San Bernardino County Museum is the recipient of four National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Awards. The annual NACo Achievement Award Program honors innovative county government programs throughout the nation. The museum is recognized in the Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation category for the initiatives “Responding to COVID through a Digital Ecosystem,” and “Mining the Museum for a Small Solutions to Big Problems,” and Victor Valley Museum is recognized for, “Celebrating and Teaching the Digging Sciences,” and “Activating an Underused Community Asset with Play.”
Responding to COVID through a Digital Ecosystem speaks to the development of a robust repository of born-digital content for the public to access from the comfort of their homes, especially those residents living in vulnerable or low-income communities in San Bernardino County. SBCM Connect is a digital ecosystem housed on the newly redesigned SBCM website which provides access to digital exhibits, curator blogs, digital tours, story maps, social media, collections records, photographs, and videos. It is designed as a one-stop-shop for all things digital and related to the San Bernardino County Museum.
The second award is for Mining the Museum for a Small Solutions to Big Problems which is a popular and modern method to curate an exhibition in which an outside artist/curator receives access to a museum’s collection to find consistent themes or objects to highlight in new ways. Often the outside artist/curator brings a unique perspective informed by their lived experience.
The third award is for Celebrating and Teaching the Digging Sciences, a multidisciplinary event in which participants are educated on and engage in simulated archaeological and paleontological fieldwork. Participants learn about how to responsibly get involved in fieldwork, fill out simplified permit applications, excavate objects in a mock dig, and submit their finds to a repository for curation. Along the way, additional learning opportunities regarding archaeology, paleontology, fieldwork and its ethics, and how to get further involved in fieldwork are provided to visitors.
The fourth award is for Activating an Underused Community Asset with Play. The Victor Valley Museum transformed an underutilized community space and brought it to life through the use of oversized building blocks and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, technology) programming. The outcome was a fun and educational new space for children and families to play and learn together.
Director of Museum, David Myers, shared, “For the fifth year in a row, the San Bernardino County Museum has been honored by NACo with multiple awards for our programs and exhibits. Always focused on our public service mission, the museum team is thrilled that our work has garnered this recognition, and humbled by the positive community impact that results from these efforts.”
The San Bernardino County Museum’s exhibits of regional, cultural and natural history and the Museum’s other exciting events and programs reflect the effort by the Board of Supervisors to achieve the Countywide Vision by celebrating arts, culture, and education in the county, creating quality of life for residents and visitors.