On the top of my list of cool things to do in New York City: visit City Hall Station, the abandoned star of the New York city subway...

Transit Tuesday is moving on in on Museum Monday. London Transport Museum. Old Metropolitan Railway Car. Photo: RL Fifield 2010. If I...

James E. Taylor. Photo: National Anthropological Archives, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Using...

I think I heard about this study on the Registrar’s Committee of the American Alliance of Museum’s listserve, a very long time ago. If...

RL Fifield, 2012. Last weekend, The Brigade of the American Revolution hosted an Authenticity Event at Don Carpentier’s Eastfield...

I am a museum collection manager with over twenty years working with museum collections. I started cataloging costume objects when I was...

RL Fifield 2009. A fantastic collection in an incredible building tell the epic story of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The 1884...

Yes, beer in museums. Now on at The New York Historical Society, Beer Here: Brewing New York History reminds the visitor of the...

I was inspired by this salted paper print from the 1850s of people posing for a photograph on a Baltimore and Ohio engine. I thought...

Speaking as a museum professional and a living history practitioner, what a great project. Theatrical designer Thomas John Bernard and...

I’ll have the Scollop of Oysters, hartychokes, cold lobster, and olive pudding! Winterthur has in their collections the Dinner Book of...

Lecturing at the Bergen County Historical Society, March 2011. I’m a Collections Manager in a large New York City institution. My first...

Where there is space, there is dust. RL Fifield dusting. Over dust, visitors to our museum and I connect. Dust is an ongoing challenge...

What is that box with all the dials sitting in the corner of the gallery? A hygrothermograph. Photo: Oakton. Chances are, it’s a...

I wrote those words “gridded on my mind” years ago in a short story, the protagonist describing herself as the antagonist’s Eadweard...

I was looking in the mirror, thinking my hair needed a little color. Here’s what I found in the Baltimore Sun, January 19, 1866 America’s...

Fred Harvey was a British immigrant that brought high standards for trackside eating halls alongside the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe...

New York Public Library Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Photo: Wikipedia. My mother’s favorite meal of the day is lunch. Usually those...

In 2002, the MFA Boston acquired the Leonard Lauder large collection of Japanese postcards. The most thrilling images are Taisho...

It can be overwhelming. It can hurt your brain. But it can also help you understand your collection’s preservation needs like nothing...