A historical society or local museum in every town, village, and city is par for the course in New England. Couple that with being managed entirely by volunteers or minimal staff and it's easy to arrive at the conclusion that these places don't have the resources to keep up with the times... or the larger museums in the neighborhood. What’s the little guy to do?

As a staff member of a small historical society in Massachusetts for the past seven years, I've been part of a team taking on the challenges of keeping up with our larger sister institutions. Our particular team includes just three full time staff positions and two part-time Saturday staff and as you might expect, we're constantly trying to do more with less. Along the way, we've taught ourselves some new tricks, brought most exhibition and publication projects in-house, and gained a reputation for being innovative. When it comes to technology, here are some of the tricks we've been keeping up our sleeve.

TechSoup is a resource that we turn to regularly to help us work more efficiently while keeping costs to a minimum. TechSoup is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and it provides other nonprofits, including museums, with donated and discounted technology products and services from some of the largest companies in the tech world. Signing up is free and after submitting a few basic documents for verification, a wide array of software, hardware, and tutorials is at your fingertips.

An admin fee is charged for most products, but it is a fraction of the advertised retail price. For example, a single user license for Microsoft Office Professional 2013 currently sells for $399. You can purchase the identical software through TechSoup for just $32 – less than 10% of the listed price. Adobe, Dell, Blackbaud, GrantStation, and Symantec are just a few of the partners offering donated products through TechSoup.

Speaking of large tech companies, have you googled Google lately? Once known only for its hearty internet search engine, this massive company now offers free tools that can lighten the workload for many small institutions. Google for nonprofits is the first place to visit when looking for web-based solutions. A full suite of its powerful applications, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and YouTube, is available for institutional use and can be branded with your museum's logos. It's important to note Google emphasizes ease of use in all its applications and that policy makes their products particularly attractive.

Google Ad Grants is another noteworthy tool in the Google arsenal. In this case, it provides access to the powerful AdWords program for eligible nonprofits. AdWords are the text-based ads that appear on the side of a Google search results page and as a grantee you can create your own ads and select keywords that are relevant to your museum. With a virtual daily spending limit of $329, there's plenty of room for testing multiple campaigns or highlighting different events and programs.

The text-only ads available via AdWords will certainly get attention but they are admittedly lacking in style. We all want our communication efforts to be visually appealing, whether distributed through print or electronic methods. This can be a major hurdle if you don’t have a team of trained graphic designers on staff or within your volunteer corps. Open source software can often provide a solution. Some of the most robust programs can be found at SourceForge and I'm partial to several of the GNU-based software packages. If you're a Windows or Mac OS user, you can skip technical jargon about GNU and Linux systems. Instead, look for software that runs on the operating system that you use. The following programs are free and are highly recommended:

• GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program): Create and edit photographs and graphics with this alternative to Photoshop
• Inkscape: Create and edit vector images (something GIMP can't do) with this alternative to Illustrator
• Scribus: Create page layouts from print-ready advertising to full-length exhibition catalogs with this alternative to Publisher and InDesign
• Apache OpenOffice: Create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with this alternative to Microsoft Office that can handle just about any standard file type

Of course software, free or otherwise, is only as good as the person who is tasked with using it. So what is a museum staffer to do when training isn't included?  The best advice is to dive right in and remember that Google is your friend in this case as well. Unlike the proprietary software that does its best to control tutorial information, programs like GIMP were created by and for users who expect to share information. If you are editing a photograph and want to fade the edges, adjust the brightness, or blur the background, you can be sure that someone else has created a step-by-step guide for each edit and posted it online for all to use. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that it is really difficult to break most software programs. Those menu buttons are there for a reason – try a new technique or tool and simply press 'undo' if you're not happy with the results. No one will ever be the wiser!

Last, but definitely not least, is that proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room, the one concerned with having a vibrant social media presence. The good news is that there are plenty of free tools to help you keep in touch with your members, followers, and supporters online. The bad news is that keeping up a steady stream of conversation with anyone, virtual or not, takes time.

Play to the strengths of staff and volunteers, and you'll find your messages making a greater impact. If your museum website is already filled with beautiful object or collection photos, consider using Pinterest to share them with a wider audience and to connect related images. When your website is bare and you need to add image galleries, Flickr and Picasa are great user-friendly options. WordPress is useful for blogs and as a primary website and can easily be updated by any number of users. Facebook and Twitter both provide the potential of an unlimited audience, but that audience will quickly grow bored if they don't hear from you often enough.

These aren't the only tricks we use and, like most other museums, we don't get it right every time. Some Facebook posts bomb, I don't update the website as often as I should, and sometimes an exhibition banner design ends up a bit lop-sided. But there's always another exhibit, the next Facebook post might get shared many times, and if I'm lucky, I'll find a few extra minutes to add our upcoming events to the website!