Our Mission

The Small Museums Community assists America’s small museums in their endeavors, helping to make them stronger and more responsive to their communities. The Committee encourages small museums to share successful strategies in workshops and national meetings and demonstrate what the field can learn from small museums. Through its programming and initiatives, AASLH plans to strengthen the small museum, an important steward of local and national history.

If you’re looking for a place to network with your peers, find answers to questions, explore opportunities to learn, and more, you’ve come to the right place. This community was created by Small Museum professionals and their colleagues.

What is a Small Museum?

The majority of museums in the United States are considered small and include historic house museums, history museums, art museums, historic sites, general museums, and much more. Our definition is simple, “If you think you’re small, you’re small.” We welcome any and all interested in our mission of making America’s small museums the very best they can be.

In 2007, the Small Museums Committee created a working definition of a small museum:

A small museum’s characteristics are varied, but they typically:

• Have an annual budget of less than $250,000.
• Operate with a small staff with multiple responsibilities.
• Employ volunteers to perform key staff functions.

Other characteristics such as the physical size of the museum, collections size and scope, etc. may further classify a museum as small. Is it the end-all, be-all of definitions? Certainly not, but it’s a start and gives us a rallying point for our efforts.

Where did that definition come from?

In 2007, the Small Museums Committee distributed an electronic survey to the membership and received 455 responses out of 6,500 sent. It was designed to create a working definition for the Committee so it could better respond to the needs of small museums. Results from the survey provided the definition above.

Meeting the Needs of Small Museums

The Small Museums Committee is composed of AASLH members who work for and serve small museums, their staffs, volunteers, and ultimately, their constituencies. The Committee’s major charge is to oversee AASLH’s work with the Small Museum community. We are focused on working with AASLH to provide thoughtful and useful resources for the unique needs of small museums. As a result, AASLH is a valuable resource for small museums, members and non-members alike.

To accomplish our charge, the Small Museums Committee focuses on the following:

• Encouraging and supporting small museums in their efforts to reflect and engage with the diversity of their communities. Recognizing that multiple voices and perspectives enrich the stories all museums tell, in our work the Small Museums Committee promotes the full inclusion of historically underrepresented people, their histories, lives, and experiences.
• Creating and fostering Annual Meeting activities that are valuable for small museums. In addition to encouraging a variety of sessions geared towards small museums, the committee also works to ensure that the voices of small museums are heard alongside larger institutions in germane sessions.  Each year, the Small Museums Committee raises money in order to offer scholarships for the AASLH Annual Conference. It also sponsors a luncheon at the meeting.
• Developing Original Content for Small Museum Practitioners.  Through the AASLH website blog the committee strives to help small museums be the best they can be by providing the kinds of resources that small museums need and can benefit from.
• Providing Learning Opportunities for small museum staffs and volunteers. The Small Museums Committee works with AASLH to offer, from time to time, online events on topics relevant to small museums.