At an upcoming conference, Boston itself will be on exhibit
Clarification: Though sessions at this week’s American Association of Museums conference are open to the public, as described in an article in the April 9 Arts & Entertainment section, they are not free. Daily registration is $250; full conference registration is as much as $560. To register for the AAM meeting at the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, visit www.aam-us.org/am06/registration/rates.cfm.
When the scores of museum officials visiting Boston this month head to a party thrown for them at the Children's Museum, they won't be able to avoid walking past the construction gates. That's by design.
The museum's leaders, who are embarking on a $45 million expansion project, are making sure to put up the gates by April 24, three days before the start of the American Association of Museums' 100th anniversary conference. Lou Casagrande, the museum director, wants the outsiders to know that Boston is in the midst of a massive, and unprecedented, cultural building boom. He's already picked out one piece of his party wardrobe: a hard hat.
''Philadelphia's been eating our lunch, and this is our chance to serve up a great big dinner," says Casagrande, referring to that city's multimillion-dollar tourism campaign. ''Our message to our colleagues is, 'Watch us. We're being born and reinvented on a brand new waterfront.' "
The AAM meeting, at the John B. Hynes Convention Center from April 27 through May 1, is expected to draw as many as 7,000 people, which would make it the largest conference in the organization's history. And the timing couldn't be better, local museum directors say, with the city's institutions in the midst of raising money for more than $1 billion of cultural projects.
''Actually, it would be better if we were open, but I think it's fantastic that it's happening less than six months before the opening," says Paul Bessire, deputy director for external relations at the Institute of Contemporary Art, which will open its new home Sept. 17.
The ICA will conduct hard-hat tours at the waterfront site of its new building, which is not far from the Children's Museum. The Museum of Fine Arts, raising money for a massive expansion to open in 2010, is hosting a reception April 27 for museum directors and a birthday party for the AAM the next night, opening its galleries and featuring a performance by the Boston's Gay Men's Chorus.
Both days, the MFA's archivist, Maureen Melton, will lead tours that will dip into the museum's rich history and end up in the museum's new basement archives. Down there, Melton will be sure to show off a silver shovel used in November's groundbreaking.
''This very much stresses that the arts are on the move," says MFA director Malcolm Rogers, the general chair of the conference. ''The other thing I hope it shows is how powerful the arts are as an industry."
Although Boston would seem an attractive choice because of the arts boom, the city was, in fact, selected for a more practical reason. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the AAM found that hotels were cheaper than in the past.
As Rogers points out, the conference is about a lot more than promoting Boston's building projects. Sessions, which are open to the public, will include talks on organizing traveling exhibits, researching provenance, and recruiting the next generation of museum patrons.
The presenters, some of whom are coming from around the world, include officials from Historic New England, Mass MoCA, the MFA, the McMullen Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum.
''It's a wonderful time to tell everyone what we're doing, but I don't think we need to shove it down their throats," says Rogers. ''This is a professional conference about the many issues that affect our profession."
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com. 
