About this project

Remember the summers in the car with the whole family? My mother was a history fanatic and we visited every little museum, fort, and ruin we passed during those trips. Ray's mother was a teacher so they stopped at the Amish Farmhouse, the Rattlesnake Museum http://www.rattlesnakes.com; Dorothy’s House & Museum and a million other roadside museums. We’ll never remember all their names. But we do remember the stuff and the opportunity to have some fun with our brothers and sisters, while learning about different worlds and places in time.

Friends frequently ask us where to stop to see small museums as they travel around New Mexico. One asked recently if there was anything besides a gas station in one of the towns she has to visit for work. Museum Development Associates is publishing A Guide to the Small Museums in New Mexico. Save a small museum by visiting one today!

We plan to distribute this Guide through museum gift shops, book stores and Amazon.com. The Guide will be of interest to all who want to know more about the rich history and culture of New Mexico. If you’re planning a trip to New Mexico or know someone who is, you will appreciate this Guide.

What if you didn’t know to call Mrs Copeland to see the Little House on the Prairie Museum in Amistad, New Mexico? Or, if you missed the Pioneer Store Museum http://www.pioneerstoremuseum.com/Pioneer_Store_Museum.html in Chloride? Small museums are often the life blood of rural communities. Help us raise the printing costs and you won’t miss the Pioneer Store Museum or any of our other small museums. Your Guide will be the ticket to discovering the great panorama of New Mexico culture.

Museum Development Associates (MDA) http://www.museumdevelopment.org was founded in 2005 as a nonprofit field services organization, to provide support related to improving the operations and infrastructure of small, rural and start-up cultural institutions. MDA offers affordable contract services that include: temporary professional staffing, training in collections care and museum practice, conservation assessments, museum inventories, and exhibition development and management. MDA also provides Small Museum Pro!, an online professional certification program, through Eastern New Mexico University. This guidebook is just another way we work to save small museums in New Mexico by driving tourist dollars into their coffers.

If we don’t make our goal of $5000, we will sit down and cry. Other than that, we will disappoint our many member museums who are partners in this promotion. EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS! Please pledge something and then pass this link on to everyone in your address book. We have three reward categories please choose one of them and help us keep our promise to Save a Small Museum in New Mexico.