Despite the challenges posed by the global economic crisis, the past year has been one of achievement and success for the Museum. In addition to cutting or deferring costs, we have been shifting resources toward new, more efficient formats in order to sustain our services to the community.
Our most visible accomplishment this year is preservation work at the historic Lloyd Street Synagogue. With generous support from the federal Save America’s Treasures program, the State of Maryland, and Baltimore City, we have transformed the LSS’s exterior appearance. Lloyd Street Synagogue now looks like the great gem that it is, and we are completing plans for interior restoration work to commence in June.
This has been an especially notable year for our educational programs and outreach. During the year, we have sponsored sixteen professional development workshops for nearly 400 educators. Our school programs have provided service to more than 75 schools — public, private, Catholic, and Jewish — in Baltimore City and six Maryland counties.
This year, too, our collections staff has undertaken important new initiatives. We have re-housed our photography collections and Institutional Archives, started a first-ever inventory of our accessioned photographs, and scanned many of our 24,000 catalogued photographs, making them available on-line at our Museum website.
As usual, our public programs, exhibitions — Dateline: Israel—New Photography and Video Art and Drawing on Tradition: The Book of Esther — and publications, including Shoshana: Memoirs of Shoshana Shoubin Cardin, edited by Curator Karen Falk, have significantly advanced our mission as a center for contemporary creativity.
The Museum’s Strategic Planning Committee, chaired by Vice President Larry Caplan, and the Facilities Development Committee, chaired by Vice President Jerry Doctrow, have been busy envisioning our future. To set the stage for future growth, we are on the verge of acquiring an adjacent property with generous support from the Herbert Bearman Foundation and THE ASSOCIATED.
Our new three-year plan sets a course to continue the growth of enhanced services to the community in innovative, cost effective formats.
It is my privilege to lead this outstanding institution with the guidance and encouragement of our Board, our staff and volunteers, and our many generous benefactors. With their continued support, I look forward to the year ahead when we will commence our 50th Anniversary (2010) in a spirit of true celebration befitting a determined, dedicated, and dynamic museum.
David B. Liebman
President
