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Paul W. Bennett: Will Nova Scotia museums crisis be the mother of innovation?

Closing local heritage museums looks like a low-risk political calculation for the Tim Houston government.

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Local museums and public libraries have long occupied a low rung on the provincial pecking order, surviving repeated rounds of austerity by making do with less. The latest cuts, however, are deeply troubling — not only to me but to many community leaders, historians, authors and citizens pursuing their ancestry.

Nova Scotia authors and former public library board members like me know first-hand how much citizens value these diminishing “third spaces” outside home and work.

While serving as chair of Halifax Regional Libraries (2014-17), I met with senior staff and board members across the province. Leading governance workshops for the Library Boards Association of Nova Scotia in 2015-16 underscored how underfunding was already eroding services a decade ago.

Shutting down museums inflicts lasting damage that often goes unnoticed until those services are gone. As the author of three local histories — Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities (2011), The Last Stand (2013) and Turning Points in Nova Scotia’s History (2019) — I relied on materials........

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