Keeping track of our roots (12/2/04)

Museums tell stories.

With their artifacts and exhibits, they recount our history, our culture, and our values.

And an initiative launched this week should go a long way toward insuring that the stories of East Central Indiana will be told as completely, as professionally, and as accessibly as possible.

The East Central Indiana Heritage Network, the brainchild of the staff of Minnetrista Cultural Center in Muncie, aims at bringing together all of the dozens of repositories of the history and culture of this region.

In Jay County alone, for example, there are the collections of the Jay County Historical Society’s museum, the Museum of the Soldier, and the Glass Museum in Dunkirk.

There’s also a deep well of knowledge in the volunteers who have driven those institutions over the years.

The Heritage Network will seek to do several things simultaneously.

It will share information, develop better contacts and partnerships, and act as a resource for professional development as a way of assisting volunteer-run museums which often operate on a shoestring.

Over the long haul — and historians tend to think over the long haul — the possibilities are almost limitless.

Imagine, for example, a Web-based collection which amounted to a virtual museum encompassing the collections of not just Minnetrista but all of the historical museums and library genealogy archives in the region.

Imagine traveling exhibits that enhanced each museum by telling those stories that reach beyond the arbitrary limits of individual counties.

Imagine an ongoing system of professional development which helped small museums with such things as basic as building effective displays.

For scholars, for educators, and for posterity, there’s every reason to hope the East Central Indiana Heritage Network takes root quickly and firmly, then grows. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]