Museos Unite

The Arts & Labor Working Group

2011-11-07T08:59:00.002-05:00

Hi all -

I've been meaning to revive this blog, albeit briefly, to tell you a bit about some of the exciting (I think) new developments unfolding with the Arts & Labor working group, which I thought might pique your interest. The group emerged out of conversations between members of the Arts and Culture working group, as well as an extended group of artists, critics, curators, receptionists, interns, art-handlers, and other art workers. (More on this in a bit; the group clearly needs some arts and culture related diversity!) This message is intended to serve as an introduction and an invitation. Please feel free to pass this on to those you know who may be interested is this discussion.

Disclaimer: While we are affiliated with Occupy Wall Street many of our ideas and plans are long range and will not be bound by the time-frame of the physical occupation of Zuccotti Park.

MISSION STATEMENT:
Arts & Labor is a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for #occupywallstreet. We are dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions within the arts and culture industries through direct action and educational initiatives. By forging coalitions, fighting for fair labor practices, and re-imagining the structures we work within, Arts & Labor aims to build solidarity among art workers and achieve parity for every member of the 99%.

LINKS:
Here is a link to a text from six months ago written by a member of
the working group:

http://dismagazine.com/discussion/16545/open-letter-to-labor-servicing-the-culture-industry/

Here are the minutes from our last meeting:

http://www.nycga.net/groups/arts-and-culture/docs/arts-and-labor-meeting-notes-11-1-11

Here is a link for the Google group started by members of Arts and
Labor:

http://groups.google.com/group/ows-arts-and-labor?hl=en

Our meetings are on Tuesdays at 7:30 at the 60 Wall Street atrium.

Our aim is to address both immediate labor concerns as well as larger issues pertaining to culture and the economy. Please don't hesitate to come to our meeting tomorrow if you'd be interested in sharing some of your experiences and helping us brainstorm ways to approach the issues raised in our statement. I'd love to see some of your there. In particular, I'd love to see some of you who are arts affiliated but who are NOT visual studio artists. Arts & Labor is a self-selecting group, meaning it has thus far attracted a very high proportion of studio artists, one or two admins, a writer, and a revolving cast of filmmakers. The arts is so much more than the visual arts, and I think it would be fruitful for the discussion to include a greater diversity of voices. If you are a performer, a writer, a tech person, an intern, an admin, a curator, a filmmaker, a television maker, a designer, a musician, a dancer, or yes, even a visual artist, I encourage you to come to our meeting tomorrow night at 60 Wall Street and/or participate in the online dialogue. Get ready for some invigorating discourse.

Solidarity!
- Kirsten

“Save the Arts” Campaign

2010-09-22T11:34:00.001-04:00

In the UK, a new campaign has kicked off to save arts funding. The proposed cuts of 25% of arts funding have already affected some of the national museums (you may have heard about the micropalaeontology department at the NHM,) national organizations (the MLA is closing) and will be sure to affect many more organizations.

This video that Save the Arts has released is both adorable and poignant.

We at Museos Unite encourage you to watch the video, sign the petition, and to spread the word about this important campaign using all social media outlets.

Month at the Museum to have 5 Finalists?

2010-09-21T15:56:00.002-04:00

After Nina Simon tweeted today asking MSI when the announcement would come, I found that I, too was curious. As all good armchair detectives know, the best thing to do is to Google “Month at the Museum” and select “the latest”.

This page came up in the results:

So there are to be five finalists, not three as previously reported. (Granted, this page seems to be a place holder and could have been put up to throw people off the trail. This is ALLLLLLL speculation!)

Still no word on who the lucky few will be…Stay tuned!

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UPDATE (9:30 PM): They have since taken the page down. I guess someone figured out that it wasn't supposed to be live yet!

This is just for fun!

2010-09-07T16:17:00.003-04:00

Small update on a more personal level. As stated before, I entered the Month at the Museum contest for MSI. Unfortunately, I did not progress to the semi-finals. Only ~15 out of ~1500 people were lucky enough to get through. But I wanted to share my video anyway, because I think it was lots of fun to make, and I hope that everyone can get some enjoyment out of it.

Does anyone know of anyone who went through to the semi-finals? What do you think that MSI was looking for in a candidate?

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PS – since we at Museos Unite are very interested in the out-of-the-box, creative nature of this museum project, it will be featured here throughout its run as part of our next series about New, Unique Museum Projects.

Skills Every Museo Should Have (or Learn)

2010-08-17T13:47:00.008-04:00

Let’s face it. Although you learn so much over the course of a museum studies master’s degree, there is still so much to learn. I am trying to compile a list of things that I learned outside of school that I think are necessary skills in today’s museum industry.

1-Social Media:
If you are reading this blog, chances are that you found us though social media networks such as twitter, or perhaps another blog that you frequent. That is awesome! Maybe you tweet for yourself/a museum/a museum consulting company/a historical society. Maybe you run your own blog. Whether you blog & tweet or just read them & follow them, you should be able to navigate social networks. Period. There is no excuse today not to have some knowledge of social networks. Museums need to keep up with technology, and therefore Museos do, too. (Here’s a guide to Twitter Basics in case you need it.)

2-Grant Writing:
Kirsten and I studied in England, which meant that our program taught us bids to city council, instead of the US equivalent of grant writing. Although there are many similarities, they are actually very specific processes. Therefore, to get my ducks in a row, I found a grant writing class at a local university and audited it. This option was very cost effective (as I didn’t need the credits) and I was able to learn everything I needed to know. Kirsten, on the other hand, learned grant writing on the job. She successfully researched and wrote several successful grants for her museum. Since you may end up being one of only a few employees at a small museum, you have to be able to do practically everything, and that involves fundraising. So...

3-Varied Computer Software:
I know there is a long list of computer software that Museos should know (please please please add any I forget into the comments!) but I would start with

Adobe software such as Photoshop and Illustrator. That way, you can make and print media that looks professional at your museum.
I also suggest basic web design (some HTML and CSS) so that you can stay involved in how your museum is portrayed online. I personally learned Dreamweaver using the free online tutorial on Adobe's website. There are so many free resources on the web to learn basic web design, and a quick look at google will help you find them. Remember: your museum may have a web team, and it may not. Better to be prepared.
Office suite, obviously.
A basic movie editing program (Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, iDVD) to make videos or slide shows of exhibits to show members or donors
I would add museum cataloging programs (PastPerfect) and fundraising software (Raiser’s Edge) but I am sure that these are going to be specific to the institution. If anyone has any experience with learning these before you got a job, and if that helped, we’d appreciate the feedback!

4-People Management Skills:
It may be hard to gain this experience while not on the job. You will probably have to create a project in order to find people to manage. Not like we need to do any more unpaid work, Museos, but if you create a fun project, you can find yourself managing a group on your off hours. Personally, I organize and coordinate a social group that does happy hours, and I know friends who have started other social groups that exist to help raise money for nonprofits. Many museums have young members’ groups, and you could join these and take leadership positions in planning fun events. Whichever route you take, having management skills will always help you on a resume (and on the job).

As we all know, since the word “museum” can mean anything from a small historic house to a huge international tourist destination with millions of visitors a year, a Museo’s job can be incredibly varied. Although museums are really about the interaction between visitors and objects, we cannot ignore the way technology is creeping into everything that we do. Being able to interact with people in person and online is always helpful, and knowing how to get funding to keep your museum ticking will be priceless.

So Museos, what extra skills have you developed that helped you land a job or to improve your current work? Have there been any skills you wished you had learned prior to gaining a position? How did you develop these skills?

As always, we welcome any and all comments below.

Awesomely Unique Idea: MSI’s Month at the Museum

2010-08-12T11:49:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the closing day for submissions to the Month at the Museum contest for Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The Museos Unite team found out about the contest right when it was announced on July 15th via the magic of Twitter (great example of well utilized social media)!

A bit of background on the contest, in case you are not familiar. Entrants were to submit a 60-second video, a 500-word essay, a headshot, and an entrance packet to the museum. The prize is to live at the museum for 30 days with minimal contact with the outside world, exploring the museum and interacting with guests throughout.

As far as we know, no museum in the world has hosted a program like this one, although a few days ago we wrote about how people used to live at the National Museum of Natural History. I am sure Museos used to live at museums all the time in the old days. As it is the FIRST EXPERIMENT OF ITS KIND (!!!) we have to applaud MSI heartily. Hooray for thinking outside the box! Hooray for inviting a stranger to view the inner workings of the museum! Hooray for capturing the imaginations of people throughout the world!

Yesterday the museum announced via its Facebook and Twitter pages that there have been over 1,000 applications thus far. What a great response! When was the last time that a museum got that kind of attention for something that wasn’t a sponsored blockbuster exhibit? (Really, if you know, please put it in the comments! We’d love to be able to draw some comparisons).

Oh, and in case you were wondering, this Museo (Kat) totally applied! I figured it would be a great opportunity to see firsthand just how groundbreaking projects can change the industry. It also would give me an opportunity to use all of this great museum knowledge I have racked up over the years, right?

We cannot wait to see what changes that Month at the Museum inspires across the museum industry. Will there be spinoff projects at other institutions? Will it create a Museo-lebrity that kids will be lining up to get autographs from? Will it make even more people rush to get Museum Studies degrees? Stay tuned to find out…

So, some questions for our readers: Did any of you put in applications? What possible changes do you think could come from this project? What do you think of the attention MSI has garnered for Month at the Museum? Any other comments?

Happy Birthday, Museos Unite!

2010-08-11T11:05:00.001-04:00

It’s been a good year.

On August 11th of last year, Museos Unite set out to raise awareness, start discussions, and generally give voice to the concerns that people aren’t willing to talk about in museums.

We hope we were able to do some of those things. Let’s review some of our biggest topics of discussion:

(1) Salaries – We completed the 2010 Salary Survey and published reports on the results. With a sample of 99 fulltime museum employees, we were able to draw some conclusions, and we learned a lot about what to ask next time. We hope to make another salary survey in 2011, taking into account what we have learned.

(2) Solutions Series – We started throwing out some off-the-wall, out-of-the-box ideas about how to get more money for entry level museum salaries, or how to raise money in general. We had the very controversial “Robin Hood Rule” and the greatly debated “offsite museum bar,” as well as contributions from a reader and from the well-known museum blogger newcurator. We are always looking for more suggestions, and hope to hear from more readers.

(3) Unions, benefits, compensation, tipping, employee development, and dedication to work – We discussed these topics and more throughout the posts and in the comments. The debate continues…

Overall, thank you to our readers for making it a great year. Don’t give up! We can still affect great change and help Museos all over the world if we put our heads together. Let’s keep throwing ideas around and see where it leads us…

If everyone thinks outside the box all the time, then the box ceases to exist…

Oh, the benefits of museum work…

2010-08-10T11:44:00.001-04:00

Museos Unite reader Ann sent me this link today about museum directors in NYC living tax-free in museum-owned apartments--really, really nice apartments. (They are either at or near the museum, and are used for entertaining as well as housing the director, which is why the whole thing works.) People (not the government) seem to think that directors living in $5 million apartments is tad on the excessive side.

What do you think?

In the past, more employees than just the directors used to live at the museum. Check out this story from the Museum of Natural History’s blog.

Pretty cool that employees used to have the option to live at the museum if they were strapped for cash. Shame that the practice does not continue.

Or does it? More on that tomorrow…

“Your Director makes WHAT?” asks New Jersey

2010-08-02T10:54:00.001-04:00

Recently, the New York Times published this article (“Lawmakers Seeking Cuts Look at Nonprofit Salaries“, July 26, 2010), referencing the desire of new Jersey lawmakers to curb the amount that nonprofit leaders can make. Essentially, they are saying “hey, executive director, if you are making THAT much money, then your organization must be rich and therefore the state really isn’t going to give you money. You just give it to the boss, not those starving children! So there!”

As you know, Museos, we here at the blog have previously written about our own chagrin with the great divide between museum top-earners and entry-level salaries. I loved seeing this quote in the article: “Compensation also varies by type of nonprofit. Museum directors and hospital chiefs generally are better paid than leaders of other nonprofits.” (emphasis added)

I actually don’t know what to say about the accuracy of that statement (I have no idea what the author’s references were), but seeing museum directors and hospital chiefs in the same boat surprises me. Also, I would be afraid that the average reader would take away from this sentence that museum pay is gratuitously high. As everyone in the field knows, that is not the case for most Museos.

The article references a website called Charity Navigator that requires more investigation on our part (look forward to that post!). I did really enjoy their president’s quote:

“Many donors feel that paying the leader of a charity a six-figure salary is outrageous,” said Ken Berger, the group’s president.

Mr. Berger disagrees with the argument, popular among many nonprofits, that to attract top talent to manage complex organizations, they must compete with for-profit businesses.

“I’m not advocating poverty wages,” he said. “But arguing that those working for the benefit of the neediest people in our society should make millions and multimillions like corporate leaders defies common sense.”

Very interesting that Mr. Berger cites the very argument that came up in the comments section of our post. This division between earning enough and not enough--between self-sacrificing dedication and greed--lies at the heart of any nonprofit. And in museums, the amount of passion and dedication that flows behind the scenes makes the situation even more personal and complicated.

The stakes are high. But I think the answer is to remember not just how much you love museums, but that you as a Museo are worth a lot to the museum field. You are “that man behind the curtain”, and sometimes in front of the curtain, too. The shift toward layoffs and replacement with volunteers that seems to be looming in the UK is not one that can be ignored.

Around the globe, museums are on a precipice. We need to move forward. We need to innovate. We need to pull together, darn it.

And so I return to where we left off in April – the Solutions Series. Where are those ideas, Museos? Where can we go from here, that will both further the museum industry as well as protecting museum workers from low pay or no pay?

Who has a plan? Please comment below or send us an email at museosunite @ gmail (dot) com.

The Cuts Continue

2010-07-26T12:23:00.004-04:00

Just a brief update on the trajectory UK museums seem to be on: Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt has announced a 2012 end to the Museums Libraries & Archives Council (MLA). I have always found the MLA's treatment of salaries (one of the many areas in which it has proposed proper museum standards) to be infinitely preferable to its US counterpart, the American Association of Museums (AAM). They may not have always been a voice of reason (though they mostly were/are), but they have always been a voice.

Edit: Newcurator.com wants to know what you'll miss about the MLA.

NO, Prime Minister

2010-07-22T11:09:00.002-04:00

NHM employee and London resident Jenna H-B sent us a link this morning about some major changes brewing thanks to P.M. Cameron's new policies. His "Big Society" initiative includes modifications... such as compensating for the 30% cut in museum funding with a push for more volunteers "to keep museums open." The pilot program will run out of the National Museum Liverpool and is already generating some (justified) criticism.

Chris from Prerogative of Harlots writes:

And this is what makes me especially angry. Volunteer programs are something that we in museums should be proud of. Now, because of their successes in this area, museums like NML are being targeted by this deeply cynical government program, that seeks to paper over the yawning cracks caused by spending cuts by dumping its responsibilities onto unpaid staff. And with minimal paid staff to supervise, you can forget any broader goals of education and training.

Chris also noted that a volunteer program is supposed to be a give and take. Museums are meant to offer their volunteers something--training, a sense of community--and not merely expect to take. Volunteers are a resource, just like paid employees. He provides a better summary:

Successful volunteer programs are a partnership, between professional museum staff and the wider community. We don't dump our workload on the volunteers; we like to think that we give them something of ourselves in return, transferring skills and knowledge that we've acquired through formal education and training. Nonetheless, it's not uncommon to encounter colleagues who look upon volunteer programs with deep suspicion. Unions, in particular, are not great fans of volunteers, claiming that they provide a way for employers to get work done without paying for it. Previously I'd always dismissed this as a knee-jerk reaction. But now, looking at Liverpool and wondering about other museums who may be offered the opportunity to participate in the "Big Society," I wonder if maybe I was wrong.

(I don't usually advocate reading internet comment sections--UNLESS YOU LIKE CAPS LOCK!!!!!!--but there are several literate and well-formulated responses below this article from The Independent. The article itself is also quite good.)

