NATIONAL MUSEUM PUBLISHING SEMINAR (NMPS) 2025:
A CONFERENCE BY AND FOR THE MUSEUM PUBLISHING COMMUNITY
June 29–July 1, 2025
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
*** Descriptions and speakers are subject to change ***
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Optional Field Trip: Maryland Center for History and Culture
Staff-led tour of the galleries at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) will take place 12–1 pm. Bus transportation will be provided.
Gather by Registration Desk ║ 11:30–1:00 pm EDT on Sunday, June 29 (offsite)
Quire Hands-On Workshop at the Maryland Center for History and Culture
This hands-on workshop will serve as an introduction to Quire, an open-source publishing tool developed by Getty and available for anyone to use for free. Held in conjunction with the biannual National Museum Publishing Seminar and in partnership with the Maryland Center for History and Culture, this workshop is free and open to all levels of technical experience. Attendance is limited to 10 participants.
Gather by Registration Desk ║ 12:30–4:00 pm EDT on Sunday, June 29 (offsite)
Exhibitor Hall Preview
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 2:00–5:00 pm EDT on Sunday, June 29
Orientation / Speed Networking
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 4:30–5:30 pm EDT on Sunday, June 29
Dinners with Colleagues (offsite)
Gather by Registration Desk ║ 6:15–8:00 pm EDT on Sunday, June 29
Monday, June 30, 2025
Exhibitor Hall: Coffee and Light Breakfast
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 8:00–9:30 am EDT on Monday, June 30
Optional Mentor Network Meetup
Location of your choice ║ 9:00–9:30 am EDT on Monday, June 30
Welcome Session
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 9:30–9:45 am EDT on Monday, June 30
Plenary Session
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 9:45–11:00 EDT on Monday, June 30
Publishing Without Fear or Favor: Maintaining Trust with Authors, Artists, and Audiences
A museum is often a trusted space to have challenging conversations, explore controversial topics, and connect across difference. Publishing this content and producing text for a related exhibition can be difficult to navigate from start to finish. It involves building trust with all stakeholders—from museum leadership and funders, artists and authors, to audiences and the press. It often requires solid defense of decisions large and small, including essay content development, cover art, and even word choice. This discussion hopes to uncover ways the museum can continue to be a successful forum for healthy debate and shared learning through what and how they publish.
- Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, Director Content Strategy, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
- Kari Dahlgren, Director of Publications, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Julie Trébault, Executive Director, Artists at Risk Connection
Break
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 11:00–11:30 am EDT on Monday, June 30
Concurrent Sessions (Two Hotel Locations)
The Care and Feeding of Publishing Guides and Knowledge Bases
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 11:30–12:30 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
Active museum publishing departments can find it a challenge to create, update, maintain, and share useful information. Knowledge bases can help you record, collate, share, store, update—and even sunset—living documents that save time by providing accessible guides on a variety of topics. However, these documents require active and intentional work and a degree of commitment and ownership to be of the most use to colleagues. Two staff members from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Publications and Editorial Department will lead a discussion about the practice, and not just the product, of user guides, and how to get leadership support when time, people, and resources are all scarce, whether in museum publishing departments of two or twenty. They will share examples of department guides that cover topics such as technology, institutional style, and the onboarding of curators working on publications.
Speakers:
- Robert Weisberg, Senior Project Manager, Publications and Editorial, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (moderator)
- Kamilah Foreman, Director of Publications and Editorial, Dia Art Foundation
- Valerie Hellstein, Managing Editor, Publications, Denver Art Museum
- Lina Palazzo, Associate for Administration, Publications and Editorial, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Social Media for Museum Publishers
Essex ABC ║ 11:30–12:30 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
This panel discussion will provide an overview of the creative ways museum publishers and their partners have been promoting publications through social media. Speakers will address successes and failures, representing perspectives from museum, museum publisher, distributor, and printer accounts. Panelists will discuss different accounts and their demographics, share data-driven performance insights, and provide practical advice on how to promote publications on social media at various scales, from starting accounts to collaborating with partners inside and outside of their institutions.
Speakers:
- Rachel High, Manager of Editorial Marketing and Rights, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (moderator)
- Hope Stockton, Managing Editor, MFA Publications at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Jake Yuzna, Content Producer, Walker Art Center
- Cory Reynolds, Editorial Director, D.A.P.
