Five Reasons that Museums are Radical Spaces
Museums often hold diverse collections. Think of the Royal Ontario Museum whose holdings include dinosaurs, building columns, and moccasins in one collection. Accusations of privilege and elitism are regular criticism of museums as making museum more old guard than future leaning. Museums have acquisition policies and hierarchy, certainly, but even anarchists need to organize …
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Social Media Tips for Interns
We were talking in the office about interns and social media. Here are some of the thoughts I brought to that conversation. Social media can be a powerful tool for connecting, potentially scaffolding for future job acquisition and fulfillment. It can also be a means for future challenges with job acquisition. So, a little guidance …
Thinking about Numbers: Playing with the IMLS Data Set
IMLS timed their release of the data on the numbers of museums well. It came just as thousands of museum professionals were playing hooky from their day jobs in sunny Seattle. The numbers sparks a few interesting cocktail conversations, certainly. And, for the number nerds, it was fun to play with on the long planes …
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When museums are run like Downtown Abbey…
After spending hours of research watching and rewatching Downton Abbey (and over a decade of research working in museum), I can’t help but see uncanny similarities between museum organization structures and the hit PBS show. The Abbey The museum, like the manor, is more than a structure, and frankly is more than the collections it …
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Enter the Interns
It happens every spring. The snow dissipates. Flowers come into bloom. And, the gaggles of summer interns appear at museum doors throughout the country. This is a little note for the interns and their supervisors. Dear Supervisors, please remember Slavery was not right then and isn’t now. Internship is not slavery! An intern is not …
Meeting Needs…
A thoughtful person asked me today if all museums worked this way. By this way, she meant with long stretches of meetings marked by legislative decision-making, interspersed with back-door conversations, and then short forays into actual work. Museums are a bit like universities in that they are presided over and populated by academics, often people …