Small museums do incredible work, often with limited staff, limited budgets, and very limited time. At Help for Small Museums, we know that developing a new program, creating educational materials, or starting a new initiative can take hours of planning and preparation.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce the new HFSM Resource Shop, a growing collection of practical, ready-to-use resources created specifically for small museums, historic sites, historical societies, and museum educators.

The goal is simple: give small museums useful resources they can actually put to work.

Created from Real Museum Experience

HFSM resources aren’t created from theory alone. They’re based on years of firsthand experience developing programs, exhibits, youth initiatives, educational materials, and visitor experiences in small museums.

We understand what it’s like to have a great idea but not enough staff time to develop everything from scratch. We also understand that small museums need resources that are affordable, adaptable, and realistic for organizations without large education departments or extensive budgets.

The HFSM Resource Shop was created with those museums in mind.

What’s in the Shop?

The first HFSM Resource Shop collection includes six digital resources, with much more launching in October and beyond!

Junior Historians Club

Our Junior Historians Club is a ready-to-use educational program designed for children ages 6–9.

Four themed collections are currently available:

• Wonders of the World introduces young historians to remarkable places, monuments, and achievements from around the world.
• Time Traveler takes children on a journey through different periods of history.
• Digging Up the Past explores archaeology, artifacts, discoveries, and the ways we learn about people who lived before us.
• Behind the Scenes introduces children to the work that happens inside museums, from collections and exhibits to preservation and interpretation.

Each collection contains 7–10 printable workbooks, along with activity and craft ideas, book recommendations, supply lists, certificates, and additional resources. Museums can use the materials to create an entire Junior Historians Club or incorporate individual activities into existing programs.

Escape Rooms for Small Museums

Escape Rooms for Small Museums: A Practical Guide & Toolkit helps museums turn their own history, collections, exhibits, buildings, and stories into interactive escape room experiences.

Instead of providing one escape room to reproduce, the resource gives museums a reusable framework for creating their own. It includes adaptable puzzle ideas, room-design templates, budget-friendly strategies, and guidance for taking an escape room from the initial storyline through setup, testing, and the finished program.

It’s designed specifically for museums that want to create memorable interactive experiences without expensive technology or professional escape room equipment.

Youth Advisory Councils for Small Museums

Youth Advisory Councils for Small Museums: From First Steps to Lasting Success provides a framework for establishing, growing, and sustaining a museum Youth Advisory Council.

This resource comes directly from firsthand experience. I started a Youth Advisory Council at a small museum with one young person attending our very first meeting. Over the following seven years, the program grew to include more than 500 youth participants, without paid advertising and while operating within a small museum with no full-time staff and limited resources.

Much of that growth came through word of mouth, community relationships, youth-to-youth recruitment, and creating a program young people genuinely wanted to be part of.

The guide brings those lessons together to help other museums build meaningful youth programs of their own.

Resources You Can Use Again and Again

One of the most important goals of the HFSM Resource Shop is to create resources that aren’t useful just once.

These are digital resources designed to be adapted and reused within your organization. A museum can run another Junior Historians Club next year, develop a new escape room around a different historical story, or continue growing its Youth Advisory Council year after year.

As the shop grows, we’ll continue adding resources for museum programs, exhibits, youth engagement, operations, collections, planning, and other areas of small museum work.

Pre-Launch Sale: Save 20%

The HFSM Resource Shop officially launches October 1, 2026, but the shop is open now for pre-orders.

During our pre-launch sale, all resources are 20% off.

Pre-order your resources now to receive the discounted price, and your digital downloads will be available beginning October 1.

Helping Small Museums Do Big Things

Small museums shouldn’t need large staffs or large budgets to create excellent programs and experiences.

The HFSM Resource Shop is another way we’re working to make practical museum tools, ideas, and resources more accessible to the organizations that need them.

We’re excited to share these first six resources with you, and this is only the beginning.