ITHF REACCREDITED BY THE AMERICAN ALLIANCE OF MUSEUMS
The International Tennis Hall of Fame has been announced as one of 47 museums in the United States to earn reaccreditation awards from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) in 2022. Accreditation from the AAM is the highest national recognition afforded the nation’s museums and of approximately 33,000 museums in the United States, less than 1,100 are currently accredited. After receiving accreditation in 2013, the ITHF became the first sports Hall of Fame to earn the recognition. The AAM’s museum accreditation program has been developed and sustained by museum professionals for 50 years and is the field’s primary vehicle for quality assurance, self-regulation and public accountability.
In order to maintain accredited status all museums must undergo a reaccreditation review every 10 years. The process involves a rigorous self-assessment and site visit by AAM representatives which took place earlier this year.
The ITHF’s reaccreditation decision was made in October during the meeting of the Accreditation Commission.
“It is an honor to achieve reaccreditation from the American Alliance of Museums. Reaccreditation represents an exciting and significant accomplishment for the International Tennis Hall of Fame,” said Todd Martin, CEO of the ITHF. “I thank the ITHF’s museum professionals, volunteer Museum Committee members, and Executive Board for their dedication and expertise throughout the reaccreditation process.
Our team has worked diligently in recent years to improve our guest experience, expand our digital offerings, and better serve the public good. We look forward to continuing to innovate our preservation and storytelling efforts in the decade to come.”
Over the past 10 years the ITHF has made strides in numerous facets of the organization, including a a $3 million renovation in 2015, delivering an all-new interactive experience for tennis fans, and the curation and development of 11 digital exhibits on tennisfame.com, three of which have been awarded the ISHY (International Sports Heritage Association) Award for New Exhibit, including Tins, Cans & Cartons, Smash Hit: The Evolution of the Tennis Racquet, and Breaking the Barriers: The ATA and Black Tennis Pioneers. Since 2018, the ITHF has also been serving its' local, Newport, community by providing free tennis and educational programming for under-resourced youth through TeamFAME, a National Junior Tennis & Learning Chapter.
“Accredited museums are a community of institutions that have chosen to hold themselves publicly accountable to excellence,” said Laura L. Lott, Alliance President and CEO. “Accreditation is clearly a significant achievement, of which both the institutions and the communities they serve can be extremely proud.”
During the reaccreditation process the ITHF was commended for fulfilling its educational mission to share tennis history and culture, while also celebrating the sport’s present-day moments. The museum is at the forefront of sport preservation and storytelling; not only does it feature over 2,000 items on display from a collection of over 25,000 tennis-related artifacts, images, and publications but also houses the Information Research Center, containing a comprehensive tennis library with more than one hundred years of historic documents, publications, photographs, and audio-visual materials that are available to academic and media professionals.
