Conference Registration

Online registration for the 2009 Conference is now available.

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Travel Scholarship Application for Conference Now Available

The MA board is committed to helping its members to take advantage of the unique Unalaska Conference opportunity through travel scholarships. Our goal is to help equalize Unalaska travel with normal meeting costs. This initiative is made possible by generous sponsors, income from last year's meeting with WMA, and some targeted budget trimming.

Applications (including attachments to be e-mailed separately) must be received electronically on or before June 28, 2009. Scholarship applicants will be notified of awards and award amounts no later than July 15 (allowing recipients to make early bookings and qualify for airline/lodging discounts).

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Unalaska Conference Hotel Reservations

When making hotel reservations at Grand Aleutian Hotel for the conference you must directly contact the hospitality manager Dan Young at 907-581-7155 or Dan.Young@unisea.com.

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Emergency Response for Cultural Institutions Affected by Volcanic Ash

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations. Please help make sure that staff members of collecting institutions know to contact AIC-CERT when a disaster--hurricane, flooding, earthquake, fire--has damaged collections. View details (.pdf).

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Museums Alaska to Hold Annual Meeting in Unalaska
September 16-19, 2009

Nature, Culture, History - Museums!

Alaskan museums strive for a holistic world view. Their collections, exhibits, programs - and visitors - seek connections between culture and nature, science and the arts, the indigenous and the western, present and past. At their best, museums are creative hubs where diverse projects and instigators come together to explore and explain the world. Let Unalaska, with its 360 degree view of wild beauty and cultural wonder, be a power spot for synergy and new visions of how to put it all together.

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February 13, 2009: Stimulus Bill Passes with Museums In, and Zoos and Aquariums Out.

Early Friday morning, the U.S. Congress unveiled the Conference Report for H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the bill was passed by both the House and Senate Friday evening. Museums, zoos, and aquariums had initially been barred from competing for any funds in the Senate-passed bill. Zoos and aquariums were barred from funds in both versions. In reconciling the two pieces of legislation, Congress adopted the following language:

"SEC. 1604. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used by any State or local government, or any private entity for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool."

"Museum supporters should be very pleased that we were able to mobilize a massive field-wide effort to prevent a funding ban on museums in this bill," said AAM President Ford W. Bell. "However, the fact that Congress - and specifically the U.S. Senate in its February 6 vote - initially saw fit to exclude museums from funding shows that we have a lot of work to do in making the case for museums." He added: "It is also disheartening that zoos and aquariums will be prohibited from competing for most economic stimulus funds made available through this bill. Zoos and aquariums have tremendous public benefit for environmental education and wildlife conservation, and contribute greatly to our nation's economy by spurring tourism."

Museums employ more than a half-million Americans, spend an estimated $14.5 billion annually, and rank among the top three family vacation destinations. Visitors to cultural and heritage destinations stay 53% longer and spend 36% more money than other kinds of tourists.

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