- Silvia Zanetti, Project Coordinator, Trifolio
Lunch on Your Own
12:30–2:00 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
Post-Lunch Concurrent Sessions
The Style Slam: A Collaborative Approach to Creating a House Style Guide
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 2:00–3:00 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
So, you’re writing a style guide . . . now what? Join Leslie Poster and Judie Evans, editors at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, for a discussion on the museum’s “style slams” process for developing and maintaining a house style guide. They will share lessons learned from the collaborative process of drafting and refining the style guide in an environment where language authority is negotiated among many writers. Their presentation will offer practical tips on making the case for a style guide, getting staff and leadership buy-in, advocating for readers, managing difficult conversations around inclusive and conscious language, and maintaining version control in the midst of it all.
Attendees will learn how to implement practical guidance for creating and updating a house style guide, examine their workplaces to develop effective engagement strategies, and develop an effective method for receiving and vetting staff feedback.
Speakers:
- Leslie Poster, Director of Editorial Services, National Museum of American History
- Judie Evans, Writer/Editor, National Museum of American History
The Life Cycle of Great Images: Best Practices from Image Receipt to the Printed Page
Essex ABC║ 2:00–3:00 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
How does an artwork become a beautiful and accurate reproduction? How can I markup color proofs with actionable notes, and what do I do with these terrible files?
This panel discussion will track the full life cycle of an image, showcasing effective strategies to communicate and execute a project’s goals. Our first panelist will discuss photography and the evaluation of incoming images. Then we will cover the construction of a design brief to match the goals of a project with associated materials, printing methods, and production techniques. A color separation specialist will walk us through the process of marking up color proofs and adjusting files for print, including a live interactive workshop. Last, we will cover the on-press experience from press tests to bound samples. Together we will build a glossary of terms related to image reproduction and a checklist for each stage of this process to share with attendees.
Speakers:
- Lauren Makholm, Director of Production in Publishing, The Art Institute of Chicago (moderator)
- Christina Wiginton, Production Manager, Office of Brand Strategy and Publishing, The National Gallery of Art (moderator)
- Joseph Mohan, Production Director, The Museum of Modern Art
- Tony Manzella, Owner, Echelon Color
Break
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 3:00–3:30 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
Plenary Session
Lightning Round
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 3:30–4:30 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
This session will feature five short presentations of recent innovations or case studies in the museum publishing field, followed by Q&A from the audience:
1. Managing Publication Content with Airtable
Airtable is an intuitive, flexible, and free tool that can be used for managing publication content. In this lightning-round presentation, we will look at a case study for the use of Airtable in creating a shared reference table that functions as a content outline, photography tracker, permissions repository, and captions manager. This tool is being used by the Saint Louis Art Museum to streamline collaboration with internal and external contributors to bring additional transparency and clarity to the book production process.
Presenter: Valerie Lazalier Edmison, Head of Publications, the Saint Louis Art Museum
2. Being on Press: Tips and Tricks from Editors
Whether you are on press solo or accompanying a designer, artist, or production staff, an editor can bring their own skill set to a press check. There are also ways to ensure accuracy and quality from afar. This lightening round will provide insights from editors to help break down the mystery of this final stage of the book production process. These tips will help editors gain confidence and be prepared by reviewing the basics of what to expect, how best to work with the printing staff, and how to tackle challenges that might arise during press check.
Presenter: Julianna White, Writer-Editor, Publications, National Museum of African American History and Culture
3. Adapting for the Future: A Digital Migration Case Study
Over the last decade, user needs and technology have evolved, prompting The Art Institute of Chicago to find a more accessible, responsive, and maintainable platform for its online scholarly catalogs. This case study examines the collaborative effort of the museum’s Publishing and Experience Design departments, with consultant Design for Context, to migrate 17 digital catalogs from 2014–2020 to a sustainable new platform. We cover key migration stages, from defining goals and analyzing content to transferring materials, while addressing challenges faced along the way. What content survived the transition, what was left behind, and what new trends are shaping digital publishing? The study highlights lessons on building sustainable digital publication infrastructures that other museums can adopt. The first catalogs on the new platform will debut in Spring 2025, providing a fresh comparison to earlier online publications.
