The Pioneer Valley History Network is a new organization that helps link these historical museums and sites. They have a listserv … and soon will have a website. It can be a great source of information for anyone seeking to explore historical resources in the area.

They have a Yahoo Group, and we’ll post info about their new website when it launches.

We’ve also added a new list of links to our sidebar, “Local Historical Museums.” These little museums are fascinating places. Many are admission-free, but please consider a donation when visiting to help support them.

One of our favorites is the Skinner Museum in South Hadley, which was a pet hobby of its founder, Joseph Allen Skinner (who bequeathed it to Mount Holyoke College). Not only is it full chock-a-block with local artifacts and curiosities from all over the world, the building itself has an interesting history: it was moved from one of the towns that is now submerged beneath the Quabbin Reservoir.

Local trivia: Joseph Skinner was part of the Skinner family who made their enormous wealth via the Skinner Mills in Holyoke in the early part of the 20th-century. Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke was the family home of Belle Skinner, Joseph’s sister.

We’ve just read a nice post about one these small museums by local blogger Tommy Devine — about the Calvin Coolidge Museum in Northampton. The museum is located on the second floor of the Forbes library. Devine gives a good brief review including photos. (FYI: Calvin Coolidge was mayor of Northampton, MA from 1910 to 1911).

A quick list of local historical museums we could find online includes:

• Skinner Museum, South Hadley
• Historic Northampton
• Historic Deerfield
• Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, Springfield
• Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst
• Amherst History Museum
• Porter-Phelps-Huntington House, Hadley
• Hadley Farm Museum
• Kingman Tavern Museum, Cummington
• The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, Cummington
• The Stone House Museum, Belchertown
• Wistariahurst Museum, Holyoke

Wow. Quite a list. We’re sure there are more of these great little places that we’re unaware of.

They’ve really embraced online technology: a nicely-designed website, a blog, live webcams, podcasts, and now a YouTube page. We wonder what’s next: MySpace, or Facebook?

If you haven’t been to MassMOCA, we highly recommend a visit. The museum is in an enormous 19th-century mill complex, and has some stunningly large exhibition spaces. So large, they can show work that simply can’t fit anywhere else. The current exhibition in the largest gallery is Jenny Holzer’s Projections.