News Roundup for a New Month

As we're on the cusp of April and May, the program pages for both are up at the same time (April programs here, May programs here). Be sure to take a look to see what's what on the Trails of History.

The Pennsylvania State Archives will offer "Archives without Tears," their popular 2-day workshop on archival management and care, twice in the weeks ahead - May 24-25 at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum and June 16-17 at the Blair County Genealogical Society. The cost at each location is $30 for both days or $20 for either day (the program is different each day); registration fees include lunch, so it's quite a deal. Register by contacting the location you wish to attend. (You'll find an image of the brochure and more info here and a downloadable version of the brochure and registration form on Blair County Genealogical Society's website.)

Speaking of the State Archives, plans for a new building were announced earlier this week. PHMC has been working with the City of Harrisburg and others to secure property on which to build an updated and expanded facility to house the commonwealth's permanently valuable records and make them available for research. Tuesday's announcement (read about it on PennLive) included the fact that the new building will also house city archives and make them more readily available to the public. The project is expected to take about 4 years to complete; Archives staff are already preparing for the move to the new building.

Download the International Museum Day 2016 poster from ICOM

For those of you who combine a love of museums with a love of Twitter, May has not one, but two, days you should know about. May 12 is Museum Memories Day (#MusMem), where you are asked to share your favorite memories (recent or not-so-recent) of museums you've visited or work with. And May 18 is International Museum Day (#MuseumDay2016), an opportunity for museums all over the world to showcase their programs, exhibits, communities, what have you. UPDATE:May 25 is #MusFavObjects day - share a photo of your favorite museum object with the Twitterverse. Check out PHMC's Twitter account (@PHMC) throughout May (or anytime, for that matter) to see what sites on the Trails of History are sharing. I'll also try to share here on Trailheads or my own Twitter account (@AmyKFox).

The latest edition of PHMC's collections-focused blog, Pennsylvania Treasures, features a 19th-century weathervane that doubled as a commercial sign for blacksmith W. Gerfin. The post was written by Jennifer Royer, who co-curated the new Weathervane exhibit at Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum. The exhibit, "Weathervanes: Three Centuries of a Pennsylvania Folk Art Tradition," will be on view through December.

If you read Trailheads regularly, you know that I usually encourage folks to vote in the now-annual Museum Dance Off competition (now in its third year as #MDO3). The first round of match-ups is drawing to a close and earlier this week we had a chance to vote for the Chemical Heritage Foundation's video. The focus of the video was an array of women who pursued research in the sciences (some I'd heard of, some I hadn't). Our own Dr. Joseph Priestley (whose American home is part of the PHMC Trails of History) made a cameo appearance (folks from the Chemical Heritage Foundation have supported projects at Priestley House on many occasions). Unfortunately, the video came in 2nd for Round 1, Day 7, so it will not move on to Round 2, which starts on Monday.