Presenter: Armando Román, Digital Production Coordinator, The Art Institute of Chicago
4. Digital Publishing’s Second Renaissance
Fifteen years ago, following the first releases of the Kindle, iPhone and iPad, we saw a flourishing of experimental digital publishing. Publishers of all sizes rushed to explore and define the future of the book. They made books as apps, enhanced e-books, and interactive and hybrid books. After a few years, the gold rush sputtered when publishers realized there wasn’t all that much gold to be had, and the business realities of developing digital products with print book budgets hit home. There followed a period of retrenchment, where publishers sought stability in their digital activities. The intervening years have been marked by an increased focus on open access, open standards, accessibility, and sustainability. As a result, we today find ourselves in a more humane future of the book. From this new foundation, publishing may be ready to again take up the innovative experiments of those early years. They are likely to be smaller and more open than those undertaken in the past, but can still offer readers and authors new types of interactions, help them see things in new ways, and allow them to go deeper with content than they could with print alone.
Presenter: Greg Albers, Digital Publications Manager, J. Paul Getty Trust
5. Inclusive Language and Reparative Description: Joining Forces with Your Library
This presentation will dive into the IDEA Collaborative developed at the Maryland Center for History and Culture; a grassroots-led, hub-and-spoke model of championing initiatives related to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. More specifically, we will look at the collaborative Reparative Description and Inclusive Language Working Group, which emerged as our collections, publications, education, and marketing teams realized they often grappled with similar questions: how to acknowledge identities in collection descriptions as well as marketing collateral; which inclusive language and reparative description principles to apply in content-generation throughout the organization; how inclusive and reparative language can contribute to the organizational voice.
Presenter: Martina Kado, VP of Research and France-Merrick Director of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Maryland Center for History and Culture
Exhibitor Reception
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 5:30–7:00 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
Dinners with Colleagues (offsite)
Gather by Registration Desk ║ 7:00–8:30 pm EDT on Monday, June 30
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Exhibitor Hall: Coffee, Tea, and Light Breakfast
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 8:00–9:00 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Optional Museum Publishing Digital Interest Group (MuPuDIG) Meetup
Location TBD ║ 8:30–9:00 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Concurrent Sessions
Buenas intenciones, Myriad Challenges: Adventures in Multilingual Exhibitions
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 9:00–10:00 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Museums of all sizes and specialties are faced with the challenge—and opportunity—to diversify how we present our exhibitions, programming, and publications. Whether your institution is in the early, middle, or late stage of reaching your multilingual goals, we can all gain from the challenges other museum colleagues have faced. Our panelists will each focus on an exhibition project that illuminates the variables at play at our institutions, highlighting practical takeaways that you can adapt for your own purposes.
Speakers:
- Sheila Majumdar, Senior Editor, Publishing, Art Institute of Chicago (moderator)
- Antonio Díaz Oliva, Editor, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
- Emily Fry, Executive Director, Interpretation, Art Institute of Chicago
- Jack Radley, Editor, MoMA PS1
New Approaches to Digital Catalogues
Essex ABC║ 9:00–10:00 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Collections catalogues and catalogues raisonnés occupy a unique space between traditional research publications and database resources. Digital formats offer flexibility, embracing the evolving nature of object research and shifting art historical methodologies. This panel features projects that rethink digital catalogues, aiming to maximize relevance and accessibility for diverse audiences and stakeholders.
Speakers:
- Liz Neely, Curator of Digital Experience, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (moderator)
- Judy Lee, Scholarly Programs and Publications Specialist, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
- Sana Mirza, Library of Congress
- Caitlin Sweeney, Senior Director of Digital Strategy and Publications, Wildenstein Plattner Institute
Break
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 10:00–10:30 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Concurrent Sessions
How Can Museums Effectively Use Freelance Editors?
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 10:30–11:30 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Museums are increasingly turning to freelance editors to refine their publications, from exhibition catalogs to educational guides. This session, led by Flatpage cofounder Cara Jordan, will explore the essential editorial services available to museums—developmental editing, copyediting, and indexing. We will break down what each service entails, from shaping content and structure to ensuring clarity and accuracy, and pinpoint when to bring in editorial professionals for maximum impact. Attendees will learn best practices for collaborating with freelance editors, ensuring smooth workflows and high-quality outcomes. Whether enhancing visitor engagement through polished publications or ensuring scholarly rigor, this discussion will empower museum professionals to optimize their use of freelance editorial talent. This session is perfect for anyone involved in museum publishing, curatorial work, or communications.