This is, of course, already happening in US, though perhaps less blatantly. We've never had a great deal of government support for museums, so museums have been struggling with reduced budgets since the current recession took hold. There haven't been any government initiatives to replace paid museum employees with volunteers, but many museums have taken these steps on their own. Anyone who follows a museum job board will have noticed the trends: more full-time positions became part-time or contract positions, and many museums began recruiting heavily for volunteers and interns.

What else are they supposed to do? In order to get money from funders you have to provide programming. To provide programming you have to have a staff. Most funders won't support salaries (though they will usually pay for employee time, but only as it relates to a project... hence the increase in part-time contract work) so this staff necessarily must be part-time, temporary, or volunteer. It's awful, but it's about keeping doors open. Because museum work is perceived to be "fun" rather than "work," people are expected to do it for free or nearly nothing. Fortunately in the U.S. this attitude--while ingrained--is not yet institutionalized. Something ere the end, some work of noble note may yet be done... but not if attitudes about museum salaries don't change dramatically.

Museos Unite on film!

2010-07-14T10:15:00.004-04:00

This awesome video made by Dierdre McKee features ME (Kat) talking about Museos Unite and our salary survey.

Great work, Deirdre, on a great video.

Feel free to comment on the video, and any ideas expressed within, at the comments.

Equal Pay Day

2010-04-20T10:38:00.003-04:00

In the USA, April 20th is Equal Pay Day. The museum world is dominated by women, so this topic is a relevant one for Museos Unite. Why not take a moment to check out the resources from the National Committee on Equal Pay, or one of M.U.'s previous posts on the topic: Salary Survey Post #3 - The Role of Gender and Salary Survey #4 - Experience and Gender. AAM's Center for the Future of Museums has also discussed this phenomenon in their August 2009 post Where the Boys Aren't. [1]

[1] Note that the opinions of the AAM & the CFM are not those of Museos Unite. In fact, both the CFM and MU have posts written by multiple authors, so the opinions of the CFM are probably not always the opinions of all members of the CFM, just as the opinions expressed in MU are not always shared by Kat and myself.

Solutions Series 4: The Resilient Museum (Guest Post by Pete from Newcurator.com)

2010-04-13T13:33:00.002-04:00

The preface of this article is available over at newcurator.com. [Ed: Definitely read that first. - Kirsten]

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The first stage would be a new position; one that aggressively pursues the autonomy of the [museum] community. In John Robb's words, this is to “protect from predatory and parasitical non-state actors” such as pan-global corporations and local militia. Whilst it may be true that banks have directly/indirectly threatened the financial stability of museums, it isn’t like there are armed gangs trying to co-opt museum service.

In the spirit of the argument, I would say large membership organisations and certain grant-making trusts are the closest comparison. I put into this category the AAM, the Museums Association, the Arts Council and any number of other redundant organisations where being included in/excluded from the club is more important than adaptability. They are either too unwieldy or unable to protect museums and their workers. The Resilient Museum community will look to replace these and provide the services themselves.

The same goes for political autonomy. A Resilient Museum cannot perform under them whims of a politician's promises. I wonder how many museum directors are scared to act for fear of alarming or alerting their politicos of how museums function in case they get pillaged.

How a museum can fully pry itself away is one of those complicated questions with a very complex answer:

Imagine a possible Resilient Museum Community for a moment. It would ideally consist of a low number of small to medium sized museums in order to be flexible and quick to act. For the greatest practical benefit they would be located relatively close together. An interesting debate could be had about whether or not these museums would need to have similar collection policies or if they could have diverse missions.

By staying mobile and intelligent, the Community would aim to become self sufficient. It can only achieve this if workers are central to the cause. This is a tribe. The tribe will work for the good of the Tribe. Everything within the Community is shared. All goods and intellectual property going out of the Community are sold. This includes good ideas, best practice and winning formulas.

The Community's legal structure would need to be rethought and a new relationship with the public would need to be negotiated. “Holding in the public trust” seems so ironic when a museum is sinking. That whole tenet would need a rethink as a Resilient Museum Community wouldn't need to be such martyrs to the cause. “Nonprofit” doesn't have to mean cap-in-hand piety. I'm not an expert and the research is confusing, but I wonder about the possibilities of museums run as worker cooperatives in order to motivate and empower the staff.

Next, a Resilient Museum Community would include shared collections and shared resources. Each museum could retains its own management and staff but otherwise make every effort to collaborate. The idea isn't to create a supermuseum; such mergers lead to staff layoffs. It would mean a deep-rooted partnership. Each museum in an example community of ten museums has nine other venues for a travelling exhibition. There are possibilities for ten permanent exhibitions from across all types of collections. This would keep the museums fresh and interesting with a high turnover of content. Bureaucratic barriers would also be reduced. Technological upgrades could be bought for the whole Community, hopefully at a lower bulk cost. The Community could make one amazing website and copy it to the others, make one amazing mobile app and brand it for each, put each collection into the same powerful API, make decent use of social networks for all… There are many possibilities. Volunteers could be organised and shared to an incredible degree of effectiveness. The Community would do everything itself or take steps to create its own production.

I can almost hand the next step over to Nick Poole's Second Proposal: Cut back the collections to sensible levels. I'm not talking about auctioning off the family silver, gold and Rembrandts. I'm talking about being able to make a serious decision about the fifteen replicas of the same bit of cheap trash. Not everything can be saved. Not everything needs to be saved. There's plenty of other stuff and new stuff being made all the time. Remove those object that really do not fit your collection policy. Auction them, sell them to other museums if needs be; make some money that goes right back into the museum. A Resilient Museum Community would allow for quick, efficient collection management. Resilience means having to reduce the costs of the heating/cooling/lighting of storage. Maybe a mass sell-off of storage buildings and the building of one single site. All the ethics and decision making committees can be run in-house. Each Community can have its own ethical guidelines and procedures. The consequences are the Community’s own.

With the structure in place, a highly efficient collection, a highly motivated staff and a defined physical area, there could be any number of profitable outcomes to be explored.

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Pete writes at newcurator.com.You can follow him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

The Solutions Series: Targeted Fundraising - a Guest Idea From Melanie Fraticelli

2010-04-07T10:10:00.008-04:00

Sometimes the simplest, most direct solutions can be the best. Why not just ask for the money?

Museums hold fundraisers for a lot of things: new buildings, improved outreach programs, acquisitions, etc. There are even annual appeals that raise funds for general operating costs, which could theoretically be used to support and improve staff salaries if museums were so inclined. Still, people like to know where their money is going. Why not have a fundraiser specifically for improving staff salaries? For giving full-time benefits to hourly workers that work 40 hours per week?

Melanie's idea is to host either an event (for larger organizations) or an appeal (for smaller organizations) focused on the contributions of lower-level staff to museums. As museos we're acutely aware of the fact that museums couldn't run without us, but donors need to be reminded. It would be ideal if staff contributions could be quantified: per diem educators allow us to process X more school groups per year leading to an annual income of $Y; the people at the membership desk process Z memberships per year; the evaluators on the gallery floor have collected information that allowed us to improve processes as well as qualify for $X in grants. Melanie suggests that the employees themselves present a summary of what they do. Front line workers rarely get to meet donors and trustees, and vice versa, so this type of event could really open up a lot of eyes.

Fundraising only for lower level positions makes the assumption that museos in higher level (but non-Director) positions are making an adequate salary. We know from the salary survey (and common sense) that this isn't true. Still, improvements have to start somewhere. People often reject attempts at change because the changes aren't perfect; this is the equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face. A small step would change things for the better and demonstrate that improvement is possible. Besides, if the event set up an endowment for salaries (another of Melanie's suggestions) then all staff could potentially benefit.

Do you have an idea for improving museum salaries? Want to write a guest post? Email us!

What is the job of a public historian worth?

2010-03-30T09:43:00.001-04:00

Emily Hummel tipped us off to a recent discussion on H-Public about the worth of the job of a public historian. Continuing our nascent tradition of expanding on list-serv discussions, we’ve decided to pose the question to you here, with a twist: what is the job of a museo worth?

The replies to the original query focused on one of 2 things:

The average government/National Park Service salaries paid for a public historian. (This is hardly indicative of the field at large, which is why working for the Smithsonian is seen as a dream job for many museos.)
Various salary surveys that might be relevant to the job of a public historian. Someone linked to this survey of fees charged by Independent Museum Professionals in New England. It’s a useful (and free!) resource that I hadn’t encountered before.

These responses beg the question: is the average salary for your job really what your job is worth? In a purely economic sense, yes it is. [1] Your job is only worth what the market will bear. If you’re willing to work for $25,000/year then your job is worth $25,000/year; actually slightly more with payroll taxes and benefits taken into account.

But worth also has another definition that has nothing to do with dollars or pounds or Euros, although we can certainly try and put a number on it. When we romanticize our jobs and talk about the value museums provide in our communities and to society at large, this is the type of worth we’re talking about.

So the question is, does that worth have any correlation with monetary worth? Do we think that putting a price on what we do and the value we provide would sully our white-gloved hands? Are we frightened to place a number on that value because it would illustrate how dire the salary situation is, because we’re worth so much more than we’re getting? Is there a way to place a consistent value on the work we do and the services we provide? If the value provided isn’t strictly monetary, should it not be compensated? [2]

Again: what is the job of a museo worth? What are you worth?

[1] I know there are various strains of economic thought and all of them define value in slightly different ways. [1a] I took one microeconomics class in my freshman year of college and have been blissfully unaware of the names of these theories etc ever since. In fact, I’m pretty sure this would fall under macroeconomics not microeconomics, which means I’ve probably never heard about it at all. If you can supply a more precise definition for what I’m rambling about, you’re most welcome.

[1a] Note to self: learn about economics.

[2] Someone is going to comment—and I can almost predict who—to say that intangible values are compensated…intangibly. With the pride we feel in our work! And how much we love museums! Do me a favor, Unnamed Commenter. Spare me. This line of reasoning is BS. Come back and tell me this when you’ve figured out how to eat love, or pay the rent with love, or retire on love.

Solutions Series 2: The Offsite Museum Bar

2010-03-29T11:00:00.001-04:00

This idea began when I tried to attend one of the very cool Science on Tap events at National Mechanics in Philadelphia. Each month, the science museums in the city take turns hosting a lecture at this bar, which sort of looks like it was decorated by a mad steampunk scientist/collector on the inside. Anyway, back in January they hosted a lecture called “The Origin and Evolution of Beer” on one of the coldest nights of the winter. When my friend and I arrived at the bar, we could not even get in the doors because people were poured out onto the front stairs. That’s how popular the event was—people were turned away.

So I got to thinking… these events are free. What if they had charged for the lecture, even $3 per person? What if the bar gave the museums a percentage of the bar take for the night (they might already do this, I have no idea actually)? I know other topics have perhaps not been as popular, but even if they still had 30 people show up, it would be a money maker.

From there I thought – what if museums owned offsite bars? I say offsite because I have been to events at museums where people are drinking. I have seen a woman so drunk she actually reached out and TOUCHED A PICASSO. Seriously. Not good, my friends. Also, the overhead costs of keeping a museum open (electricity, security, heating, whatever) are astronomical. Not to mention the insurance risk!

Non profit organizations (like museums) can own for-profit businesses. This bar would just be another source of revenue in the museum’s portfolio. Many museums have offsite shops in retail centers either year-round or at the holidays. These shops raise brand awareness and also bring in some cash.

Nina Simon wrote about why museums should have bars back in 2007. Her take on them is that they both build audience awareness, and that they are excellent sites for high participation and fun. I am unsure if she is promoting onsite or offsite bars, or both, but either way, it’s still a great idea. Cotton on, museums! There is money to be made here.

Now, imagine taking objects from the museum’s storage and moving them offsite to a secure bar location. You can have one or two security guards on duty. You can have secure, temp/humidity controlled cases. You can pick lower risk but still interesting objects to display. People will be able to get an eyeful as they sip great microbrews.

Then imagine the programming! You could have neat lectures on the history of beer (obviously popular) or historical scandals, scientific breakthroughs or climate change. Whatever. You could host independent musical acts. You could have authors do book signings. Museum object trivia. A historically accurate dinner menu from Victorian times [offsite at a tavern!] – maybe bar patrons would wear costumes! The opportunities are endless. And you can charge a fee for all of these events. Obviously you will have to pay the people who are presenting these programs, but you can still make money. (And maybe, museum members get in free/at a reduced rate/get a discount on beer. Or even have “museum bar” memberships!)

Basically, you would have a cultural experience—outside the museum—that provided education, fun, and a chance to be close to museum collections. Museos from all around the city would find it an interesting place to hang out, swap museum stories, and network. Tourists could go there for a unique night out. Locals could count on it to be interesting, educational, and fun.

And the best part – all the profits go into a fund that goes to pay museo salaries.

And maybe Museos would want to take part time extra jobs helping out there? Museos could try jobs out that they don’t get to do at the institution proper, with the assistance of their colleagues at the home institution. A curator at the museum could function as a programmer for the bar (as it is a different business, they would be paid a separate amount by the bar). A museum educator could design the exhibits. A cataloguer could present a lecturer. Museos could broaden their skill sets and have a chance to learn from their colleagues. Alternately, the museos could keep their same assignments at the bar. It would be up to the organization. Regardless, it would let museos share what they do with a much broader audience – perhaps their friends who don’t necessarily frequent museums would be open to visiting a bar. That may, in turn, inspire those friends to check out the remainder of the collection at the museum proper.

So this idea combines museum collections, alcohol, fun activities, and potentially large profits in a secure location that would be (hopefully) cheaper to have open than the museum itself. Yes, there are costs involved in opening a bar (renting a location, staffing, insurance, liquor licenses) but hopefully this bar could make a profit in the end.

Thoughts? Also, does any museum want me to consult on the bar they are now planning on opening? I am definitely available…

Call for guest posts - Solutions Series

2010-03-26T09:42:00.003-04:00

Hi Museos!

You have seen our first post in the "Solutions Series" about the Robin Hood Rule. This series of posts is designed to answer the question "How can museums make more money so that they have more money to give to low-paid Museos?" We have another post coming up soon. But two crazy money making schemes are not going to save Museo salaries.

Nay! We need many more than two ideas! At least three or four!

And we are turning to you lovely folks out there in the interwebs to contribute. No idea is too crazy (you know this, you read our blog)! No length requirements. Or, if you have an idea and don't feel like writing the whole thing, just tell us and we can expand on it and give you credit.

Does this sound like something fun? You know it does. Email us your ideas/articles/whatever -- museosuniteblog at gmail dot com.

Thanks!

Lunchtime Video – Museums and Salaries

2010-03-25T12:00:00.005-04:00

The trouble with the online museum community is that it’s so fractious. The people who use the many industry list-servs don’t necessarily use Twitter or blogs, and vice versa. A productive conversation using one of these mediums might not reach the users of the other mediums. Museos might also focus their reading on a particular topic, such as historic preservation, interactive design, or education. This is understandable. The internet is a huge place and our free time is limited. But what happens when we look in unexpected places?

We find new people voicing similar sentiments in a variety of mediums.

Today, because it’s lunchtime, here is a video on the subject of museums and salaries. (Don’t lie to me museos. I know you take a working lunch!) It was put out by the Museums Association. Their YouTube account seems largely dormant, which is a shame considering this video, “Is your salary commensurate with your experience?”:

What about you, Museos? How do you think your salary stacks up in terms of your education and experience? It isn’t a question we asked directly on the salary survey, but it would be interesting to know how you feel.

Museums Advocacy Day

2010-03-22T13:15:00.001-04:00

Today is Museums Advocacy Day in DC.

You can follow along with the conversation on Twitter.

One of the recent AAM tweets caught my eye:

AAMers: Don't think you have to work for a museum in order to advocate for them. Your opinion might matter even more. #MuseumsAdvocacyDay

I would like to pose a question to the AAM in response to that statement. If you acknowledge the important voice of people who don’t work for museums, then why do you not have a membership category for them? People who have volunteered for or studied museums in the past (but do not currently have an affiliation with a museum) may still want to join the AAM, but there is no category for “museum fan” or “museum studies graduate, unemployed.”

Under the current categories, I am not eligible to join the AAM. I just find that a bit strange, considering how much of my time I spend thinking about museums.

