Web Projects Update Part 1: The Museum Anthropology Blog

Museum anthropologists (and friends) in, and beyond, the Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA) may be wondering about the state of Museum Anthropology (MUA) and the story behind its spinoff projects, the Museum Anthropology weblog (which you are reading right now) and the seemingly out-of-the-blue emergence of Museum Anthropology Review (MAR). I will report on all of these projects in full at the fall CMA/AAA meetings, but I can note a few highlights and contexts here. To keep these postings relatively brief, I will divide them up, covering the blog, MAR and MUA separately. Today I will touch briefly on the blog, saving the others for forthcoming posts.

The blog is pretty easy to explain. It is coming up on its one year anniversary, which will fall on July 27. Last summer, while I was waiting to finalize the fall 2006 issue of Museum Anthropology (it was then being typeset, I think), I decided to experiment with setting up a blog on which news and views related to the journal could be shared, as could news from the field. Under this later heading could come such things as exhibition notices, calls for papers, etc. Like all weblogs, this one has ebbed and flowed with the availability of content and time to spare. Besides my time and that of the journal editorial assistants who have helped with it, the effort has cost nothing and been reasonably well recieved. This reception is measured in direct feedback to the editorial office as well as visitation statistics and internet chatter, as when posts to the site are linked to or discussed on other blogs. Thankfully, various agregators, such as MuseumBlogs.org have helped people find the site, as have friends such as The Attic and Kim Christen. With one year under its belt, I anticipate keeping going with the blog in something like the current form during the next year. Please keep the blog in mind as a way to spread news of your exhibition (editorial, conference, etc.) projects. We are happy to recieve press releases (etc.) and will do all that we can to note relevant news items.

PS: While enjoying the Museum Anthropology blog, also consider checking out the CMA's own redesigned website. It still needs some fine tuning, but it is up and running and can be found here.