Speakers:
- Cara Jordan, Cofounder and Chief Operating Officer, Flatpage (moderator)
- Emily Bowles: Freelance copyeditor based in NC who specializes in art and art history texts
- Chenoa Baker: Freelance editor and curator based in Philly who specializes in arts texts
- Anne Roecklein: managing editor at the Clark Art Institute
Leveraging AI to Enhance Image Descriptions for Art Collections
Essex ABC ║ 10:30–11:30 am EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Museums strive to provide universal access to their collections, yet many museums have little—if any—of their digital collection and digital publications augmented by image descriptions or alternative text (alt text), limiting access for visitors who are blind or have low vision. Over the past year, a collaborative, inter-museum working group of US-based art museums has been exploring the very real future of using multimodal AI to begin to bridge this gap: using generative AI to describe, tag, and provide image descriptions and alt text for artwork.
Bringing in experiences from several museums, this session will dive into overall best practices for writing image descriptions and how to build upon those to develop, review, and deploy AI-generated descriptions. We will share active use cases and lessons learned from our exploration and discuss how this work can improve accessibility for digital and digitized publications and broader applications in the museum field.
Speakers:
- Dr. Mark Osterman, Assistant Director for Digital Experiences, The Wolfsonian-FIU
- Mike Trizna, Data Scientist, Office of Digital & Innovation, Smithsonian Institution
- Julia Demarest, Data Scientist, National Gallery of Art
- Adam Purvis, Data Architect, National Gallery of Art
- Ariana French, Former Director, Digital Technology at American Museum of Natural History
Optional Mentor Network Meetup
Location of your choice ║ 11:30 am–12:30 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Optional Quire Community Meetup
Essex ABC ║ 11:30 am–12:30 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Keynote Luncheon
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 12:30–2:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Concurrent Sessions
The Power of Partnerships: Raising the Profile of Museum Research through the Scholarly Community
Harborside Ballroom CDE ║ 2:00–3:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Museum publishers contribute vital research to the scholarly record, but it is a challenge to break through the noise of digital distribution and engage a global audience. Strategic partnerships within the scholarly community can provide opportunities to expand and strengthen a publishing business into new markets, audiences, access models, and formats. This session will explore the network of partnerships and collaborations that museum publishers may leverage to innovate their publishing programs and bring their research to the broadest possible audience of researchers, scholars, and general readers. The panel will discuss real examples of successful collaborations that have expanded the reach and impact of museum publications.
Speakers:
- Phillip Hearn, Senior Publisher Relations Manager, Project MUSE (moderator)
- Maureen Winter, Associate Publisher, Getty Publications
- Laura Foster, Director, Academic Publishing, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Elisabeth Maselli, Senior Editor, University of Pennsylvania Press
Increasing Access and Equity on Both Sides of the Editorial Desk
Essex ABC ║ 2:00–3:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1
Where universities fall short, museum publication offices can step in to increase opportunities for future content-shapers. This panel will be a moderated conversation about an experimental program that was designed to support emerging art-history scholars yet had the unexpected outcomes of also 1) training editorial apprentices to recognize and address conditions that limit who gets published as well as who works in publishing; and 2) training authors to become future editors. In 2021, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s journal American Art created Toward Equity in Publishing (TEP), a pilot program that offered free developmental editing and workshops to demystify scholarly publication processes. Simultaneously, the journal invited our informal “apprenticeship” program of interns, volunteers, and work-study assistants to attend these workshops and to think about the restricting processes that limit whose voices are heard. Four years down the road, some of those interns are working in museum curatorial and publication offices and some of the authors are not only publishing their own research but also becoming editors themselves. In this panel, we will hear from them about lessons learned in the TEP program, and their own ideas on how to address inequities on both sides of the editorial desk.
Speakers:
- Robin Veder, Executive Editor, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum (moderator)
- Jenevieve DeLosSantos, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Art History Pedagogy & Practice Journal, Rutgers University
- Oscar Flores-Montero, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Baltimore Museum of Art
- Cyle Metzger, Co-Executive Editor of Panorama, the journal of the Association of Historians of American Art
Farewell Toast
Harborside Ballroom AB ║ 3:00–4:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 1
