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.
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:
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.
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…
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.
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.
