From the monthly archives: November 2010

Encouraging Good Holiday Letters

by David Grabitske on November 24, 2010 · 4 Comments · in Advice

Last year this blog posed a question on Collecting Christmas Letters, for which there was a solid response. To expand on this question, are there any historical organizations offering training on how to write good annual summary letters? One reason that a historical organization might offer such classes is that such an activity might be [...]

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Phone books call it a day

by David Grabitske on November 13, 2010 · 5 Comments · in Collections, Digitization, Information Technology, Marketing

The St. Paul Pioneer Press for Friday November 12, 2010, printed an Associated Press article by Michael Felberbaum, “Familiar phone books dying in digital age.” As Internet penetration edges up in all parts of the state (see Electronic Access for Rural Minnesota), people rely on resources that are both more easily searched and perceived to [...]

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Web Development Smackdown

by Joe Hoover on November 12, 2010 · 4 Comments · in Advice, Information Technology

Currently eight historical societies have posted reviews of their organization’s web site redesigns on this blog.  Looking over the posts, there are some interesting takeaways. Fillmore County Historical Society Cokato Historical Society Morrison County Historical Society Martin County Historical Society Edina Historical Society Otter Tail County Historical Society Clay County Historical Society Lake County Historical [...]

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Lake County Historical Society launches updated website

by David Grabitske on November 5, 2010 · No Comments · in Information Technology, Marketing, Visitation

Lake County Historical Society launched their first website in 2000 with a grant from Iron Range Resources. When I started working at the Society in 2009 it was evident that since the website’s launch there was little or no maintenance done or resources dedicated for this purpose. We currently have two independent yet connected websites. We [...]

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Fundraising In Hard Times

by David Grabitske on November 2, 2010 · 1 Comment · in Fundraising, Local History Standards, Museums, Visitation

On Friday October 29, 2010, the Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums held their annual fall meeting and awards program in the new Laird Norton Addition to the Winona County Historical Society. For those of you that missed it, the topic of the panel discussion was on fundraising in hard times, with three specific examples. [...]

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