AUSTIN (KXAN) — Each year, dozens of museums across Central Texas band together and open their doors to the public for free for Austin Museum Day.
The annual celebration will mark its 28th anniversary on Sunday, with 33 museums in and around Austin participating. The museums will each have free entry and special programming, including guided and self-guided exhibition tours, activities, and more, for all ages.
Catherine Whited, co-chair of the Austin Museum Partnership, said the day is essentially a celebration and a “gift that we give to the Austin community.”
Whited said the primary reason the event continues annually is to remove a barrier of access that prevents some folks from visiting museums.
“Just entering a museum can sometimes be a little intimidating for folks, and then you add an entrance fee on top of it, and there’s, a lot of reasons that one can elect, maybe not to go to a museum when you have free time,” Whited said.
She added that Museum Day also puts a spotlight on the city’s museum community and directs attention toward cultural institutions that people may not be as familiar with. Places like the Neill-Cochran House Museum, the Chateau Bellevue or the Visual Arts Center, or the Austin Museum of Popular Culture, Whited said.
“So Austin Museum Day is an opportunity for us to really get eyes from the Greater Austin area on the museum community, and remind everyone that, like, there are so many institutions here that are doing great work in your backyard that you might not know about, and why don’t you take the opportunity to go visit them?” she added.
LBJ Library & Museum Education Coordinator Sheila Mehta said as a participating institution, Museum Day is something the LBJ Library looks forward to each year.
“It is a community day… It’s a day for our community to come in to get new eyes on, whether it’s new exhibits or old exhibits, right?” Mehta said. “But also just to know that we’re here and we serve them, that we want to be a place that they come and they visit, that they think of, or a place that they didn’t know about, that they are introduced to, that they get to see. I mean, we do have a lot of cultural treasures throughout Austin, but even in the surrounding suburbs as well, that are all part of the Austin Museum Partnership.”
Mehta said that the LBJ Library saw around 1,000 visitors for last year’s museum day. On a regular weekend, attendance can fluctuate, but Mehta said there are a couple of hundred visitors to the LBJ Library on a good weekend.
Awareness is another reason that Museum Day is put on each year. The LBJ Library is one of several Austin-area museums that still haven’t recovered to pre-COVID attendance numbers, Mehta and Whited explained.
“Austin Museum Day is a real opportunity to, you know, get people out there, remind them that museums are here and they are here to serve the community, and hopefully, hopefully get those visitation numbers up,” Whited said. “Like Sheila said, museum day really is special, because, you know, we love our tourists, we love welcoming people to Austin, because it’s such a wonderful city, but it really is special when we can get the local community involved, because that’s what ostensibly we’re here for. And so, yeah, anything we can do to pump those numbers up and get people back in, back invested in these cultural institutions, is a real pleasure and honor for me to facilitate.”
Awareness can also help with museums’ funding and ability to stay open amid federal funding cuts. Though different institutions have different funding models, Whited said many area museums have felt the financial crunch in different ways.
Mehta said the LBJ Library has felt it too, but leaders there are hoping to utilize Museum Day to highlight the reasons for keeping institutions like it open, rather than revealing any struggles caused by funding losses.
“The LBJ Library, like every other institution, is always facing cuts. We are government-funded and also supported by the LBJ Foundation. And so we also have a different funding model, because it comes from many sources,” Mehta explained. “We are, you know, passionate about using our resources while making sure that we’re providing wonderful opportunities for our visitors in our exhibits and their experiences days like Austin Museum Day, and ultimately, I think I could probably speak for all of our institutions, as we’re hoping you don’t see the funding cut when you come and visit, but instead, you see the passion to keep going, keep our doors open, keep the fun flowing and the learning going and so ultimately, you know, we’re not going to let our budget stop us. We just have to get a little bit more creative. And days like Austin Museum Day are a time to shine.”
The LBJ Presidential Library & Museum will be open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for Museum Day on Sunday. There will be arts and crafts, story time and lotería for kids, and a morning on the Plaza with café, conchas, and music by Sofrito y Su Melao.
Whited and Mehta also highlighted the UT Campus Crawl that is part of Museum Day. It’s an event within an event, Whited said, encouraging people to visit the seven museums on the University of Texas’ campus.
Those who participate in the crawl will get a postcard and can collect stamps from the different museums. Those who get four different stamps will be entered for a chance to win free museum goodies.
The Austin Museum Partnership has a full list and a map of participating organizations on its website.
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