Sedona Historical Society continues growth

Jun 19, 2023

The Sedona Historical Society adopted its three year plan on Wednesday, June, 21 which will guide its continued evolution from a volunteer to a professional organization.

“There are almost 400 museums in Arizona alone. There are more museums in the United States than there are McDonald’s and Starbucks combined,” Sedona Heritage Museum Executive Director Nate Meyers said. “The vast majority of them are the local historical societies, run by volunteers. Most of them don’t have formal training in history or museum studies; a lot of them are self-trained. The folks here at the Sedona History Museum have done a heck of a job training themselves.”

The SHS began the planning process in March and contracted Brian Crockett to run it. The plan focuses on the new role of the board of trustees, crafting individual plans for different parts of the operation and starting a discussion about capital needs.

“As we move into the future, you’re going to see us embracing our role in the community as being the place where people come to learn about the community they call home or that they’re visiting,” Meyers said. “We’re going to try to do it in innovative ways [and] try to embrace new technologies when it makes sense. We’re going to try to bring [in] the community with input and what they would like to see us doing. It’s an exciting future for the Historical Society and the museum.”

Board members will be offered training for their new roles dealing with oversight and resource development now that SHS has an executive director.

“I can’t say right now what that training will be,” Meyers said. “We’ll start with an organization that does a lot of this type of training called Board Source and see what kind of resources [are] out there. The American Alliance of Museums does a lot for board development.”

A grant of around $2,000 from the Arizona Historical Records Advisory Board will be used to improve the museum’s acid-free storage.

“There are some cardboard boxes that some of our artifacts are stored in,” Meyers explained.

“Cardboard is highly acidic, and that acid can leach into artifacts that it comes in contact with. We want to get the cardboard out, replace it with acid-free packaging materials and make sure we get acid-free tissue paper [for] objects that should be wrapped. I’m looking forward to this project helping me understand our collection better.”

High on Meyer’s priority list is increasing digital preservation and educational opportunities.

“We’re exploring possible apps to bring into the museum visitor experience, we have a great audio tour,” Meyers said. “But not enough of our visitors take advantage of it, and I think if we can tie the exhibits and the audio tour into an app experience that people can just have on their phones, it enhances their experience here. Whether they’re a resident or a visitor who came from two continents away, digital initiatives are key to that.”

SHS recently put out a call for volunteers to help digitize its collections. SHS has completed scanning the first 25 years of the Sedona Red Rock News and earlier Red Rock News through the Arizona Memory Project and Meyers would like to make subsequent years’ editions available as well.

“I’d like to explore putting additional collections [online] and making them available,” Meyers said. “As a historical researcher in Arizona for nearly the last 20 years, having access to other institutions, collections and resources via the Memory Project has been incredibly useful. I would like us to take a larger role in doing that.”

Marketing efforts are another part of the three-year plan and Meyers sees targeting museum-goers as a viable path based on their internal data from visitor surveys.

“Of our visitors who are coming now, two-thirds [to] three-quarters of them visit museums sometimes or frequently when they travel,” Meyers said. “That tells us that we should be looking at people who not only like museums, but they’re interested in history. They probably have an interest in continuing to educate themselves. It’s lifelong learners [or] family groups that have children that are a little older.”

While a majority of SHS visitors said that they learned something from their visit, slightly less than half said that they found its exhibits relevant to their own experience.

“To me, part of what makes history engaging is when you can help your visitor find something relevant in the story you’re telling that they can connect with,” Meyers said. “That’s where it becomes relevant and becomes an engaging experience for them. To me, that suggests we’ve got some work to do in making the stories we’re telling here a bit more relevant to people in their daily lives and lived experiences.”

Improving relevancy extends beyond the exhibits at the Uptown museum to all of the society’s properties. SHS will soon be starting the next phase of planning for the Schuerman Homestead House located on Loy Road off Lower Loop Road. The property is the last intact home built by one of the area’s first families that met the requirements of the Homestead Act.

Work on the property in recent years has involved extensive repairs including stabilizing the structure and roof and electrical repairs.

“It’s now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and that’s an important recognition for being the first vineyard and the first winery in Arizona for an industry that is important to this region,” Meyers said. “It’s an excellent place to tell that story but the question is, how do we do it?”

SHS has seen increasing visitation since 2021, when the museum had more than 10,000 visitors for the first time. 2022 saw a total of 11,500 visitors, and estimates for 2023’s visitation are currently around 13,000 visitors.