Its’ Who You Know

Its’ Who You Know – Ideas to Help Emerging Museum Professionals

So you’ve just completed your degree – a B.A. or M.A. in history, public history, museum studies, or the like. You find yourself in the museum world trying to find and keep a job, and steering through the sometimes treacherous waters of the non-profit field during a time of economic strife. Nothing to it, right?

During your time as a student, intern, and early years as a paid staff person, you belong to a very particular group in the museum profession: the emerging professionals (EMPs).
You wear many hats and your job title does not begin to describe the range of tasks you face on a daily basis. Coursework in history, collections management, and exhibit development were essential to your professional growth, and yet they didn’t quite cover all the questions that pop up day-to-day at work. So, where do you go from here – to look for advice and continued learning opportunities? The answers are closer than you think.

For someone new to the museum field, it really is all in who you know. As in most professional fields, networking is a tremendously important part of working in museums. And at a time when budgets for professional development opportunities are the first on the chopping block, free advice and discussion is more important than ever.

Luckily, in an age of burgeoning technology there are abundant resources out there, often for free. For starters, the American Association of Museums (AAM) has made it part of its mission to reach out to emerging professionals. The organization’s standing professional committees – from Audience Research and Evaluation to the Registrar’s Committee – operate listserves, where through a quick email you can survey a wide range of professionals on questions about your institution. How can you attract younger audiences? What are some inexpensive ways to build shelving for your collections in storage? How do you deal with abandoned cultural property? What are the newest developments in historic house museums? You name it; someone on these lists can answer it. Even better, AAM sponsors emerging professional fellowships to attend their annual meeting and other professional development events.

And on the flip side, if you’re looking for other younger folks in the field and you are a fan of social networking sites (who isn’t these days?), AAM has pages on Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn aimed at connecting you with other museum professionals who have been in the field for 5 years or less.

If you want to search for something a little more local and less intimidating, regional and statewide museum associations are a great resource. Google (everyone’s best friend) can help you to find these groups in your area. These smaller organizations provide chances for younger members to take on leadership roles – helping to plan conference sessions, workshops, and other events. Taking on positions of leadership can lead to solid connections in the field and is a good way to develop the “professional affiliations” section of your resume. In addition, most offer excellent Mentor Programs, which match you with a seasoned professional who works in a similar job (ex. Collections management, development, or administration). For an example, check out information on SEMC’s Mentor Program HERE.

Added bonus: If you are looking for jobs in a particular region of the country, regional conferences can be a great way to meet folks from that area and network in the months before you graduate! A quick list of all the regional organizations:

Mountain Plains Association
Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums
Southern Museums Conference
New England Museum Association
Western Museums Association

Like AAM, most regional and state conferences also offer scholarships and fellowships to new professionals for attendance at annual meetings. SEMC will host a panel discussing this very topic -- resources for EMPs -- at the regional conference in October 2009.

Finally, the importance of networking with the other museum professionals right in your own backyard cannot be stressed enough! Many of us work in towns and cities that boast a few museums, historic sites, libraries, and perhaps even a college or university. Make a point to get to know the staff at these places -- they could very well become great colleagues and key sources for information. There is very little gain in local museums and historical associations competing with each other for resources. When institutions compete, it’s the visitors who ultimately lose. Getting to know your colleagues in the surrounding area is the first step toward collaboration and getting the most out of every dollar spent in cultural institutions for the benefit of the entire community.

In short, try to use the vast experience of others to help build your knowledge base and better your position in the field. Getting an early start in local or national organizations will give you an advantage in the job search and building collaborative networks that could result in great collaborative projects later on. If nothing else, the current economic situation has taught us that we should capitalize on collective strengths and resources to create the best possible museum experiences for visitors, as well as for staff members!

Post by Alexis Thompson, Director of Historic House Museums, Historic Columbia Foundation, Columbia, SC.

Do We Need Museum Studies Degrees?

I just pulled this latest blog post from an AAM facebook update (a quick and easy way to keep up with the organization, and to find "food for thought" articles on the museum field). The post itself poses some basic questions - and a few far out projections - about the system of public education in general. But the beginning and end question the necessity of formal programs in Museums Studies, the role of those programs in helping graduates secure jobs, and finally, questions whether or not AAM should work to raise salaries for these trained professionals (union??).

The post is short, and easy to digest. The highlights come in the form of other articles referenced. I enjoyed: "How Web-Savvy Edpunks Are Transforming American Higher Education"

I know the RC-listserv is always buzzing with questions about distance education programs in museums - as well as advertisements for webinars and online courses. So it does seem like this is the direction we're moving in, as a field. But is there ever a substitute for hands-on training? Do most folks feel that online opportunities give them the experience they will need to start a full-time job?

