The HRC thanks Laura Casey for serving as a guest author for the following entry.  Laura has worked in the museum field for fifteen years. She is currently Coordinator of the Museum Services Program at the Texas Historical Commission. Before joining the Historical Commission in 2004, she was the director of museums in Illinois and Kansas.

Ten years ago I never dreamed of the Internet serving as a repository for instructional movies for museums. At museumpods.com that is exactly what you find.

The site has many audio and video webcasts available, with something for everyone, including - Art, history, science, children's and specialty museums (click here to see the full podcast directory).

One of my favorite series comes from The Dr. Pepper Museum, and not just because it is located in Texas. It is easy to see that the Dr. Pepper Museum's staff had a lot of fun developing their webcasts. I enjoy the different types of content they include, like the museum's audio tour and various radio shows. One show highlights artifacts in their collection and they also have a two-minute history of diet drinks in the United States.

I discovered museumpods.com while attending a workshop on podcasting a few years ago. In 2009, the Museum Services Program at the Texas Historical Commission (THC) began posting webcasts as a companion to the training workshops we offer. The webcasts we post are instructional in nature such as the three demonstration webcasts on how to salvage wet artifacts. Four other episodes are more like informative conversations with one of the workshop instructors. It's an inexpensive and fun way to provide training opportunities to museums throughout Texas and beyond.

The "Training for Texas Museums" feed currently offers nine webcasts available to anyone with a computer and the proper internet connection. This fall, we will add at least two more episodes related to developing educational programming for museums and next year we will feature episodes on museums and community engagement. If you have ten minutes you have enough time to watch these videos.

Videos currently available on the Training for Texas Museums feed include:

• Introduction to Training for Texas Museums

• Emergency Planning Resources for Museums (18 minutes)

• Salvage of Wet Paintings, Metal and Glass Demonstration

• Salvage of Wet Textiles Demonstration

• Salvage of Wet Books and Paper Demonstration

• Strategic Planning Part 1: Who Plans?

• Strategic Planning Part 2: How Long Does it Take to Plan?

• Strategic Planning Part 3: Benefits to Planning

• Strategic Planning Part 4: Keep the Plan Simple

To access these videos, simply visit the museum podcast directory at museumpods.com, click on the feed for Training for Texas Museums, and select the video you want to watch.

Museumpods.com is a great resource for every museum, large and small. It's also a fairly inexpensive way to extend the reach of your museum. Whether you want to post your own webcasts, research different formats, learn something new or simply tune in to some episodes to relax, this site provides plenty of options.