Dear AAM – if you recognize that Museum Advocates come in all shapes and sizes, then you need to extend AAM membership to Museos of all types.

Regardless, good luck with Museums Advocacy Day! Museos Unite supports the cause/revolution.

Salary and Experience using Salary Survey Data

2010-03-19T14:12:00.002-04:00

In an effort to keep our arguments backed up with solid data, we return to the salary survey.

It is time that we revealed to you, Museos, how much the average museum salary goes up per year. There is good news, and there is bad news.

Good news: it does go up!

Bad news: it really doesn’t go up that much!

[Disclaimerzzz: Sample size was 99 full time people. We didn’t have responses for every year, so that explains the gaps between the dots. This chart goes through the first 25 years since that is where we had the most data, although we had responses up to 34 years in the field. There were too many gaps as we got farther along to really have the data be representative.]

The peak at 8 years is due to two of our respondents who have been in the field 8 years seem to have really high paying jobs. The peak at 25 years was due to there being few responses at that year, and they are obviously doing really well!

The trend line reveals the real rate of change of Museo salaries.

y = 1124x + 32764

For those of you who maybe forget what that means, basically it translates into saying that the average starting salary (the y-intercept) is around $32,764, and for every year you work over that, the average increase (the slope) is $1,124 more per year.

Except that our trend line is obviously thrown by those [3] people earning more than $100,000, our “outliers.” So keep that in mind. Look more at what the actual data looks like. For most people, the reality is far below the trend line.

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Keep in mind for the future: a larger sample size will help us get closer to the truth. We hope that you will participate next year when we repeat our great experiment!

Solutions Series 1: The Robin Hood Rule

2010-03-17T15:18:00.004-04:00

Here is the first entry in our previously announced “solutions series,” in which Museos Unite presents options (aka crazy ideas) that could be utilized by museums to remedy the whole really-low-paid-museos issue.

Just to review the situation: we have Museos all over the world who are coming out of graduate programs in Museum Studies--having racked up student loans—who are then forced to volunteer (unpaid), intern (unpaid or low paid), take part time work (low paid and no health care), or even get a full time job that offers a wage below the living wage. This unfortunate situation leads to Museos feeling undervalued, overworked, resentful, and angry. In some cases, Museos with a lot of potential have to leave the field they love because they cannot afford to work for free.

Yes, people sometimes have to leave a field they love and make a difficult choice to take other work, and many people point fingers and accuse these discouraged Museos of “not loving museums enough” or “caring about money too much.” Any Museo who has been following this blog since we started in August knows this argument well, and has probably gotten frustrated that the people who are making these arguments must actually be on the flip side: they must have some sort of financial support in place that allows them to throw this argument around.

This brings me to what I would call the “Robin Hood Rule.” The original idea, “rob from the rich and give to the poor,” is slightly related, but my idea is more derived from the very argument I brought up above. The two elements (1) that someone who works in museums or nonprofits should not be in it for the money and (2) that if someone works in a museum and is dedicated to its mission, then they should accept a lower pay than people in other fields because they love what they are doing. I say, let’s take this argument and instead of applying it to entry level jobs paying $25,000 , let’s instead apply it to the museum directors at the top who are making $250,000.

That’s right. Use that exact argument they are throwing down at the entry level museos and throw it back in their faces. If they love museums so much, then why do they need a high six-figure salary? Or even, in some cases, a SEVEN figure salary? Isn’t the fact that they get to be in such a great place enough? Or that they get to interact with an incredible collection, or the admiring public?

Therefore, I propose that museums cap the amount that directors make. I would say there is no need for a museum director (or any employee) to make more than $100,000. Sure, in some large cities maybe they would need a cost of living adjustment, but let’s be reasonable. If you take the extra money that person was getting and then redistribute it down to the other salaries, you’d never have anyone starting at a salary below the living wage. Let’s say the lowest salary able to be offered would be $36,000 to someone with an undergrad degree and $40,000 to someone with a grad degree. Those are very fair starting salaries.

“But then the best people would leave the field or go to other museums!” you say. Oh really? If the money is so important to them, then should they be in charge of the museum? Just think. There are hundreds of applicants for a entry level museo job these days, which is why they can afford to offer low pay. There is ALWAYS someone who will work at that lower pay. How many great Museos do you think would be willing to say “heck yeah, I’d be a museum director for $100,000!” And then if they decided they wanted more money after a while, they could go ahead and leave the field, thus opening the position up to new talent who is again willing to accept a very fair wage.

For example, let’s use the biggest museum in my home city, The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA). The director made $338,873 in 2008 (guidestar.org). If we take that down to the proposed $100,000 then we have a stunning $238,873 to redistribute. Now, if I add up the 8 highest paid employees (who all make over $100,000) and limit all of them down to $100,000, then guess how much money we have to throw around?

$771,352. From eight people.

If we assume there are a bunch of people at the bottom making $20,000 (which is probably not that far from the truth), then we could raise their pay up to $40,000 with this money… dramatically changing their lives from living below the poverty level to having a very good starting salary. How many of those low paid Museos could be helped with the extra [excessive] pay from the top Museos?

38 people could go from $20,000 to $40,000.

Even more dramatically, let’s delete the above option and just do this one. How many unpaid interns could be hired at a starting salary of $36,000?

21 people could go from unpaid to making $36,000.

And all of this because 8 people took pay cuts that limited them to a wage that's incredibly reasonable for living in Philadelphia.

There are actually many nonprofits with a structure like this. I talked to a man last month who runs a nonprofit, and he explained that everyone in the company makes between $40,000 and $90,000, no more and no less. No one is struggling to live, and no one is buying a yacht with golden toilets.

How can museums be a medium for discussion of social fairness if they are operating just like any huge, multi-national corporation instead of the nonprofits that they are? Ethically managed companies often have limits on what senior management can make, so why don’t museums join in?

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NB – I know that for many small museums, no one is making even $40,000. I know this argument doesn’t apply to them. I’m going to think more on how to fix those things, but I think if the big museums started making changes, there would somehow be a trickle down effect. Does anyone have any ideas about that?

What Ever Happened to the Salary Survey?

2010-03-09T16:13:00.001-05:00

What happened is that we forgot about it completely. Kidding! It’s just that calculating and tabulating takes a lot of time, and calculating and tabulating the results that people are most interested in seeing takes even longer. Logistically it makes more sense to hold off until everything is calculated, but we were so excited at first that we didn’t realize this. Now we’re putting the results posts on hold while we crunch the numbers and figure things out. When we’re done you’ll have a veritable glut of data to look forward to.

Image via Toothpaste for Dinner.

The Tipping Point: Part 2 – The Rebuttal

2010-03-05T16:55:00.001-05:00

Kat is away this week so you’ll be hearing from me a lot over the next couple of days.

This is, first and foremost, my reaction to a prominent vein of thought that I can’t stand. It is, secondarily, a continuation of the debate started on the AAM-EMP list-serv and summarized in The Tipping Point: Part 1.

The vein of thought I can’t stand is the one that says sit down and shut up, this is the way things are done. Salaries have always been low. That vase has always been displayed there. We’ve always considered people over 40 our main audience. We’ve always interpreted things this way. If you want more (money, responsibility, opportunities for training and advancement) then maybe you’re the one who needs to reconsider (your career path, your attitude, how much you love museums.) It certainly can’t be the status quo that needs to be reconsidered! After all, things have always been this way.

There were several people chiming in to the conversation claiming that docents who didn't get a lot of tips would be envious of docents who did and that would be bad for workplace morale. Or that unpaid docents would be given the "poorly tipping" shifts and the paid one would get the better shifts. These responses ignore just how rare a tip is in a museum environment. Unless tipping culture (that old chestnut!) were to change drastically, neither of these situations would present a problem. If unpaid docent Horatio gets a tip at 2pm on Tuesday and unpaid docent Wolfgang (working a Tuesday morning shift) does not, the most likely result (if they discuss this at all) is that they'll figure out if it was something about the tour or the visitors themselves that prompted the tip. If it was the sheer awesomeness of the tour, Wolfgang might incorporate elements of Horatio's tour next time around. They’re probably not going to duke it out for the Tuesday afternoon shift.

I don’t want to dive too deeply into discussions of class divisions and privilege because we have an entry on that topic coming up next week, but this is another element that is relevant to the discussion. Something that one poster (we will call her Gertrude) brought up repeatedly was that museos are professionals. They are not in the service trades. One does not tip professionals, it just isn’t done!

I disagree with the premise that museos should not be tipped because they are professionals for two reasons. One is that THAT notion is based entirely on an outdated class system. The idea that it isn’t the work or the effort that matters, but the amount of education and preparation that one had to undergo in order to enter the profession strikes me as BS. That ties into my second reason: if someone isn’t paid like a “professional” then they aren’t reaping the benefits of a “professional.” It is presumably these benefits that caused the initial distinction between who got tips and who didn’t. (I can hear the Gertrudes of the world crying out “But the minimum wage! Won’t you spare a thought for the minimum wage?” There is a difference between the minimum wage and a living wage. “Professionals” should be earning the latter, not the former.)

I’m not saying that I believe museos should be tipped, but that was never what this conversation was about. It was about whether or not tour guides can keep unsolicited tips. I think it’s pretty simplistic to chalk up this ENTIRE discussion to the history of tipping. That was what Gertrude kept doing, and arguing with her on those terms got the conversation nowhere. We’re at an unprecedented place with museum employment (or at least we’re trying to get there. Who wants a museum sector comprised solely of people from privileged backgrounds?) so we can’t lean so heavily on precedent.

This isn’t about the history of tipping, but it is about who has traditionally been able to work in museums. It is about the volunteers and docents who are trying to get a foot in the door. They don’t all come from money and they can’t all quietly pay their dues while making minimum wage for years on end. They aren’t selfish or unworthy of the museum profession because money is a concern for them or a deciding factor in where they work. (I should write “we” since I include myself in this number. I have no trust fund or wealthy spouse to fall back on if my job doesn’t pay the bills.) Money is a concern for people, even museos, whether we’d like to talk about it or not.

The root of this conversation is compensation. What is a good tour worth? What is a museo’s labor worth? These are questions we’re concerned with here at Museos Unite, and we welcome any thoughts you might have on the subject.

(This was written in spurts over the course of several days, so my apologies if it’s a bit rambling.)

The Tipping Point: Part 1 – The Recap

2010-03-05T11:06:00.002-05:00

Trivia fact: I usually delete the AAM-EMP list-serv emails without reading them. Between that, MUSEUM-L, my feed reader, and Twitter I sometimes go into Museum Discussion Overload. They’re overwhelming, and frankly not always that useful. Want to know the best way to conserve 19th century baby shoes? There’s someone out there who will helpfully inform you to Google “conserving 19th century baby shoes.”

But on Wednesday there was a thread title that caught my attention: Tipping Museum Tour Guides. The original poster (who we will call Bob. If you subscribe to the list-serv over at Google Groups you can read the entire conversation, but we aren’t going to replicate it here. Far too long!) laid out the situation as such: He just started working as a museum tour guide. While his manager has not said anything to him and there is nothing written in the employee handbook, Bob has heard through the grapevine that if he receives a tip at the end of the tour he must give it to the museum. This didn’t make sense to him, since he is the one providing the tour. In the immortal words of Newsies: “Headlines don’t sell papes, newsies sell papes!” (I apologize; I couldn’t resist.) The visitors who are doing the tipping intend for the tip to go to the guide, not the museum.

There was a lot of back and forth on the issue. Some quick excerpts:

“In the museum field we are usually subject to intellectual property rules and that the information you impart on your tour is owned by the museum you work for and therefore tips on such should also go to them. Unfortunately one of the downsides of museum work is that we do it for the love of history (or art) and not for the financial gain.”
“I have spoken to both museum professionals and non-professional museum goers in the past few hours (in completely casual, non-scientific manner), and the museum professionals are saying it is up to the individual museum (some have a don't ask/don't tell policy), meaning there is no hard-and-fast rule, but donation of tips is a generally- accepted practice. However, all the museum goers I spoke to vehemently felt that any tip handed to a guide is specifically intended to go to the guide.”
“It is reasonable to assume that if a visitor wants to donate to the museum, they will do so (and may have already done so, and in turn will receive the tax deduction they would expect as a donor), and if they want to show appreciation to the guide, they will do that. It is also reasonable to assume the visitor would rather have the control over where the tip goes, and may feel resentment towards a museum that takes tips away from its employees (if they were privy to that knowledge). So, if a museum values a donor's intent, they would either let the guide keep the tips, or verbalize the tip-donation practice into the tour at some point. To do otherwise would be dishonest, so my museum-going sources say.”
“You are either getting paid to do your tour or you are a volunteer and get personal satisfaction for doing the tour. You should do a good job because you have pride in yourself and your museum. Expecting a tip is like "paying for a smile" as one blogger put it.”
“It seems rather unethical for a museum to let you accept tips, but then turn around and require you to "donate" the money back to them. I would check into the legality of your museum's practice in this matter. And, tipping is not a matter of who "owns" the information intellectually, but instead is given for the quality of the delivery of the tour--it doesn't matter if you had a script, you still have to be personable, accurate, engaging, etc. (this is a personal decision, in the same way you would tip a waiter that you thought had a welcoming personality and whose service you liked).”
“Generally, the guide is provided the tools (i.e. training) to make the museum "come alive" by the museum educators. Also, if monetary gain is a large incentive for someone, that person may wish to re-evaluate their choice to pursue a career in the museum profession.”
Again, for more details subscribe to the EMP list-serv.

I admit, for someone who thinks about museum compensation pretty regularly I never spared much thought for tipping. I’ve always put any tips I receive while leading public programs right back into the museum’s cashbox. I wrote a no tipping clause into the docent handbook. However silly or poorly thought out, this is the standard.

But should it be? Like so many things in museums, the status quo hasn’t been carefully evaluated, but it’s still venerated. “This is the way it is and if you disagree or want more then maybe you should reconsider your profession.” As if museums are above contempt; as if museums are on such a pedestal that merely working there should be compensation enough.

It turns out that Bob is working part-time in a house museum for about $8/hour. He mentioned that a dollar or two would really help him out and put him closer to a living wage, although it wouldn’t make as much difference to the museum. But there are people who asserted that Bob should still donate the money to the museum. Because it is the done thing. And because maybe, just maybe, that will help the museum make enough money to increase his wages!

The nerve. That is an insult to anyone with a) a sense of what it means to work in a museum without a financial safety net b) a sense of how museum economics actually work. Trickle down much? Keeping my replies diplomatic has been a huge struggle. I don’t know if I can sustain it throughout the next entry, which is part of the reason I’m splitting this into two. (The other part is because sheesh, this is long!) In the interim, why don’t you let us know your feelings in the comments section?

Stay tuned for The Tipping Point: Part 2 – The Rebuttal

Edited to add: Museumist did an excellent recap of the situation that you might like to check out.

Link Roundup: Friday 26 February

2010-02-25T17:42:00.004-05:00

We've been salary survey focused lately, but I think it's time for a link roundup. What with the economy, jobs bills, healthcare summits etc the media has picked up on a lot of interesting stories. We've already posted some of these on our Twitter account, which you should follow if you aren't already! We're mostly following institutional accounts (news services, museums, unions) at the moment, but we'd love to use it to interact with you.

Here some snowy day reading for those of you in the northeastern US, and some Friday reading for the rest of you:

U-Cubed, the union for the unemployed: This is an idea I find fascinating. Unemployed workers are a huge bloc, and organizing gives them a voice in the many policy debates that affect them. It also demonstrates a working model for a union representing people across a variety of locales who do not share a workplace/employer. (Granted they have backing from a "real" union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Money and an extant organizational structure help immensely!)

A conversation with Glassdoor.com's Rusty Rueff (video): A frank discussion of why so many people are reluctant to talk about salaries in the current economic climate. Glassdoor.com has some interesting salary data for museums, too. It's certainly more accurate than the nonsense reported by sites like Salary.com etc.

The following links come from the AAM-CFM Newsletter. You should subscribe!

A fuzzy picture: U.S. jobs projections for curators leave museum directors scratching their head: Sometimes it seems like sources outside the museum sector (Salary.com, the US Department of Labor) don't quite know what's going on with museums. This is one of those times.

