwise although there is progress being made with my work , the progress is slow. It can be frustrating to have one project that is continuously being built upon rather than having the satisfaction of having things to check off each week. I was very sad that I could not help with the instillation of the newest exhibit focused on women’s fashion history ,as it will be going up during midterms and spring break.