Tennessee Association of Museums

Welcome to the Tennessee Association of Museums

Is your museum focused? Do you have your eye on the future or are you still looking to the past? Have you lost sight of your mission or has your mission lost sight of you? How can revisiting (or developing) your museum’s focus help your organization?

In 2019, the TAM board took time out of our regular work for the association to hold a strategic planning retreat resulting in a new vision, mission, and values for the association. This dedicated time of focus was invaluable for seeing a new future for the organization which will celebrate its 60^th anniversary in 2020.

This year’s Tennessee Association of Museums’ conference focus on the things you and your organization are doing (and not doing) to guide the governance, collections, exhibits, and programs at our institutions. The theme is diverse and encourages discussions of success and failures in all areas of museum practice. How can we continue our daily work while striving to move toward a broader vision that includes our community?

From its beginning, our host city of Kingsport was a benefit of careful planning. Margaret Ripley Wolfe writes, “Kingsport was the first economically diversified, professionally planned, and privately financed city in twentieth-century America. . .. Kingsport represents one of the more successful and complex ventures in modern town planning in the United States.” The city is still keeping their goals in focus with a new vision and master plan instituted in 2017.

The Tri-Cities region surrounding Kingsport is also focused on preserving the history and culture of this important region of Tennessee. Museums including the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, Hands On! Regional Museum, International Storytelling Center, and Rocky Mount share pieces of the past with visitors while ensuring the culture of this part of Tennessee (and Virginia) remains vibrant into the future.