US workforce shifting away from full-time employment and towards contract work: This one is pretty self-explanatory, so I'll indulge in a bit of editorializing. It's all well and good when you're choosing contract work because it's more flexible, but it's quite another when it's inflexible and without benefits, yet you choose it because it's the only option in your industry. OK, I'm done.

Whaling museum apprenticeship program launched: I think this method of training museum professionals has a lot of potential to overhaul the current system of "Masters degree + 3 to 5 years of experience = entry level position." What do you think?

We'll be back with more survey results and editorializing next week. Enjoy your weekend, and stay dry/warm if you're caught in the "snowicane" like I am in New York.

Salary Survey Post #4: Experience and Gender

2010-02-24T13:01:00.002-05:00

People have been wondering how the gender breakdown we posted yesterday aligned with experience and roles within the museum. We didn’t ask respondents for their specific titles, just the general department they worked in, so this was a difficult thing to quantify. (People making gobs of money sometimes put “administrative” and sometimes put “collections” etc, so there wasn’t a clear way to differentiate among directors, head curators,very experienced secretaries etc. Clearer position titles: added to the list of future improvements!)

What I did was break down all respondents into 4 main categories, based (very roughly) on their level of experience. The divisions are somewhat arbitrary; I might run the data again with 0-5 years as entry level just to see if that normalizes the male salary averages a little. (More on that in a bit.) As you can see salaries do increase over time, albeit very slightly. An experienced museum professional can only expect to make an average salary equivalent to a high entry level marketer. [1]

The raw data chart is too large to include here, but here are the average salaries for each group. They were calculated using the high end of the range (i.e. $25,000-$30,000 would be calculated as $30,000) each respondent provided. For museos making less than $10,000 I used $10,000, and for those who said they were unpaid I used $0. The actual numbers might be slightly lower, but as Kat stated in the first entry there’s not a huge difference in the data if you use the low end of, the average of, or the high end of the range.

The “All Museos” category includes the 7 responses that didn’t specify male or female.

It’s difficult to say whether or not we had a good sample of males relative to the females. From my subjective point of view I think our ratio of male to female respondents (21:71 for full-time [2]) is roughly correct, but my workplace is all female and my museum studies program was only about 10% male. My personal experience might not be representative, although I doubt anyone would argue against the idea that the majority of museos are female.

While the overall ratio of male to female respondents might be correct, the ratio at each level is not. The number of males at each level had a tremendous effect on their average salaries. A smaller sample of males meant that each male salary had a disproportionate effect on the average. This can be seen below.

Female museo salaries and overall museo salaries rise at a steady (but slow) rate. Male salaries have crazy peaks and valleys all over the place. (Those are technical terms, naturally.) Maybe Kat will swoop in and calculate the rate of change for us at some point. As for me, I’m all mathed out for the week!

[1] Data arrived at via a highly scientific method called “poll your similarly-aged friends who work in marketing.”

[2] I knew I forgot something! This entry includes part time workers as well as full time workers. When I run the data again I’ll remove part timers so that our data is consistent across the board.

Salary Survey Post #3: The Role of Gender

2010-02-23T12:12:00.001-05:00

So everyone says men get paid more than women. This fact is well documented across the board. But in an industry where women dominate in numbers, is this still true?

COMPLETELY.

Now, disclaimer – when breaking things down by gender, for full time people we found that there were 71 female respondents, 21 male respondents, and the rest did not say if they were male or female. So I am aware that comparing a data set of 71 and one of 21 is not completely accurate (although representative of the population in question), but heck yes, we are gonna do it anyways, folks.

The salary averages male vs. female (remember that our overall salary average was $40,360.76):

Average Male Salary: $48,452.38

Average Female Salary: $36,338.03

(That means the average male salary is ~$12,000 more than the average female salary).

To be fair, we can’t really make this bold claim due to the sample size and such. When I made the numbers into percentages, we get this graph, which is a bit closer to the truth…

So there you have it folks. You can see the “bell curve” shape for both males and females. You can see that the male’s center point is around $10,000 more than females.

‘Nuff said.

We are going to further later in the week (or next week, as both Kirsten and I are having hugely busy weeks with our actual jobs) with gender and satisfaction, salary and experience, salary and education, etc. I will also go deeper into breaking down gender and salary and years experience as much as possible with such a limited data set.

Thoughts on the whole gender and salary thing? Why, when there are 3/4 (or more…does anyone have a figure on this?) females in the field, males are still paid more than us on average? Angry yet?

Salary Survey Post #2: Satisfaction Levels

2010-02-19T15:46:00.003-05:00

The numbers we put out yesterday shocked some people and left others cold. Obviously when you’re working with a self-selecting sample you’re going to have some built-in biases. For example, as Steven Lubar pointed out our “high end” isn’t actually as high as things go. There are much higher salaries reported and publically available on 990s; for example, the Director of the MoMA recently pulled down a salary of $2,111,000 as Kat pointed out back in December.

Of course, the most highly paid people are unlikely to have stumbled on our little survey. Since we are a blog and most people found us via Twitter, our sample is going to align most closely with the demographic of most Twitter-using museos. Twitter’s main demographic is aged 18-34, so it’s safe to assume that many of our respondents come from this group that the AAM would call “Emerging Museum Professionals.” [1] We have to take a lot of these factors into account before we can present the majority of the results [2], so we’re going to keep things simple at first.

Now that we know what the basic salary range was, let’s see how satisfied people were. [Note: Satisfaction level has not yet been plotted against the salaries themselves. This is general level of satisfaction. The rest will happen, I promise!]

As you can see, on a scale from 1-5 most museos rate their salary satisfaction a 3. This is again taken only from respondents who are working full time [3].

To present the data in another form, that’s fully 33% of the respondents. And as for mostly satisfied, i.e. a 4 0r a 5 out of 5? Just over 25% of the people who took our survey.

This breakdown strikes me as a little odd when compared to yesterday’s salary data. Do these cases surprise you?

The Chicago area collections specialist making between $20,000-$25,000 who rates his or her satisfaction as a 3?
The administrator with 25 years of experience who rates his or her roughly $35,000/year salary a 4 out of 5?
The educator with 12 years of experience who is rates his or her $35,000-$40,000 salary a 3 out of 5?
The full-time exhibits specialist making $10,000-$20,000 (full-time at minimum wage falls into this range) who rates his or her satisfaction a 3?

Here’s the part where I start to editorialize.

It seems like although people are unwilling to say they're satisfied with what they're earning, they're not willing to say they think it's terrible either. But from an objective standpoint? It's terrible. You should be angrier.

I feel like someone needs to grant you permission explicitly. I'm going to be a jerk and do it.

You have permission to be angry. Not just about salaries, or the lack of advancement opportunities. You have permission to be angry about anything. You have permission to be angry at museums as an institution. You have permission to be angry at your graduate school program. You have permission to be angry at your employer. You have permission to be angry at me for having the sheer gall to grant you permission to express your feelings. You have permission to be angry about anything.

More importantly, you have permission to voice your discontent. You don't have to pretend things are hunky dory when they're not. That's not how changes get made. You shouldn't have to worry that some potential future employer might stumble on your blog or your Twitter or a comment you wrote and decide that your refusal to deny your (fully justifiable) anger disqualifies you from working at their museum. That by saying "Yes, museum salaries are insufficient across the board and I feel I deserve better pay, more benefits, and greater advancement opportunities" you will price yourself out of the museum job market entirely. That's not how changes get made. If you feel like pay is insufficient but are both willing to accept that pay and unwilling to speak out against it, do you honestly believe things will improve? Optimism is wonderful, but hoping for a better future without doing anything precludes change.

I'm not encouraging you to riot or go on strike or do anything you're uncomfortable with, I'm just asking you to be wholehearted about what you're feeling. Discuss low salaries. Acknowledge that they're low. Who's going to do it if you don't?

Let’s take one last look at the numbers.

The average reported level of satisfaction for these 99 full-time museos was 2.78 out of 5. That’s ever so slightly closer to dissatisfied than satisfied. There’s hope for museos yet.

[1] Another question on the survey asked how many years respondents had been working in the museum field. We don’t have that graphed yet, but the answer is around 5.581 years on average.

[2] By that I mean that I need to wait on Kat to do these things, because she is the brains behind this salary survey. I am the opinionated hothead who editorializes, she comes bearing scientific data. What a team!

[3] This is something that will be ironed out in future surveys. There are many questions that require clarification. In the future we will probably ask for part-time wages to be stated as hourly earnings, not as an annual salary. There was no clear way to distinguish between museos who responded with actual earnings versus those who responded with their pro rata salary, or between people who were essentially full-time but paid hourly and people who worked 10 hours a week.

Salary Survey Post # 1: Preliminary Salary Analysis

2010-02-18T12:34:00.003-05:00

Hi Museos. Okay, so here is the moment you’ve been waiting for. I am going to start with just our full time museos as far as salary analysis.

Let me explain one assumption I had to make, as this affects the results. For people who reported their exact salary, we used that number. For everyone else, we used the middle number of the range. In actuality, this does not make a huge difference in our calculations (I recalculated based on using the low- and high-ends of the range, just to check). The difference on either side is about $2,700.

That said, let’s get down to our very first, simple analysis.

For full time museos (n=99)

Mean (average) Salary: $40,360.76
Standard Deviation: $23,426

Mode (most often occurring) Salary: $30-35,000

Median (number in the middle of the data set): $34,250

Range, or the infamous "Wage Discrepancy"
(difference between lowest reported exact salary and highest reported exact salary): $94,102.50

So what does this all mean in plain English?

1 – the average salary is about $40,000. That is for respondents ranging from just starting out to working for less than a year up to 34 years, people. THAT IS INSANELY LOW considering that range of time working. Think about it for a minute… think about the fact that some people are making over $100,000 (as seen above). That should pull up the average. It IS pulling it up. To a mere $40,000.

2 – The most often reported salary is somewhere between $30-35,000. That is $5-10,000 below the average salary. You do the math. Museos are more often paid less than the average salary.

3 – The median of our data set is $34,250, which makes sense. That means if you were to lay out all the reported salaries in a row, the middle number would be $34,250, with half the people making more than that and half the people making less than that. NOTICE: our median is ~$6,000 below our average. That means there are more people earning below average than above average.

4 – The ‘wage discrepancy’ which was the inspiration behind the whole salary survey is HUGE. $94,102.50. That is the difference between our top earner and our lowest earner.

5 – Take a moment and look at yourself in the mirror, seriously. Are you hoping/expecting that someday you will be up in that top 10% (which is, interestingly, making more than $57,000 – only 10% of those we surveyed make more than that!!!)? Do you think that staying quiet, keeping your head down, doing more work and getting paid less will get you there?

Or is it time to start a revolution?

Conclusions: There is a big difference between high pay and low pay in museums. More people are earning below the average salary than above it. The average salary for a museo is not that high, really.

Comments? Are you surprised? Not? Do you agree or disagree with these results? Remember, this is meant to be a starting point for our analysis, so never fear, more details to come!

In Which I Make Awkward Transitions Between Topics: Salary Survey Update + Museos On Strike

2010-02-16T23:43:00.006-05:00

Alas, I don't come bearing survey results. Though we are anxious to release the data, our resident statistics guru (that would be Kat) is busy crunching numbers and making pretty, pretty graphs. It takes a little time! We want to make sure everything is as good as it can be before we share any of it, but rest assured that you will see the first post on the subject this week.

I don't think any of us are expecting to be shocked by whatever the survey reveals to be the average museum salary. It's probably going to be low, but above the minimum wage. Right? Well that really depends on who responded. If some of the attendants at the National Gallery in London took the survey their pay--which is 60 pence per hour below a living wage--would certainly have an effect on the data. Their insultingly low wages plus long hours (between 50-60 hours per week) prompted them to stage a two hour walk out on Tuesday. Management has refused to negotiate with the striking members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, claiming that the museum cannot afford to pay them any more.

Of course that's the excuse. That's always going to be the excuse. As I said in a previous entry, museums are always going to have to make difficult decisions about where to allocate funds. If Museos don't speak out and insist that their labor is a valuable resource that's worthy of investment, then museums are always going to allocate their funds elsewhere. They're always going to be unable to afford to pay a decent wage. Not only must employees be valuable, but they also have to be willing to stand up and advocate for how valuable they are.

With their actions the attendants at the National Gallery have made the statement that they are valuable. They've demonstrated that their services are required. When they weren't on duty the museum had to shut the majority of its galleries! Museums need Museos even more than they need collections.

We first became aware of this strike via this post, Culture and a Living Wage. J at the Attic muses:

It seems to me to be a variation on the old conflation between intangible cultural value and economic free-market value. The argument is not so much that these workers just deserve to be paid for what they do, but that what they do is somehow worth more... Isn't it sad that museum workers have to resort to these arguments? Is as if we don't believe that our labour is equal to the labour of other workers, but that we have to somehow wrap ourselves in the aura of the art in order to ennoble and promote our work? Kind of like stay-at-home mums: they are valued not because their work is work, but because their work is connected to the sacred mysteries of raising the next generation...

We agree. Work is work. It should be fairly compensated regardless of its innate nobility or how much of a "dream job" it is.

A Survey Teaser…

2010-02-15T10:47:00.001-05:00

Before our big salary survey, which is now closed and being tallied, we ran a one-question poll on the sidebar of the blog. The single question, “Do you feel fairly financially compensated for your museum work?”, was mostly intended to get the ball rolling and to get people thinking. We had 23 responses, and the results are seen below.

An overwhelming 52% said an outright “no.” Only 3 people out of 23 said “yes.” That, fellow Museos, speaks volumes. WHY IS NO ONE ELSE SHOUTING ABOUT THIS? WHY IS EVERYONE JUST ACCEPTING LOW PAY? WHERE IS THE REVOLUTION?

Oops. My caps lock got stuck for a minute. Strange.

Thank you to all who participated! There is another poll along the sidebar about volunteering.

A Final Plea

2010-02-12T10:21:00.001-05:00

Museos, unite!

You only have 60 hours left before our salary survey closes at 11:59 pm EST on Sunday, February 14th.

Please, take a moment to answer these quick questions. If you have not already, please take a moment to FWD it to your coworkers or friends in the industry.

Here’s a taste of what will be revealed once we crunch the numbers:

the average salary for a Museo at various stages of their careers
whether MA education or years of experience really get you higher pay
how satisfied Museos are with their salaries
whether gender plays a role in Museo pay

And, excitingly, we will try to assess the data to figure out the best combination of education, experience, area of study, and location to figure out the BEST PAYING MUSEO JOB.

It' won’t be easy, dear friends. We are at 99 responses. We would ideally like 120 responses by Sunday at Midnight.

Can you help us? It’s the results that everyone will be talking about in the end… don’t you want to be able to say that you helped us get to the bottom of the Museo Salary Mystery?

Take the survey.

Last call to participate in the first Museos Unite salary survey, plus an advocacy update.

2010-02-08T12:05:00.002-05:00

The last day to respond to the Museos Unite salary survey will be this coming Sunday, 14 February. If you haven't chimed in yet, please go here and make your voice heard. Pass the link on to colleagues, friends, grad school buddies: anyone you know who works in the museum field! Although we haven't finished collecting or compiling the data, we've already observed some interesting trends which we're looking forward to sharing.

Two weeks ago we called on the AAM to lobby to ensure that museums and other nonprofits were not left out of the Congressional jobs bill. Later that day the AAM send out an advocacy update outlining their lobbying efforts in relation to several issues relevant to museums, particularly President Obama's FY2011 budget. The next day the update focused on the need to include zoos and aquariums in the jobs bill. This had nothing to do with us (does anyone from the AAM even read this blog? Leave us a comment if you do!) but it is still encouraging. While these are not the actions we urged the AAM to consider they are nonetheless vital. Funding for various bodies that are integral to the life of US museums (such as the IMLS, the NEA, and the National Park Service) needs to be continued. Tax credits for small businesses who provide their employees with health insurance should be extended to small nonprofits. The IMLS needs to be reauthorized.

