I’ll be at the annual conference of the American Alliance of Museums in Baltimore, MD from May 19 through 22.  If you are attending, please say hello, especially if we haven’t met before. If you are a regular reader of this blog you may be interested in a couple of sessions that I’ll be chairing:

Museums in India Today.  3:30-4:45 pm Sunday, May 19 Room 324-26.  In postings last July  I wrote about teaching in India in the Museum Studies Program of the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) in Kolkata, India.  This session will bring two museum colleagues from India, thanks to AAM Fellowships, to discuss challenges and opportunities for Indian museums. Museum leader Ganga Rautela, Director General of  NCSM, will focus on the network of science museums his organization administers, and  on  the growth of informal science education in his burgeoning country.  Rama Lakshmi, a New Delhi independent museum consultant who is also the Washington Post reporter on India, will discuss her work on a variety of projects.  Readers may be especially interested in her efforts to work with victims and their families to create an exhibition/museum commemorating the 1984 Union Carbide toxic gas disaster in Bhopal.  You can also follow her @RamaNewDelhi.

Please join us for Q and A and discussion on what it’s like to conserve and interpret such a vast cultural heritage – tangible and intangible; ancient and modern.

Students line up to visit National Science Museum in New Delhi

The Empathetic Museum, a “pop-up” session to be held in 311, the “Unconference Room,” in the Convention Center. Monday, May 20 from 8:45 to 10:15 am. As readers know I have been reflecting on this topic for the last 18 months, with postings on the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War, Museums’ response to Hurricane Sandy, and to the Trayvon Martin controversy.

I am hoping that colleagues with similar interests such as Janeen Bryant from the Levine Museum of the New South and Joanne Jones-Rizzi of the Science Museum of Minnesota can join me.  Elaine Gurian has said she will drop by depending on the time, and someone from The Children’s Museum hopes to be there to share her museum’s response to the Marathon Bombings .

But don’t come only to hear what others have to say on this important issue. Join us and contribute to the conversation.  I hope to see you there.

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