In times of economic strife, when cultural institutions are tightening belts and there is less money available to attend conferences and workshops, I would agree that online opportunities for continuing professional education are great. I'm a fan of webinars - cheap, easy, and often enlightening. But I can't imagine what my view of museums and my base of knowledge of best practices would have been without my training in public history and museums - in an on-site program.

A few questions for you grad students (and alumni of programs): How valuable is getting a graduate degree in museum studies? What about your program was valuable and only available in a real world, hands-on setting? Or, if you're in the process of getting a degree online -- what made you choose that path, and is it working for you?

Weigh in at will....

JQA Tweets...from the 1800's??

NY Times article on the Massachusetts Historical Society's latest endeavor -- "tweeting" John Quincy Adams's journal entries, each day for the next year. Click here for the article.

Seems like a simple but effective way to get a new audience thinking about collections....

Updates & Upcoming Events

Hi All!

So its been a while - i've been swamped at work, as have the folks that i've lured in as semi-regular contributors to this blog space. But I read a couple of great articles today that I thought I would pass on, AND I have a few cheap-but-interesting webinars to promote.

So, first the articles:

Nina Simon's latest blog post: "Eight Other Ways to 'Connect with Community'" -- She critiques a recent article from the Christian Science Monitor (found here) that talks about museums engaging new audiences. Interesting points, and her bullets for connection at the end are worth a read.

"At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus" -- an article circulated on the RC-AAM listserv yesterday; talks about why people visit museums -- good food for thought.

And now, some opportunities for inquiring minds in the field with tight budgets. AAM is offering discounted webinars on "museum essentials" at a pretty good price ($25/each) to members. Two coming up in September deal with visitors & interpretation:

Sept. 9th -- Planning for Exemplary Visitor Experiences

Sept. 23rd -- Audience Research and Evaluation: Why it Matters Now More Than Ever

So if you or your institution is a member, you can register and invite all the other folks in your area to come and webinar together. For more info, you can visit the AAM site here.

Well, thats all for now. More on the way soon! And hopefully more CVG projects coming with the start of the new school year at USC.

Telephone = Twitter???

Interesting blog post HERE from Brad Rourke, recounting some main ideas from his recent read of, "America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940." Although the book was published in the early 90s - before we knew much beyond bag phones - Rourke moves past the obvious comparisons to cell phones and onto seeing social media as the new telephone. Closing the post, Rourke suggests that things we now view as utilities (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) will eventually become second nature, and people will engage as regularly as they answer their cell phone.

My question: Aren't we already there? How many people check their Facebook page daily? Hourly? Or more often. Some would say we're already moving on to the next generation of these "new" social media tools. I mean, when does something like Twitter go from being cool and new to dated and boring? When everyone hops on the bandwagon, does a social media platform become obsolete -- or is it still a great way to deliver information quickly and connect to new audiences? Where is the tipping point.

Taking Deaccessioning Public

Through some exchanges on the RC listserv a few weeks ago, some registrars submitted blogs and websites from museums and museum employees across the country that are trying new tactics to make their collections more accessible to the public. Many are making their registration processes more transparent by describing what they do: how they pack & store collections, prepare an object for transport, or diagnose pest management problems. The idea is that visitors -- maybe not all, but some -- are genuinely interested in the nuts and bolts of collections management. And registrars are getting better at sharing their vast knowledge, as social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs spread like wildfire.

Now, one example of this transparency caught my eye -- the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This museum began a systematic review of their holdings in 2007 and has since moved forward with the laborious process of deaccessioning items. Although the museum is required to publicize proposed deaccessions in the newspaper (according to state law), IMA has taken this a step further and created a portion on their homepage dedicated to this process. The site provides the basics of this process & a searchable database of items proposed for deaccession, as well as those that have already been transfered (and fills you in on "where they are now").

My questions start with this: Is this the kind of transparency that more institutions need to adopt? And beyond that, is this an engagement technique which builds greater relationships with the public -- do visitors feel more connected through the exposure of this process? What kind of response has the museum had to this initiative? I'm curious -- so i'm looking to read more about this - but would love to know what others think....

Lecture on the Multi-Platform Museum

In case you missed it, Nina Simon's talk -- "Everyone's Smithsonian: The Multi-Platform Museum" happened yesterday afternoon and it was brilliant! Great food for thought. The speaker discussed audience needs & how museums (in this case, Smithsonian) can work to meet those needs. The beauty of the talk was that her suggestions could be applied to all kinds of cultural institutions & she gave great examples of museums across the county (and across the pond) who are engaged in new kinds of outreach work in social media.

So, just click here to see the archived webcast -- or here, to click through the slides from the presentation.