But do these things need to be done first? The impression I continue to get, from the words of people I speak with and the actions of bodies like the AAM, is that one day, when the economy is better and when museums are masters at earning revenue, then we will worry about fair salaries. That it's pointless to talk about it now, because how can we ensure fair salaries if we can't pay the low salaries we already have? The result is that no one is willing to talk about what constitutes a good salary or a poor salary. Is there an element of shame in acknowledging that you are underpaid (there should not be!), or in acknowledging that you are underpaying your employees? And is that shame so great that we're willing to put off an uncomfortable conversation indefinitely? There is never going to be a point where museums are incredibly wealthy, with all the outside funding and earned revenue they require to offer every program they want. Museums are always going to need to make hard decisions about where to allocate their funds. If museos don't assert themselves then they will be left out of those allocations every time.

This is evolving into another post and another topic altogether. What I'm trying to say is that museum salaries are a part and parcel of the overall conversation about museum solvency. We can't resolve the funding problem, or the issues about how museums are perceived in society, or the various ways museums can turn a profit, without questioning museum salaries. These are interrelated issues, and focusing exclusively on certain elements will lead to superficial solutions. If we wait until every other problem facing museums sorts itself out it will be too late for everyone reading this blog. You will be long retired (if you can afford to retire) or deceased. We have to stop putting off this conversation for a sunnier day. We need to have it soon.

Follow a Museum Day

2010-02-01T09:24:00.001-05:00

Important Museo Announcement:

Today is Follow a Museum Day, basically a great excuse for museums (and Museos) around the world to connect and communicate via Twitter. We encourage everyone to participate, and to follow Museos Unite on twitter as well!

Suggest a museum to all of your friends by mentioning the museum’s twitter name in a post and adding the hastag #followamuseum afterwards.

Let’s see the potential power of museums (and Museos) in action!

The State of the (Muse)Union

2010-01-28T12:13:00.008-05:00

[Image via**]

Yesterday US President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union Address. As anticipated a large portion of his speech was devoted to the economy, including two of Museos Unite's favorite topics, job creation and debt forgiveness.

So what specifically can we expect to see in the next 3 years? And how will this affect museos?

In terms of job creation Obama is focusing on "green jobs", infrastructure, and small businesses.

But I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from, who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response. That is why jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010, and that's why I'm calling for a new jobs bill tonight.
Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America's businesses. But government can create the conditions necessary for businesses to expand and hire more workers.
We should start where most new jobs do — in small businesses, companies that begin when — companies that begin when an entrepreneur — when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides it's time she became her own boss. Through sheer grit and determination, these companies have weathered the recession, and they're ready to grow. But when you talk to small business owners in places like Allentown, Pa., or Elyria, Ohio, you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they're mostly lending to bigger companies. Financing remains difficult for small business owners across the country, even those that are making a profit.
So tonight, I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat. I'm also proposing a new small business tax credit — one that will go to over 1 million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages. While we're at it, let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment, and provide a tax incentive for all large businesses and all small businesses to invest in new plants and equipment.

Most museums are small businesses, albeit nonprofit ones. This is more Kat's area of expertise than it is mine, but my impression is that because nonprofits are already tax exempt any incentives to hire new workers or raise wages would not apply to museums. I could be mistaken here. The jobs bill as it was passed by the House does not seem to mention nonprofits, but of course the bill is not yet in its final form. Perhaps there will be other allowances made to encourage increased hiring and better wages in nonprofits. We can only hope.

Or can we do more than hope? One of the benefits of belonging to a labor union is that unions lobby for their members' interests. US museos may not have a union, but we do have an advocacy organization: the AAM. The AAM has done an excellent job of motivating its members to stand up against the Coburn Amendment. It has provided a free online webinar on museum advocacy and even explicitly outlines its legislative agenda, including nonprofit issues.

We at Museos Unite call on the AAM to reevaluate their legislative priorities, particularly those pertaining to nonprofit issues. We need to ensure that museums and other nonprofits are not left out of the jobs bill. In the interim, all US museos (and other nonprofit employees) should make use of the resources available on the AAM website to reach out to their elected officials. Whether this effort is backed by our largest advocacy organization or not, someone needs to make a stand. We need to raise our voices and tell Congress that we don't want to be left out of this new cycle of job creation. Nonprofits also need incentives to create new jobs and increase wages, because they're certainly not doing either of these things without them.***

It seems to me that Congress should be interested in promoting nonprofit employment, if only so that the debt forgiveness program isn't simply empty rhetoric. Here's what Obama said in last night's speech:

And let's tell another 1 million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years — and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.

It's worth noting that this debt forgiveness program has actually been in place since 2007, but who is included under the plan remains hazy. "Public service" is a vague term that may or may not include nonprofit employees. No firm definitions have been forthcoming because no one can really benefit from the program until 2017. This is unfortunate, as I for one would like to know if I'm better off making larger payments (so I accrue less interest) or smaller ones (so more of my debt is ultimately forgiven) in the interim. Alas.

How do you think the proposals from last night's State of the Union will affect museos? Will the AAM step up? Will you? Let us know in the comments.

**If you don't understand the graphic, you must be forgiven for not following the thousands of internet memes that go around these days. (This one is based on that terrible "Shots Everybody" song.)

***But first we need to acknowledge that more jobs and better wages are something we desperately need.

Howard Zinn 1922-2010

2010-01-28T10:46:00.002-05:00

This is not intended to be a full entry. Howard Zinn, the progressive historian most famous for his A People's History of the United States, has been better eulogized elsewhere. With all he did and all he wrote he promoted logic, equality, and the value of taking a stand. His voice for reason will be missed.

An Apology, a Link Roundup, and the Museo of 2050.

2010-01-14T11:28:00.005-05:00

We were confused as to why there weren't many responses to the salary survey, but it seems the links were incorrect and routing people to 404 Not Found pages. This has been fixed, and all links should now be functional. Sorry!

There have recently been a lot of articles on the effects of the recession. All of these articles show trends that will effect museum employment for the long term. It's not pretty.

- The Disposable Worker from Business Week. "Pay is falling, benefits are vanishing, and no one's job is secure. How companies are making the era of the temp more than temporary." This seems to be the case with many museum positions. Some choice quotes:

"You know American workers are in bad shape when a low-paying, no-benefits job is considered a sweet deal. Their situation isn't likely to improve soon; some economists predict it will be years, not months, before employees regain any semblance of bargaining power. That's because this recession's unusual ferocity has accelerated trends—including offshoring, automation, the decline of labor unions' influence, new management techniques, and regulatory changes—that already had been eroding workers' economic standing"

[...]

"The situation is especially difficult for young people, many of whom haven't been able to get a first foot on the career ladder. The percentage of people 16 to 24 who have jobs has plummeted by 13 percentage points since the beginning of 2000, while the share of workers 55 and over who have jobs has edged up over the period, despite the recession. Some young people are so desperate to get a start, they're working for free as semi-permanent interns. "Companies that used to use only one or two interns are now asking me for five or six at a time," says Lauren Berger, who runs a company that matches interns with entertainment, marketing, and media companies. Berger also reports a rise in the number of "adult interns," who work for free while trying to break into a new career."

- Recession Spurs Interest in Graduate, Law Schools from the New York Times.

- The Recession Generation from Newsweek. "Those entering the workforce now will likely make less and save more--not just in the short term but for the rest of their lives."

So what does all this mean for museos? Usually I try and keep from turning Link Roundups into Op-Ed pieces (although the links I select belie my biases) but I think this is a worthwhile discussion. Let's talk about the museum of 2050 (a favorite museo pastime), specifically the museos employed there. I posit:

- Master's degrees will be the new bachelor's degrees (a trend that is evident even now) and museos with advanced degrees will flood the market. It will be nearly impossible to find a job without one. We will see a proliferation of museum studies PhD programs as people continue to try and get a leg up on the competition.
- More and more positions will be part-time or temporary. Pay will remain stagnant, or will even decrease. Most of the suggestions for saving museums focus on having programs that turn a profit. While this is valid and is definitely necessary for saving museums (the entity), how much does this aid museos? There might theoretically be more money to spend on salaries, but will it be? More likely it will be spent on expanding the part-time workforce to offer more one-time or short-term programs.
- It will take longer and longer to qualify for these part-time, low-paid, temporary positions. That means more volunteering, more interning, and fewer years of making money. This will weed out a lot of potential museos who are unable to afford the long, unpaid slog.

I hate this future. I can't even express how much I hate this future. First of all, it looks alarmingly like the present. How much can things deteriorate? What happens when they do? Will people finally be mad enough to do something? This is your dystopian present, museos.

When you think think of the museum of 2050, what do you see in store for museos?

Museum Salaries: big earners make it hard for everyone else

2010-01-11T12:22:00.003-05:00

As our salary survey moves into its 4th week live, we are very grateful to everyone who has participated, and yet honestly flummoxed as to why we only have ~65 responses so far.

Here’s a newsflash: the only salaries people outside the sector hear about are the top earners, thanks to the 990 forms and a bunch of journalists who like to post stories along the lines of “Look how much this museum director makes to play with old stuff and art all day!” *** And many people who hear about these top salaries get some strange idea in their heads that museums have endless funds and everyone makes a bundle. (Some interesting posts related to this idea are found on CultureGrrrl’s blog here, here, and here. More recently, and even more infuriatingly, here)

The only way to combat these misconceptions is to basically reveal the museum worker as underpaid, yet talented and educated. There is an element of needing public awareness and sympathy. Museos! We need to make the public aware that what we do is worth more. We need to make each other within the museum community aware that We Are Not Alone in our feelings of injustice about compensation, and that we are all experiencing the same problems.

This article (thanks to Pete of Newcurator for the heads up) discusses the idea of a lottery economy, one in which who “wins” is complete chance. This idea applies to museos because it often seems that the people who get positions and the amount of pay is all down to chance. The quote, “people don't believe that people that win in gambling deserve their fortune,” would then extend to us asking ourselves: do we, the underpaid or unable-to-find-a-job, think the people who got the job just “lucked” into it? Do we resent our fellow museos for making more? Do we resent top earners?

Or do we resent ourselves for not demanding better?

I promise, we at Museos Unite have a plan (albeit one that takes lots of help to enact, YOUR help) to try to revolutionize museum salaries. But first, we need the numbers to back us up. Share the survey!

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*** We made a post here about how much Directors are making, but only to illustrate the gap between top earners and entry level/lower pay grade positions. We know that Directors work hard!

Link Roundup: 7 January 2010

2010-01-06T16:30:00.005-05:00

It's been ages since we've done one of these, but I've been accumulating open windows in my browser and think the New Year is a pretty good time to clean house. I've divided them into categories in an attempt to make this link-dump a little more coherent.

Amazingly Cool
- Art Work: A National Conversation About Art, Labor, and Economics. I'm just in awe of this project. Definitely give it a look if you get a chance. I'm not sure if this is a one-time thing or if there will be future editions as well. (But what is it? Here's how it's described on their website: Art Work is a newspaper and accompanying website that consists of writings and images from artists, activists, writers, critics, and others on the topic of working within depressed economies and how that impacts artistic process, compensation and artistic property.)

Jobs
- Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Are the rewards (monetary and otherwise) of graduate school worth the expense? Or are humanities grads just buying into a broken system?
- The Gervais Principle: The Office According to the Office. Very good, very incisive article despite the pop culture title. About the types of people you will meet on the way up the corporate ladder and on the way back down. Which type are you? WARNING: long.
- 2010 Job Market Outlook: Cloudy from Yahoo Hot Jobs. No chance of meatballs.
- College Grads Beware - You're Screwed from Wealth...Uncomplicated. People entering the job market today will earn less over their lifetimes and end up with less saved for retirement thanks to dreadful starting salaries.
- One Way to Help the Lost Generation from Lindsey Pollak. Summary: pay those interns.
- Six Ideas Obama Heard at the White House Jobs Summit from the Christian Science Monitor. An example of what happens when you open a link and then don't post it until a month later: it becomes extremely outdated. Still some of these ideas, particularly the incentives to hire, might also help museums.

Labor/Class (n.b. don't look at this section if you're watching your blood pressure)
- A Look at the Numbers: How the Rich Get Richer from Mother Jones.
- Poor Losers: How the Poor Get Dinged at Every Turn from Mother Jones.
- Do Businesses Hate Their Workers? from Naked Capitalism. Ties in with the health care debate in the US.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to delve into some of these topics in 2010.

What is fair compensation?

2010-01-06T11:46:00.004-05:00

My dear Museos, here is the million dollar question:

What is fair compensation?

What would you like to see included in a compensation (financial and otherwise) package from the museums where Museos work?

Here are some categories:

-financial compensation

-benefits

-vacation

-maternity leave

-compensation for evening/weekend work (beyond usual 40 hour work week)

-unionization options

Comment on all of these and more. If you want to keep it anonymous, that's fine. And while you are at it, take the little quiz on the sidebar to the right. And then be sure to take the salary survey if you haven't done so already. Once we get the salary survey done, maybe we will do a benefits survey. Who knows.

New Years Revolutions, Part II

2010-01-05T10:44:00.003-05:00

Welcome to 2010, Museos.

In 2010 we resolve to get a better picture of museum wages across the United States and around the world. You can help us with this by taking (and passing along) our salary survey and helping us compile the data we need to help make museos heard.

In 2010 we resolve to continue being a voice for fair compensation, and to continue capturing the zeitgeist of museums. We resolve to spread the word both on this blog and in our personal lives. If people don't know that compensation and professional development for museum professionals--especially entry level museos--is an issue, nothing will be done to ameliorate poor conditions on these fronts. Why not resolve to help us raise awareness? Think of what we could accomplish if we all put our voices together.

In 2010 we resolve to turn this Popsicle stand into a more professional operation. That means more frequent entries, a larger web presence, and possibly a site redesign.

In 2010 we resolve to meet the needs of our readers. What would you like to see more of on Museos Unite?

New Year's Revolutions...

2010-01-04T10:12:00.003-05:00

Hi Museos! Happy New Year!

Help us start the revolution by taking the salary survey.

If you took it before Christmas, please take it again. We've added a few questions that will really help us get a clearer picture.

We are up to 40+ responses, but we need 100+ to have our data be really useful. Forward the survey to your fellow museos (http://bit.ly/museosurvey) ! Encourage your favorite museum blog to write a post about it! Please Tweet about it! Post it on your own website!

I personally assure you that the numbers/data we are getting in so far will astound you. The sooner we have more responses, the sooner we can share the results.

Make your New Year's resolution now: Help the museo revolution!

Talking about Money – confronting a taboo

2009-12-22T10:22:00.003-05:00

Fellow Museos --

The time has come to talk about money in a concrete way. The united museos in France and Canada understand the importance of fighting for fair wages (among other things).

I did a little digging on GuideStar.org after reading this great post at the Center for the Future of Museums. Basically, the mention of museums and finances led me to check out some 990 forms on Guide Star (requires free registration).

Let me just give everyone a quick summary of my findings. Keep in mind, this information is all free and available to the public, because museums are nonprofits.

I used NYC as an example of a large city with many large, famous museums.The spread will obviously look a bit different in other cities. (NB: these numbers are what they earned in 2007, taken from the 2008 990 forms which are the most recent available. These numbers came out before the economy tanked!)

The Director/President/head honcho salary at the following museums*:

Art: MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) - $2,111,000

Science: AMNH (American Museum of Natural History) - $732,000

History: MCNY (Museum of the City of New York) - $259,000

Wow. Check out the discrepancy between different types of museums. Granted, I am sure that if we mapped out visitor numbers, we would see the popularity of the museum is directly proportional to the amount the head honcho makes. And, of course, that makes sense. Analysis of the way people value different types of museums is a post for another day!

But, does looking at these figures make you want to SCREAM, readers? Does anyone feel surprised to know that a museum director in NYC can pull down $2 mil a year? Does that make you look at your own salary and make you question yourself? Some people might look at these figures and see a hope that one day they too could make millions doing what they love. Others wonder how many years it takes to get to the top. Clearly these positions are hard won, but there are real considerations: how many years can you viably spend working for a low salary in a major city center? How long can you support yourself? Your family? And then the fact remains that most people working in museums will never be directors, especially not directors of world renowned institutions. How can we make judgments about where to work and what we are worth if we only know these top salaries?

