Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history

The past is never truly “in the past.” It’s all around us, it informs us. It speaks to our shared and to our separate identities. “Speak Your Piece” is a podcast where contributors share their insights and discoveries about Utah's 12,000 year (plus) human story. Hosted by Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian (Utah Dept. of Culture & Community Engagement), and co produced by Chelsey Zamir, a new episode is released every other week, sometimes more, sometimes less. SYP explores the key arguments with new and worthwhile older publications, articles or websites; or delves into a notable museum, archival collection, archaeological report; or allows a respected writer, curator or historian to speak freely, sometimes about difficult history. SYP seeks to tell a history of Utah in a way you might not heard it before., told by the people who know it best: historians, writers, curators, archaeologists, rare book dealers, archivists, librarians and more. Speak Your Piece is recorded and engineered at the Utah State Library in Salt Lake City. Jason Powers is the sound and post-production engineer. The SYP logo is a photograph entitled "Canyonlands," taken by Utah outdoor photographer Al W. Morton, circa 1955, within the Canyonlands National Park (NPS). The lone man in the image is Kent Frost, looking over a series of needle rock formations located in San Juan County, Utah. The image and rights are owned by the Utah State Historical Society.

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Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history

Utah’s Small Museum Landscape (Season 2, Ep. 11)

February 06, 2021 • Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian, Utah Dept. of Heritage & Arts • Season 2 • Episode 11

The guests in this Speak Your Piece episode live and work in three dispersed regions of Utah: LeeAnn Denzer in east central Utah (Ashley Valley), Diana Call in the southwest corner (Little Valley) and Jami Van Huss in northeast Utah (Cache Valley). What they have in common is a deep interest in their audiences (you and me), a professional commitment to museum studies, and a love for their subject areas—two in local history and one in paleontology (study of fossils including dinosaurs fossels). In geography and in subject matter, these museum professionals stand as examples of Utah’s very diverse network of small museums.

The episode's guest represent the Uintah County Heritage Museum (LeeAnn), the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site (Diana) and the Hyrum City Museum (Jami). Jami Van Huss, the director of the Hyrum City Museum, served as co-producer of this episode.

This podcast is an insider view of Utah's small museums. The discussion revolves around the professional work, the responsibilites and standards museums are to follow. We also discussed Utah's remarkable statewide organizations that support museums, and how Utah's small museums have adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Altogether our guests today, and everyone mentioned in this episode, are reimagining, reconsidering and challenging themselves, so your next small museum experience will be both interesting and rewarding.

To see the complete show notes go to the Speak Your Piece website.

Utah has hundreds of small museums, waiting for you to experience, in person and on-line; in nearly every different stripe and type, including local history, house museums, historical villages, regional art and crafts collections, natural history and science, archeology both pre-historical and historical, military history, Native American, paleontology and more.

In some of these small museums you can experience all of these subjects, all in one place. It is as if you are walking through a life-size curio cabinet, where diverse and notable objects have been gathered, in some cases over centuries, by past Utahns who thought such stories and objects, worthy of your contemporary study.

The world of museum studies, or the discipline of managing, storing, describing, presenting educational materials and interpreting stories and objects (from a tiny fossilized bones to a regional cultural landscapes) is now in a whirlwind of change. Those who work in Utah’s small museums have to “hold on to their hats” so to speak, as they strive to meet the best in professional practices, and address a handful of interpretive, ethical, cultural and legal challenges.

Utah's Small Museum Supporting Organizations: Utah Museum Association, Utah Office of Museum Services (with the Utah Division of Arts & Museums), and Center for Community Heritage.

List of Utah’s Small to Medium Size Museums: Utah Educational Network list (some are not so small), Museums and Heritage Areas, Parks & Recreation, Utah Department of Natural Resources, and Wikipedia - list of Utah museums</