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Re: Museums and documents



I know TOO WELL of that which you speak!  There ARE standards for the
museum community, including accreditation through AAM.  The AASLH also does
a very good job with publications, technical briefs, workshops, etc., in
trying to teach collections care to the museum community.

The major problem is money.  In some museums the curatorial staff often are
docents or non-professionals doing several jobs at once.  Many of them are
assigned curatorial duties, not because of their interest or experience,
but because they are there.  Some have little or no professional training
and virtually no opportunity for training due to budget restraints.  Some
museums can barely pay salaries, much less provide funds for what is often
viewed as a "frivolous" expense for staff educational development.
Speaking from what I know of several museums in MY region money goes
primarily to keeping the lights on and other facility maintenance costs,
staff salaries & benefits, publicity, and exhibits, then collections care.
Again, speaking for activities in my region--most workshops, conferences,
etc., are at the state or national level and are held in Washington or on
the other side of the state--a minimum of 4 hours drive for many.  Again,
costs & loss of staff time are too precious for smaller museums.

I know from my own museum's history--which was largely a volunteer
operation for nearly half of its life--collections care, care of archival
collections, and even environmental control were not priorities until
professional staff were hired.  It all comes down to having $$$.

Have a great day!








At 09:00 AM 3/3/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Many museum curators seem not to understand the difference between documents
>and artifacts, nor the difference between archival and curatorial practice.
>Apart from preserving its own archives, is there a general feeling about the
>propriety of a museum collecting papers and records, as well as museum
>artifacts? Does the museum world have any ethical guidelines or standards
>about documents versus artifacts? As an archivist, I try very hard not to
>get into the museum business. Are museum curators likewise taught not to
>dabble in documents?
>
>Lee
>
>==--00--==
>
>Leon C. Miller, Manuscripts Librarian
>Special Collections, Jones Hall, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library
>Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118
>Ph: 504-865-5685, Fx: 504-865-5761
>Leon.Miller@tulane.edu
>http://www.tulane.edu/~lmiller/SpecCollHomepage.html
>
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>
Darlene Richardson
Historian & Archivist
Virginia Museum of Transportation, Inc.
303 Norfolk Avenue, SW
Roanoke, VA  24016
(540) 342-5670
Fax: (540) 342-6898

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>