Here at Museos Unite, we want to gather some real, concrete data about salaries. If you have 30 seconds, please take this survey for us. It is completely anonymous. We ask you to tell us where your salary falls in a range, and where you are and what type of thing you do. We’d like to then take this data and compare it to what the head honchos are making, as well as what the museum is making a year.

“But there are websites like payscale.com and salary.com, Museos Unite,” you say. Oh, we are well aware. But the current numbers that are out there are derived from whatever people input into these big information engines, and it isn't always representative because it's subjective. It doesn't give an accurate picture of what real people are earning in a real market. For example, inputting Kirsten's salary into salary.com indicates that she's earning a salary in the bottom quartile for all museum educators in her area with her level of education and experience. Inputting the same information into payscale.com shows her to be a top earner. Entry level museos who are looking for an accurate idea of what they can make in today's market are not likely to find much usable information out on the internet.

Having concrete numbers gives us power, friends. I am sure you’d love to know if your salary is fair vs. your contemporaries in the field, but you don’t want to start a very private conversation with an acquaintance at a conference.

Well, here is your golden opportunity…

_________________________________

*Note: This article highlights that a third of art museum directors have taken paycuts, including MOMA’s Glenn Lowry. He now makes a bit over $1 million, and is still the industry’s top earner.

Another note: There is also a great post from May 2008 at Young Museum Professionals with fabulous comments on the subject.

Victory in Canada, Changes in France

2009-12-14T13:46:00.003-05:00

A big congratulations to the workers at Ottawa's Museum of Civilization and War! Striking workers have reached a tentative agreement with museum management, one they say helps protect them from contracting out and helps ensure better job security. This is a hard won victory that comes at the end of 85 days on the picket lines. We wish them all the best; they deserve every gain they've won.

The civil service workers' strike that shut many French museums continues, but press coverage and tourist reactions were so unfavorable that strikers have changed their tactics. Instead of barring access, strikers are preventing tourists from paying for admission. This will hopefully quiet disgruntled tourists and a foreign press that seems unable to focus on anything except spoiled vacations, while still making an economic impact.

Kat and I have both found the coverage of the French strikes incredibly disheartening. Granted, neither of us speaks French so most of the articles we have access to are in the travel section of English language newspapers. These have been exclusively of the "Poor Mr. Wu from Ohio, he saved his pennies for a nice Paris vacation and now he can't even see the Mona Lisa! What a waste!" variety. The idea that the reason for the strike (the halving of the civil service workforce) was a legitimate one has rarely been mentioned. The job that museos do has been repeatedly equated with the tourism industry. While there is no doubt that many museum visitors are in fact tourists, museos do more than just point tourists (or other visitors!) towards the restrooms or operate attractions to keep them entertained. This is a genuine profession that requires a high level of education and skill. Objects need to be preserved. Research needs to be performed. History needs to be told. A halved workforce will only do this half as well, and future generations deserve better. The strike should be equated with the preservation of jobs and thus the preservation of human history. If Mr. Wu from Ohio needs to spend more of his Paris vacation sipping coffee at a cafe and less time crowding in front of the Mona Lisa for that to happen, then so be it.

"Penny the Beaver" talks about STRIKES

2009-12-08T09:23:00.004-05:00

I must give mad props to this woman for this video.

Way to point out how little concern government gives to museum workers vs.

transportation workers. Surely this says a lot about how

people value museums!

Video is from Museum Workers Website but also linked to in MuseumWorkers@Twitter.

Museos on Strike at 1/5th of France's Museums

2009-12-05T14:14:00.004-05:00

The strike at the Museum of Civilization and War in Ottowa has continued for 75 days. Workers would like to bring in a neutral third party to negotiate a settlement, but the museum's management has refused. If you live in Canada or are a Canadian citizen living abroad you can sign a petition to the the museum's CEO Victor Rabinovitch urging him to reconsider.

Museum workers across the Atlantic have also taken to the picket lines. Approximately one-fifth of French museums are currently closed do to strike action. These include popular tourist destinations like the Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Chateau de Versailles, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Georges Pompidou Center. Workers are striking over a plan to replace only half of the retiring museum workforce over the coming years. The plan is to reduce the overall number of civil servants and does not merely affect museum workers, but cuts in the cultural sector could have dramatic consequences. These will alter the quality of what the museums can offer and how well they can preserve their collections, but culture minister Frederic Mitterrand seems uninterested in negotiation.

English language information is mostly limited to what tourist spots are open or closed on any given day, but here are several links:

Strike Spreads in France Over Museum Staff Cuts - The New York Times

French museums closed by civil service strike - BBC

Paris Museum Strike Continues; Louvre, Versailles Close Doors - Bloomburg

France: Labor strike widens, shuts Louvre museum and Versailles - L.A. Times

Putting the Profit in Nonprofit

2009-11-30T14:21:00.001-05:00

As we've said before, one of the huge issues with museums being able to pay their staff is that there just isn't enough money to go around. "But museums are NONPROFITS," you say. "They aren't supposed to make a profit, right?"

Wrong!

This misconception is at the heart of the problem, in my opinion. A nonprofit is not a business that doesn't make a profit. Instead, a nonprofit is a business that is unable to distribute profits to owners or shareholders. It has to reinvest its profits back into furthering its mission. There is no legal limit on how much money a nonprofit (in our case, a museum) can make.

So museums need to start thinking more like for-profit businesses, right? I had a conversation last night with a friend who remarked that the consumer-driven model can't work for museums. If it's all about making money, why don't museums just join with movie theaters and offer blockbuster hits inside (some museums do this with their IMAX screens, in fact)? Wouldn't that get people in the doors?

Sure it would, but then are people actually learning anything? Is the museum furthering its mission? Not really.

The important thing to know about nonprofits is they have a dual bottom-line:

1 – make money

2 – further the stated mission

Yes, museums must learn to do both, not one or the other.

Here's the challenge: how can museums (and museos) make money enough to pay salaries while furthering their mission? "If you build it, they will come" is not working. We need to do more. Any ideas on how we can put the profit back in nonprofit?

Food for Thought: Emergency Jobs Programs

2009-11-30T12:35:00.004-05:00

It's almost impossible to talk about the museum employment situation without talking about the general employment situation. "Times are tough everywhere." While it is discouraging to hear this platitude as an excuse for inaction, platitudes are platitudes for a reason. The job market really is awful right now. Here's an excerpt from a New York Times op-ed you really ought to read:

"If you’re looking for a job right now, your prospects are terrible. There are six times as many Americans seeking work as there are job openings, and the average duration of unemployment — the time the average job-seeker has spent looking for work — is more than six months, the highest level since the 1930s.

You might think, then, that doing something about the employment situation would be a top policy priority. But now that total financial collapse has been averted, all the urgency seems to have vanished from policy discussion, replaced by a strange passivity. There’s a pervasive sense in Washington that nothing more can or should be done, that we should just wait for the economic recovery to trickle down to workers.
This is wrong and unacceptable."
- "The Jobs Imperative" - Paul Krugman

What Krugman proposes is a job creation program similar to the Works Progress Administration: salaried public service jobs, incentives for employers to hire instead of fire, etc. Kat and I have been rooting for a new W.P.A. for over a year now so naturally I think this is a great idea. The negative effects of unemployment don't disappear when you find a job. We need to be tackling long-term solutions.

Actively Organizing: A Lesson From Canada

2009-11-21T23:39:00.007-05:00

Picketers from around the world in front of the Museum of Civilization and War. [via]

Museos all know the pitfalls of passive collecting: while you may end up with some great stuff, your collections will be uneven and incomplete. You might end up with all of one thing and none of another. If you are not continuously searching out the objects which will best further your museum's mission, you might fall into a collecting rut.

It seems that this blog has fallen into that rut. If I had been actively seeking news related to museum workers, wages, unions, and the employment situation, I might have been able to bring this story to your attention much sooner. Instead, I've been passively collecting and sharing links that I've stumbled upon. I've brought you a lot of one thing (links related to the general employment situation for young workers in nonprofits, for example) and none of another (stories about actual museos uniting).

In short, I'm feeling duly chastened. This is a huge story.

Workers at the Museum of Civilization and War in Ottawa Canada have been on strike for just over two months. You can follow news about the strike either on their union website (the museum is a national one, so workers can join the public servants' union) or on their Twitter, @MuseumWorkers. Despite their status as public servants, these workers have no job security, temporary contracts, and severely limited opportunities for advancement. They make significantly less than museum workers at other institutions, and have no protections against their jobs being contracted out. More specifics can be found here.

I don't know much about how these things work in Canada, but currently in the U.S. museos with union protection are either public servants or they work for an institution that has organized under the banner of a large labor union. Museum Educators at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum are trying to unionize under UAW Local 2110, a branch of the United Auto Workers. Museos at the New York Historical Society, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the MoMA can also join this union. I don't want to dilute this entry with an additional topic, but you might notice that even if you can join a union (which most museos cannot, since we are not all public servants or the part of a large and unified workforce at a prominent institution), you are still liable to run up against unfair employment practices: you might still get unfair wages, you might still be denied benefits or job security. Unionization is not a cure-all, but it helps. We actually hear about injustices at these museums because there is a union to publicize them. Unions do not only provide the right to bargain, but they also provide a voice outside of the institution. Other museos do not have that voice.

And what a voice it is. The strike at the Museum of Civilization and War shows us a wonderful example of what collective action in a museum should look like. There is an incredible amount of solidarity on the picket lines, with workers from other museums, other industries, and other countries showing up to express support. Museum programming has continued, with the striking workers arranging an outdoor childrens' museum and a Halloween fair. They have chosen to demonstrate what a valuable service they provide not by denying the public that service, but by continuing to provide it.

So what can you do to help aid the cause of workplace fairness in museums?

For starters, tell a friend. (Thank you Dan Cull, for blogging about this.)
If you really want to go all out you can head to Canada and join the picket line like the admirable men and women from Pittsburgh and Germany who are pictured above.
If you, like me, find yourself with less money and flex time than that, you can send an email to museum CEO Victor Rabinovitch. Let him know that you believe in equality of opportunity, fair salaries, and a healthy measure of employment protection.
Perhaps most importantly, you can let the workers at the Museum of Civilization and War know that you stand with them. I for one think that they provide an excellent example of how to organize with grace and class, and I hope their demands are met in full.

I'll be following this story closely from now on.

The Forgotten Link

2009-11-09T19:19:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled on this link now, so unfortunately it didn't make the roundup. It's the evocatively titled Stressful Jobs That Pay Badly from CNN.com. Curator clocks in at number 12, with a median salary of $46,500 and 89% of curators saying they're stressed.

Clearly curators make more money than museos in other parts of the field (certainly more than educators!), but then I would also surmise that they're more likely to have several post-graduate degrees. While $46K still a low salary for someone with several MAs or a PhD, it's definitely a living wage.

Note to self: get out of education and into curatorial work as soon as possible.

Link Roundup

2009-11-09T13:49:00.002-05:00

It is I, your delinquent web mistress. Well, one of them. School tours at my museum began last month plus we've seen a big influx of donations (objects, not money), so I've been pretty busy. I do have a Google Doc filled with half-written entries, but in the interim here are some links that might be of interest.

At No Time In Post-World War II America Has It Been More Difficult To Find A Job - via the New York Times

Americans, Their Smiley-Faced Facade, and Reality - You might have realized that this isn't a blog with a smiley-faced facade. I don't believe it achieves anything to pretend everything is hunky dory in the Museum of Denmark when a lot of things are rotten. This is a tremendous read, talking about how toxic it is to smile and wait for things to change (while denying they need to) rather than being an advocate. An excerpt:

On the surface, prosperity gospels and positive-thinking companies appear harmless with their treacly "Successories products" of posters and coffee mugs, but they have subversively helped make each of us an island. They have convinced Americans that each individual has control and power over the conditions of their life, when that is largely not the case. Access to decent health care at a reasonable price is not a matter of individual effort. Neither is securing decent wages, pensions, safe working conditions or job security. Workers demanded those rights through collective action in the 20th century, and we are losing them now by taking an "every man for himself" approach to work.

Here is the New York Times book review of the same book that sparked this article: Bright Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich.

The Most Hilarious Job Advert Ever - The Williamsburg Art & Historical Center is seeking a Director. For free. Maybe if you do a good job they'll pay you in two years! Wonder if they've had any takers?

Proving the Value of Museums

2009-10-12T13:23:00.001-04:00

Today let’s tackle another of the age-old questions: how do museums prove their value to society? We’ve been looking at things from an institutional perspective (i.e. how to get museums to offer better salaries, how to improve museum studies programs), but public perception is very much an element in the struggle for decent wages. If your work is viewed as menial or easy, employers can get away with paying you accordingly.

One day a man walked into my office (without knocking, just walked right in. This happens at least once a day) and demanded to know what I do. I’m a museum educator, so I explained about how I create and deliver school programs, how I visit local schools, how I develop educational materials that are sent to classes before their visits, how I recruit and train volunteers and coordinate their shifts, how because it’s a small museum I also research and plan exhibits and update our collections management software and assist with event coordination…

“So you’re basically a tour guide,” he scoffed, then turned and left my office, judging me obviously unfit to answer his important query, which was probably about where the bathrooms were located.

Reader, I saw red. Is this how my job is perceived? I wonder what this man would think curators do, or registrars, or conservators, or development specialists? I shudder to think. “They spend all day wasting my tax dollars reading, or they paste broken things together, which my 3 year old could do. “ Ugh. Fortunately this man isn’t the person approving our grant applications, but he is the “man on the street” to whom we must prove our value.

Museums aren’t the only institutions struggling with this. The Oak Brook Public Library is currently dealing with one of the most ignorant and hateful men on the street of all, a man who once “campaigned, successfully, against a plan to bring subsidized housing for seniors into town by declaring, ‘I don't want to live next to poor people. I don't want poor people in my town.’” He is absolutely gleeful at the prospect of the library shutting down. He doesn’t see its value, and doesn’t see why tax dollars should pay the salary of someone who spends their days “wiping tables and putting the books back on the shelves.” His charming words.

Teachers are also constantly proving their value. I used to work for the New York City Department of Education (and my father still works for them) and it’s always a struggle for city teachers to get compensation approaching that of other city workers, such as cops or firemen, despite the fact that the majority of them have more education than most cops or firemen. The usual explanation for this is that cops and firemen have more hazardous jobs than teachers, but my dad has had broken bones. I’ve been bitten. I know people who’ve been injured more seriously than either of us. Granted, these incidents didn’t occur with a general education population, but I will laugh in your face if you tell me that teachers don’t deserve to be paid for the hazards they face.

Erin Milbeck Wilcox recently pointed us towards the Teacher Salary Project, which points out that if teachers aren’t paid well they will take their talents elsewhere, and that’s not good for the future of America’s children. She suggests that perhaps museos can prove the importance of their societal contributions. After all, we educate the public too.

Teachers and librarians face similar struggles proving their value [1] but at least they have ubiquity on their sides. Schools are or have been a part of everyone’s life, and though not everyone uses libraries they are used more heavily and regularly than museums. Even I, a fairly regular museum patron, would put my library to museum usage ratio at around 5:1. Teachers have an additional leg to stand on, since there is always a shortage of qualified teachers somewhere. There is no shortage of museos, so the threat that we might walk out on the profession isn’t one that holds a lot of water. Besides, people who don’t see the value of museums aren’t going to care if a bunch of tour guides and glorified carpenters stop offering education programs or conserving paintings.

Museum outreach is focused more on getting people through the door: on showing them that there are interesting programs or exhibits at the museum that they might want to come see. But that doesn’t really change their perceptions about us. They might appreciate the programs or the exhibits, but that doesn’t mean they understand or appreciate the work or the expertise that go into them. That doesn’t mean they think our work is worthy of compensation. Remember, the man who deemed me a mere tour guide was a visitor. We understand that we educate the public and that we provide valuable services, but we’re not the ones that need convincing.

Do you work for a museum that tries to change people’s perceptions about the value of museums and of museos' contributions? Do you have any ideas for exhibits or programs or campaigns that would help the world to realize we’re not menial laborers? (Or worse, out of touch denizens of the ivory tower?)

[1] I am having trouble not turning this into a feminist rant about how the jobs that were typically the ones the little women were allowed to do are still viewed as less challenging. I think I deserve some kudos for staying mostly on track!

Museo: Origins and Evolution

2009-10-07T13:52:00.002-04:00

We started using the term Museo because the bartender at the Lansdowne did.

If you did Museum Studies at Leicester you know the Lansdowne. There are times of day (and night) when it doubles as the programme's lounge. We'd often descend en masse after a lecture or set up camp for a social and stay for hours. In addition to being a wordsmith, this particular phrase-coining bartender was also dating a girl on the course, so he knew all of our faces albeit not all of our names. When we went to the bar to order he'd ask "Museo?" and if we said yes he'd perhaps ~~mix our drinks a little stronger or fill our beer a little higher or extend the happy hour specials 15 minutes after they ended~~ of course do everything just as he was supposed to, in the most professional way possible. This is the closest that I have ever come to the Cheers experience.

In short, one of the earliest meanings of Museo was "one who is in this pub all the damn time."

After finishing our course, we found Museo was still a perfectly serviceable term, and certainly better than most other options. "Museum person" and "museum professional" are clunky as far as self-identifiers go; "muse" is taken; "museologist" is archaic. So Museo it was and Museo it is.

It also makes a good prefix. Pete over at New Curator recently came up with the term "Museopunk." (More here.) The basic idea is that the most enthusiasm and the freshest ideas are coming from those on the fringes of the museum world: the recent graduates, the volunteers, those who are fed up with the endless funding cycles and the prioritizing of objects over people. As Pete wrote, it's "about the community over profit margins."

We feel like we're Museopunks here at Museos Unite (today I'm even wearing a plaid flannel shirt! Or is that grunge?). If you find yourself drawn to the concept you can chime in over at New Curator or even join the Museopunk social network at http://museopunk.ning.com/.

Future Lab

2009-09-21T13:50:00.002-04:00

Museos Unite is very interested to learn about a site called "FutureLab" that aims to bring together non-profit freethinkers to figure out what the heck is wrong with things, and how things should look in 2020. (That's just 11 years away, folks. We better get moving.)

Anyway, we've joined up. We suggest you do as well. Let's put our heads together a solve this thing!

And our ranks will grow…

2009-09-14T23:10:00.002-04:00

Kirsten hinted in her last post that I had some fun data to share. Well, I am not quite finished, but it is interesting even in these early stages.

I was wondering how many people graduate each year with a museum studies degree vs. how many entry level jobs come out a year. I think that the supply-demand relationship may be one of the biggest hurdles to our overcoming the much-too-little pay scenario.

So, first, I present the data for the USA, since degree types are delineated so clearly by the very useful National Center for Education Statistics. Data is for 1992-2007 graduation years, as that is what is available.

If it is hard to see, please comment and I will post again elsewhere.

Basically, in 1992 we had 67 grads, in 2007 we had 226. Mind you, this only counts degrees awarded in the USA, not including US citizens who got Museo degrees abroad. It also does not include people who got related degrees, it is just “Museum Studies.” No offence, I am just trying to illustrate a point.

So I am not going to do any fancy statistical analysis on this baby, mostly because I cannot for the life of me remember how to do a chi square test. I leave that up to my more sophisticated readers. What I will say is that I did a quasi statistical thing and put in the trendlines for the data, one being linear and one being exponential.

At the rate we are going, if we assume linear growth, in 10 years from this data (2017) there will be 319 degrees awarded that year. (If you want to assume exponential growth, there would be 468 degrees awarded. I am going to avoid assuming exponential growth because that seems impossible.)

I wish I had data on how many of 2007’s 226 grads are gainfully employed in musuems. I don’t. All I know is, in 2008 AND in 2009, there were probably another ~230 Museos per year added to the pack. That means 460 more on top of the 2180 Museos shown on that graph above that represents 16 years.

Approx. 2,640 Museos added to the job market since 1992, joining in the competition with thousands of non-Museum-Studies grads, long-time volunteers and interns, and career-changers for the same jobs.

With that number in front of you, is it any wonder that museums can get away with offering $20,000/yr salaries at this point?

Artists Without Mortarboards: Should Museum Studies Go Guerrilla?

2009-09-13T11:53:00.003-04:00

I got very excited while reading this article from the New York Times, Artists Without Mortarboards, about a guerrilla art school that has sprung up in response to the proliferation of M.F.A. degrees. It seems the art world is dealing with some of the same problems as the museum world (though of course in some respects they are different branches of the same world). The similarities are kind of eerie. I've taken the liberty of editing two of the first paragraphs to demonstrate:

The professionalization and academicization of the ~~art~~ museum world has been lamented for some years, but lately they have become epidemic. The recent ~~inflated art market~~ halfway acceptable museum job market has created the illusion that being ~~an artist~~ a museo is a financially viable calling. Meanwhile ~~art schools and~~ universities — which often provide tenure (safe haven) for ~~artists~~ museos who may be taken seriously nowhere else — expanded to accommodate the rising number of ~~art~~ Museum Studies students and are now thoroughly invested in keeping these numbers high.
In this context the growing interest among ~~art schools and~~ universities (mostly abroad so far) in offering a Ph.D. in ~~art~~ Museum Studies makes the blood run cold. It also seems like rank, even cynical commercial opportunism. It’s too soon to tell, but I’d like to think that the economic downturn is doing serious damage to this trend and maybe even put budding artists off graduate school entirely.

Of course the final sentence is where the art worlds and the world of museum studies seem to diverge. As more potential museos find themselves excluded from the job market (oftentimes because they don't possess an advanced degree) they're applying to museum studies programs in droves, ultimately going into debt and still not finding employment thanks to this glorious economy of ours.

The problem of museum studies programs is too big to tackle right here, and has been gone over with a fine tooth comb many, many times. All of the proposed solutions are either unfair to museum studies graduates, whose degrees would be rendered useless; to long-time museos nearing retirement; or to new museos looking to catch a break. The reality of the situation is that museums or museum standards associations, by taking a definitive view on museum studies programs, whatever that view might be, would end up alienating a sizable percentage of their biggest allies and supporters. I think they realize this. I think that's why--however heated the museum studies debate gets--we haven't seen the Museums Association or the American Association of Museums attach a firm value to an advanced museum degree.

But this leaves us back where we started: with a problem. There are too many museum studies programs producing too many graduates (I think Kat has some graphs for you, because like so many other museum-related facts and figures this bizarrely hasn't been quantified before). But how do you discourage universities from starting new museum studies programs? There is a demand, and where there is a demand there is money. If there is money universities are going to run the programs. The only proposals I've seen for decreasing demand involve declaring M.A. programs worthless, thus contributing to the aforementioned alienation and, frankly, the loss of some highly skilled, valuable employees.

But what about providing alternatives? What if the university cash cow museum studies degree wasn't the only valid option? Would it be possible to form guerrilla museum studies collectives, such as the Bruce High Quality Foundation University? This simultaneously affirms the value of education and, if the quality of instruction was high enough and the cost low enough, draws students away from the clutches of the cash cow university systems. We're museos! We know all about the value of alternative learning environments. This should be doable. It also ties back to one of Kat's earlier assertions: if museums are going to expect people to volunteer for an extended period of time PLUS have a degree to earn the right to paid employment, then the museums should be footing the bill for those degrees. A collective of museums teaming up to offer a variety of courses to their volunteers (resulting in an accredited degree) seems like a viable option.

Can we crowd-source a pros/cons list? I know there are downsides galore, but I think with a little creative thinking an open-source, guerrilla museum studies program should be possible.

Happy Labor Day, from Museos Unite

2009-09-07T13:23:00.002-04:00

Happy Labor Day US museos. We've been too lazy to labor by bringing you relevant news and links, but we have been accumulating them! And we will share them! Soon!

In the meantime enjoy your day, whether you're off work or laboring to share the riches of your museums with the public.

Comments from Jenna

2009-08-27T09:12:00.003-04:00

Our good friend Jenna, a staffer at the NHM in London, tried to comment to yesterday's post but couldn't get the site to work properly. I'm just passing along her two cents (pence?) on the civil service situation in the UK:

"In response to the article about federal workers, I thought it might be
interesting to note that the opposite is true in the UK - civil service jobs
often pay less than the private sector, and raises have not been in line with
inflation and cost of living increases. Here's a link from the civil service
union: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/media-myths-about-civil-and-public-services/ "

Morning Link Roundup : 26 August 2009

2009-08-26T09:46:00.002-04:00

We haven't had one of these recently (we haven't had much of anything, really) but the rest of the museum community hasn't been quite as lax in their blogging.

It's Not About Adaptation, It's About Revolution - MJ Writes tackles a lot of the same things Kat did in an earlier post, but MJ did it first. I'm sure most people following these conversations have already read MJ's post, but if not, here it is. She has some great ideas.

55 Low-Resource Ways for Museums to Connect with the Community - Coleen Dilenschneider's follow up to the post above. Even more great ideas! In an ideal world museums would function a lot more like libraries, providing community resources and serving as meeting places.

The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide - The IMLS provides a fairly thorough breakdown of the elements that are pertinent to the future of museums (and libraries!) in the United States and beyond. I'll let Kat explain the details when she gets a chance, but we're going to try and have these conversations. Kind of like a book club!

Why Do Federal Workers Make So Much Money? - Income in the private sector hasn't increased with the cost of living. Income for government workers has. Not the best analysis ever, but interesting.

And lastly, a link that made me laugh out loud: The Grand and Secret Order of Museum People -The Attic proposes a museos oath. I love it, partially because I went to an undergraduate institution where we took our traditions and secret ceremonies very seriously, and partially just because the idea of museums--which are continuously striving to be more egalitarian--having a secret handshake makes me giggle.

Museum Job: $204,000 a year. No lie.

2009-08-24T15:23:00.006-04:00

I am sure that many of you have seen this posting for a Project Director/Museum Developer in Abu Dhabi. Salary is quoted at $204,000

Now, I know that there are many reasons that Abu Dhabi features HIGH salaries for jobs. I do not want to discuss those elements of the equation today.

Instead, I ask: Which of you would sign up for 3 years in a foreign country--one VERY different than the one you are used to--in order to make that much money? I am sure it would be a very interesting position. In three years, you could make more money working in museums than you could hope to make in 10-15 years here.

And if many people are willing to leave the US in order to make more money working in museums, isn't the USA shooting itself in the foot here? Bring on the continued brain drain.

Morning Links: 18 August 2009

2009-08-18T08:55:00.002-04:00

Short one this morning, folks.

The Museum Bubble - Via Kat, via Julianne Snider. Good article from Artnet about the art museum bubble and what happened when it popped. Much of what Ben Davis writes about art museums is applicable to other types of museums too, particularly his commentary on how the souring economy has affected large institutions vs. small ones.

On Those "Entitled" Twenty Somethings - A reaction to the dismissal of the employment concerns of twenty somethings as the whinging of the entitled perpetual adolescent.

I will leave you with this, in lieu of a plea for links: Kat and I were discussing the fragmentary nature of web dialogue, particularly pertaining to museums. It's difficult to come to any firm conclusions or make meaningful changes in the status quo if everyone's portion of the same conversation is scattered on their various websites and blogs. While web dialogue is great it definitely limits those who can participate in it because it does require a large, real-time investment of effort. It also excludes less web-savvy members of the old guard from the conversation. As Museos Unite we'd naturally like to get everyone together, but this presents its own logistical difficulties. We're kicking some ideas around, the most sensible of which looks to be a mixture of web and in-person dialogue. Do you have any other solutions to suggest?

Morning Links : 17 August 2009

2009-08-17T09:01:00.002-04:00

I guess it's because of the recession, but more articles about nonprofit employment seem to be focusing on the non-monetary rewards people are seeking in their occupations. One of these rewards is flexibility, which is definitely something I value highly. Do you find your museum job flexible in terms of hours and days? What other rewards do you seek in lieu of financial compensation? Do you reap these rewards sufficiently to make low museum salaries "worth it" to you? I ask because a) I mostly think people are kidding themselves and being a bit high and mighty when they claim this and b) because I'm genuinely curious what the breakdown of opinions is. I find that when I talk to people in person the opinions are more colorful than they've been on the internet. I don't know if this is a demographics question, or if people are just more reluctant to sound negative in a traceable medium. What say you, Museos?

A Job Suffused With Meaning? Bring It On! - A comparison of the values of Gen Y and the Baby Boomers.

Low Salaries Hold Charities Back, Author Argues - This article is hilarious for the way it pities the poor sod making a mere $86K because he chose to work for a nonprofit, but the rest of it is right on target.

AAM 2009 Emerging Museum Professionals Survey Results - A good demographic breakdown of the field as it will exist for a couple of decades, barring a brain-drain. Look at all these bright young things looking for entry-level employment! Please pay them a living wage.

This is your one-note broken record signing off. Let me know anything I've missed.

Love What You Do AND Get Paid!

2009-08-14T14:39:00.001-04:00

I don’t like when “but if you love what you’re doing, isn’t it all worth it?” is used as a defense of (or at least a dismissal of) low wages. You’re not saying it in so many words, but what you’re implying is “You don’t love museums enough. You don’t love them as much as I do.” As far as I’m concerned no one’s enthusiasm for their chosen career is in question here. You can be an extremely passionate, talented artist, but that doesn’t mean your art is going to pay the bills. Fortunately for these “starving artist” types art can be done at any hour of the day, and they can still get 9-5 jobs to pay the bills. Museos do not have this option. Museum work has to be done during the normal 9-5 work day. Sometimes (often) it goes longer than that, but that doesn’t make the hours flexible. It doesn’t mean you can do museum work fueled entirely by passion and talent. That 9-5 job (museums) has to pay the bills. It has to. There isn’t another option.

Museum workers are people, not just cogs in the museum machine. Passion is important. No one has claimed it isn’t, but passion doesn’t put food on the table or pay the rent. Arguing for more passion amongst museum workers is, from what I’ve seen, like saying we need more love of food amongst chefs, or that librarians should be a bit more enthusiastic about books. People are passionate. That isn’t what the problem is. Stop dismissing the problem on those terms.

One solution (or at least stop-gap) for the salary problem is that organizations that post job listings can take a stand and refuse to list jobs below a certain salary threshold. I believe the University of Leicester Jobs Desk did this several years ago when the national museums in the UK were offering very low starting wages. If jobs clearinghouses worked this into their stated policies perhaps there would be less of an inclination to stiff employees. Or perhaps more employers would try to get around it by not listing a salary. What do you think?

Museos Defined

2009-08-14T13:43:00.002-04:00

Just to clear up any and all confusion:

Museo (n., english) - any person who is working in, volunteering in, or seeking to work in a museum. Person interested in collaborating to make a change in how museums are run for the betterment of the museos' situation in regards to pay, benefits, and professional development.

Museos Unite (n., english) - blog dedicated to mental collaboration among museos, aiming to improve the situation for any and all museos in regards to pay, benefits, and professional development.

Less Money, More Problems

2009-08-14T10:45:00.004-04:00

It is very reassuring to see that the thought-path that my brain is following along is simultaneously being followed by lots of other museum freethinkers. Excellent! That must mean that we are all on the right track. (This post by New Curator and the excellent comments are heading towards the same topic...)

As I continued thinking about the major problems museums are facing, I realized that we are looking at the problem from the wrong end. We, as the unemployed or underemployed, are wondering why we aren't being offered more money.

And we know the answer: there's no money in museums.

So if only we could get museums to have more money, then all of these problems would go away. (easier said...) But, of course, first we have to figure out a way to translate the resources that museums have into cold hard cash. If we can solve this dilemma, then we will be sorted!

(NB: in this post, I am purposefully going to propose some pretty "out there" ideas. Please feel free to get all up-in-arms or up in my grill. Or just all up in the comments section.)

------------------------

First, a list of current problems (by no means exhaustive. Also obvious to all of us):

1. People are going through lots of school (time and money) to get a master's degree. They come out with a degree and cannot find a job that pays enough to offset cost of time/money investment, or a job at all.

2. Not enough jobs (the BIG problem).

3. Heavy reliance on volunteers.

4. People with jobs are expected to work many hours and play many roles.

5. Lots of red tape prevents employees from making changes

6. Museums have terrible opening hours if they intend to attract a wide audience. Most people are in work during those hours.

7. Museums are really competing with each other for resources (both money and visitors), regardless of how much they claim to be collaborating.

...please add to list in comments...

Looking at these issues, we can see that it all comes back to not having enough money. While museums may not be rich in an economic sense, they have endless wealth in other areas. Museums must turn these unique resources into money, and must RETHINK how they have been doing this for centuries.

The person who can come up with how to do this will change the entire meaning of the word "museum." Perhaps together we can figure out a way to solve this problem.

Museum resources (forgive the simplicity in my wording):

1. Objects. Museums have really neat, old stuff that has been well taken care of. People never get to see this stuff in person. If it had not been kept safe by museums, it would either be gone or in bad condition.

2. Records and "intangibles" (knowledge and oral history, etc). Museums have endless knowledge in records and memory, much of which is not widely dispersed.

3. Space. Many museums have awesome buildings and interior spaces, also with accompanying green space that can be unique in urban areas.

4. Experts (research end). Museums have brilliant people who are experts in specific fields.

5. Experts (museo

end). Museums bring together experts from various specialities (educators, designers, programming coordinators, writers, etc) all working towards a common goal.

...please add to list in comments...

Translate resources to money:

This is where I start going a bit "out there" by listing every possible method. I know some of these are unethical or impractical as we understand them now, but perhaps if we can think outside the box, there are ways to make them work ethically and practically.

Resource 1: Objects

-Sell some objects.

----to other museums?

----to individuals?

----to countries what want them back (repatriation for pay, if country can afford it)?

-Loan objects at a price.

----to individual collectors for short times?

-Copy and sell copies of objects

----this is already done to an extent, but generally the copies either look fake and are affordable, or look really good and are way too expensive. People want to take the experience home! Why don't we let them?

-Charge to experience objects

----this is already done too. Unfortunately, this seems to be the way museums are alienating potential visitors the MOST. Who wants to pay $15-25 to go to a museum these days?

----could museums join together (GASP! collaboration) to make group tickets? Many cities have a city pass. Could there be a "museum pass" by state? Could AAM or another group (museum start-up, Pete?) facilitate this? Would it even benefit museums financially?

-Use objects in other media: movies, TV, books, etc. Must be MAINSTREAM if they hope to make any money at all. Must "sell out" so to speak and tap into mainstream audience. Perhaps loan objects (or rights and licensing to object image) as props or stories for movies, books, TV?

Resource 2: Records and "intangibles"

-not really sure what to do with these, other than "movies, TV, books" comment above. Suggestions welcome

Resource 3: Space

-This is already done to an extent, too (however, from many comments I have heard personally, exorbitant cost and special requirements like limited choices once the space is in use might turn people off from using space)

-Museum bars?

-Museum night clubs?

-Are there other things other than parties, weddings, etc that a museum can host? Something that is both cool and educational and would attract a large audience willing to pay a lot? To get really controversial, let's suggest: POLITICAL RALLIES. Discuss.

Recource 4 and 5: Experts, both on research end and museo end

-Some museums sell design skills and exhibits. Can we sell more of these skills? Museums should be seen as the best place to go for any of these things. While I understand that a person who is employed by the museum has their first priority to do inside work, could there be a separate division? (Some large institutions do this already.)

And now for the most controversial statement yet. Please kick up a fuss, or I will be disspointed:

There are a finite number of resources (both money and audience) for museums as they are now. Unless museums make a huge change, then I argue that small museums should have to join with a larger "parent" museum to share resources. Enter: the meglomuseum of the future! (NB: I would rather museums could solve this problem and keep individual autonomy, but I still don't think it is sustainable as people become increasingly reliant on technology. More on this later.)

Morning Link Roundup : 14 August 2009

2009-08-14T09:02:00.002-04:00

Internet Museum Scholars, I am terribly impressed with the quality of your posts and the tenor of the dialogue.

Talkin' Museum Studies Blues - Another opinion on the status of the museum studies debate. Some good points, many that I agree with and some (surprise!) that I don't. It is always nice to read museum studies success stories, though.

Where are Museum Studies Graduate Programs Going Wrong? - Colleen Dilen talks about the pervasiveness of low salaries in the nonprofit sector, museum studies programs' confusion over their status as an academic or a professional degree (and the ensuing confusion for their students), and Gen Y's general valuation of a life/work balance over money.

Notes on the Museum Studies Discussion - A great summary of arguments by New Curator. I especially like the way he explains the routes into museum work.

Museunions - New Curator post on some of the pros and cons of a museum workers union, making some productive points.

How J. Peterman Treated Me After 8 Years of Service - A reminder that employment issues like the ones we're dealing with are not unique to the nonprofit sector, and in fact are probably more common in the for-profit world.

I'm feeling a little burned out so I'm taking the rest of the day off blogging. I won't be poking around the internet looking for links for the weekend, so if there's anything you want to draw my attention to you'll really have to leave a comment.

Coming up: an entry from Kat about the root of THE problem.

Food for Thought - Unionization and the Technology Sector

2009-08-13T15:04:00.004-04:00

Found via some keyword searching after reading one of this morning's links. Many of the challenges of unionizing museum workers are the same as the challenges of unionizing tech workers.:

"Forty years ago, nearly one private-sector worker in three belonged to a
union. Today, that number has dwindled to around 10 percent and there's little
to suggest that a revival is nigh. Although unions remain fairly strong in the
blue-collar world, that world is shrinking. (Can you say "technology"?)
Consequently, labor unions don't wield the political clout they used to.
It's sad to see the anemic state of organized labor in this country today. Worse, it
kills me to admit that, to a large degree, the erosion of the labor movement is
the fault of the unions themselves. Their refusal or inability to change with
the times, to keep the movement relevant in the face of globalization and the
digital conversion -- the so-called new economy -- has been disastrous.
Disastrous, I might add, for union members and nonunion workers
alike. Just as the Democratic Party has largely ceded the battlefield to
Republican stridency in recent years, so, too, has organized labor wilted before
an economy where the unrestrained market rules all. The result is unsurprising:
The rich get richer, the shareholder is valued more than the employee, jobs are
eliminated in the name of bottom-line efficiency (remember when they called
firing people "right-sizing"?) and the gulf between the rich and the working
class grows wider every year.

You see this libertarian ethos everywhere, but nowhere more clearly
than in the technology sector, where the number of union jobs can be counted on
one hand. Tech is the Wild West as far as the job market goes and the robber
barons on top of the pile aim to keep it that way. They'll offshore your job to
save a few bucks or lay you off at the first sign of a slump, but they're the
first to scream, "You're stifling innovation!" at any attempt to control the
industry or provide job security for the people who do the actual work."
- Wired

Morning Link Roundup: 13 August 2009

2009-08-13T09:03:00.005-04:00

We've got an interesting smattering of links this morning, tying the idea of unionization a bit closer to the ongoing debate about Museum Studies graduate programs.

Questioning Assumptions: The Future of Education - A new post from the CFM. It's mostly about the integration of digital technologies into educational practice (not just museum education or museum studies education, but across the board), but there's a brief mention of unionization at the beginning, and whether or not the AAM would be the ideal organization to head these efforts. Kat and I discussed this briefly and can see some of the pros and cons (future post!), but for now will just say welcome to the discussion AAM.

More Thoughtful Learning: How Professional Development Through Social Media Can Strengthen Cultural Institutions - This is not really about graduate programs specifically, but more about useful, accessible (via social media) forms of professional development. Food for thought re: the future of museum professionalization. Recommended by James.

Can software developers form an 'open source' union? - This is from 2003 and it has nothing to do with museums, but 'open source' is one of the main models of unionization I think might have a chance at working for museos, and this is one of the only summaries of this type of union I could locate. I know the Freelancer's Union is also considered open source, but theirs is a union based primarily on group insurance rates rather than any sort of bargaining or standards setting. Once again, more union information and discussion will be forthcoming in future posts.

Amy commented over at New Curator that many of the salary and market saturation issues we're upset about seem to be more of a problem Stateside than they currently are in the UK, thanks to some regulations put in place by the Museums Association, so we're also looking into the state of things (typical degree costs, starting salaries, unionization options etc) in the US vs. the UK. Perhaps we will make an exciting graph! People love graphs, right?

As usual, if you know of anything else we should be reading please give us a shout.

Food for Thought - A Typical Museum Studies Graduate

2009-08-12T13:03:00.009-04:00

"Food for Thought" entries will be brief quotes, snippets of larger conversations, facts and figures, etc.

The issues being discussed on this blog obviously affect more people than just graduates of Museum Studies programs, but because the Museum Studies vs. other graduate degrees vs. no graduate degree debate is so closely tied to the issues of salaries and expectations, this is relevant to the overall decision to unionize or not unionize.

"Here is my description of the stereotypical graduate of a museum studies
program in the western part of the country: A smart young woman, armed with lots
of generalized knowledge about museums and how they should be, taught by
university professors, some of whom have never worked in a museum in the real
world. As a member of the emerging generation, she wants to be in charge right
away, figuring that her studies were enough dues to pay and that traditional
starting roles would be both boring and low paying. She is fortunate enough,
through connections, to find a job as director of the local historical society
in East Jesus, Texas. She has a 1,000 sf museum complete with a two-headed calf
and the baptismal clothing of the first white child born there. She has a
volunteer secretary and no other help, while the board of 25 people is made up
of 70+ year olds, all of them very conservative. Besides the challenges of
improving the museum, she finds that there are very few people of either sex her
age with whom to be friends or even acquaintances. She starts looking at the AAM
job site after her first month on the job, hoping to spin herself up to the next
higher circle of hell in a larger city. She might also consider going back for
another advanced degree in social sciences."
- LVIP

Morning Link Roundup: 12 August 2009

2009-08-12T09:30:00.001-04:00

As several people have noted, the conversation about museum salaries, museum sustainability, and the value of an advanced degree for museum employment is an ongoing one. Here are several things we're reading today, or that we've read recently:

Where the Boys Aren't - The AAM Center for the Future of Museums ponders whether or not low museum salaries are tied to an overwhelmingly female workforce.

More on the Future of Museum Studies - A conversation on improving museum studies graduate programs, also from the CFM.

Design in Museum Studies - A blog featuring "Comments from June 22nd's discussion on the future of museums and what a Museum Studies Program at Parsons/Cooper-Hewitt can do to benefit future museum professionals."

We're also dabbling in a bit of research about open source unions and how other countries (namely the UK) have dealt with the problems posed by low wages.

Anything else that we should be reading? Leave a comment!

Are Museums Sustainable?

2009-08-11T22:18:00.000-04:00

Forgive us if we don't have a cohesive strategy or even a unified blogging "voice" just yet. Right now this blog is a mix of people with a mix of ideas, trying to milk even more ideas and voices from the ether of the Internet. Please make yourself heard in the comments, because so far I've seen interesting points raised here and elsewhere.

The biggest bogeyman facing museums is, as always, a lack of funding. There might be plenty of functions that a museum needs performed, but there is insufficient money to pay the ideal number of people to do it. This leaves museums with three options:

Add additional functions to the job descriptions of current employees.

Plus: Free
Minus: Overworked employees.

Have interns or volunteers perform job functions

Plus: Free
Minus: Often a lack of consistency due to high turnover
Minus: Destructive effect on overall museum economy, from a worker's perspective.
Minus: Is it sustainable? See below.

Hire someone for the new position, but with a very low starting salary.

Plus: Inexpensive.
Plus: Qualified individual who can devote full 40 hours a week to the task.:
Minus: Destructive effect on overall museum economy, from a worker's perspective.
Minus: Hinders, rather than helps, diversity in the museum field. See below.

My opinion on this might differ from Kat's, (or Maya's, or Jenna's, or yours) but I think part of the reason to organize is to discourage people from taking the poorly paid posts, because this hurts everyone in the long run. The acceptable "entry level" salary for a major US metropolitan area used to be between $32-36K. Recently there have been a spate of museums that seem to think $20K is now an acceptable entry level salary. And if they are able to find qualified, competent people to work for that rate then they are 100% right.

There are a finite amount of jobs and no, as far as I can see organizing won't fix that. It's not a magical elixir. In fact I don't really see how a museum union could coerce museums to offer decent wages, insurance, etc. As KLandon mentioned in her comment on the last post, forcing museums to pay a certain minimum wage could potentially make the number of employment opportunities shrink, particularly in small museums. I'm not sure we're looking at a typical bargaining organization here, especially with such a wide variety of museum types and sizes and differing regional needs.

What a union (and perhaps I am using the term loosely) can do is raise awareness of various issues that affect museum workers: an advocacy organization. If we value ourselves and our time insufficiently, we can't expect our employers to pay well for our services.

Which brings me to the title of this post: are museums sustainable? I don't mean can the conditions in your object store be maintained for hundreds of years, or whether or not anyone will care about your collection of rubber ducks twenty years from now. I mean the most important resource museums have, their people. Is the way museums handle staffing sustainable in the long-term? If it isn't, museums themselves can't be sustainable institutions.

Pete of New Curator calls the extreme reliance on volunteers in museums "not healthy" and "not sustainable," noting that "Any other model relying this heavily on unpaid labour is normally illegal or doomed to failure. Can you imagine a magazine not paying its writers? Or a television program not paying it’s production team? What kind of quality are we to expect?"

The same can be said for heaping extra responsibilities on extant employees. While I'm sure some bear up admirably under the pressure, burnout is inevitable, especially when extra responsibility isn't compensated.

As for lower salaries, most discussions I've heard seem to come back to the idea that there's no reason to hire people with advanced degrees if they're going to demand these fancy "living wage" salaries. (A reason for unionization if there ever was one.) We can train local people from community colleges instead! Involving people from the community is a good and noble idea. They should be involved in the day to day life of the museum. But what happens when you're offering a $20K/year salary? Who do you think is taking those jobs? Who do you think is doing several years of unpaid volunteer work just to possibly one day get those jobs? It's not the psych major from the local community college, it's a rich kid living on mommy and daddy's dime. This does not contribute to diversity in the museum field.

Sigh. Oh well. Unless the money situation at museums changes, it looks like museums are not sustainable. Damn and blast...

I don't believe this for one second. What's unsustainable are museum employment practices. The question remains: what should we do about it?

I'm sure I've jumped all over the place and left out about a dozen salient points, so please chime in and make those points yourselves!

The start of the employment conversation

2009-08-11T16:12:00.000-04:00

In response to this post by New Curator, Pete, I wrote a pair of proposals.

I would now like to address Pete's response to my comment.

Proposal 1: Standardizing Museum Studies (aka, standard test or application for all incoming workers)

Pete responds to this proposal with, "Something I’m entertaining in my mind is for Museum Studies programs to act as the interview and recruitment departments for museums."

In the case of my Museum Studies program, this actually happened already. We were filtered directly into museums for our internships. Unfortunately, most of the students who had those 2 month internships were not then offered jobs at these institutions. So the museums saw applications from us, and in some cases interviewed us as well, while we were still in the program. The reality was that there were not any jobs when we finished in Sept 2008.

Our proposition is to create a better way for museums to filter applications. Granted, if there are no jobs to be had, having the best filtering process in the world does not help.

Proposal 2: Unionizing Museum Workers

Pete responds to this proposal with, "I don’t know. I like the idea of a group to institute change but I’m not keen on power politics. As I notice with most museum membership organisations, they tend to benefit the few or are under constant threat of becoming irrelevant. I suppose it would be how such a union would be set up. Again, I don’t know if it would provide more positives."

Of course, we would not want the union to create any more political issues. Museums are already chock-full of bureaucracy. We don't need any more. What we do need is to give enough money to the museum's workers to make it worth ~6 years of higher education (in the USA) to get to work in a museum. Somehow, that debt has to be paid off. And living paycheck to paycheck is not that way.

I'd like to thank Pete for his initial post, as well as his follow up to my comments. Please continue the conversation in the comments here.

Museos Unite!

2009-08-11T15:05:00.000-04:00

This blog is hereby dedicated to ending the tyranny of low (or nonexistant) wages for the highly skilled graduates of museum studies programs.

Viva la revolucion!