Tell me about your museum job
December 21, 2022 11:11 AM Subscribe
You work in a museum or library special collections or similar—something having to do with the curation, cataloguing, conservation, etc. of important objects. What's your work like? What are the significant goals, obstacles, triumphs, and frustrations?
This is for something I'm writing (maybe)—not actually considering a move into the industry, so you don't have to convince me either way. And I promise I will do more research before putting any words down! Right now I need broad strokes for inspiration. Thank you!
This is for something I'm writing (maybe)—not actually considering a move into the industry, so you don't have to convince me either way. And I promise I will do more research before putting any words down! Right now I need broad strokes for inspiration. Thank you!
I am a curator of rare books and manuscripts at Harvard. My main responsibilities are to manage an annual acquisition budget for adding things to the collection; to help make decisions about cataloging, conservation, and digitization of materials in my department; to work with researchers and classes visiting the library to find the things they need; and to mount public exhibitions.
Special collections libraries are often intimidating to new users, with lots of rules and procedures they don't encounter elsewhere, along with a history of being elitist and exclusionary places that cultivated that intimidation to keep out the wrong sort. I am always eager to do outreach to new users to demystify the experience of visiting special collections, and to share my excitement about our collections and all the cool stuff we have that anyone can come look at. Occasionally I sit on the greeter's desk in our lobby, and it's very satisfying to welcome people who are visiting for the first time and hopefully to provide reassurance if they're feeling at all tentative about it.
My priority in new acquisitions is first and foremost to buy things that will be used, in research, teaching, or exhibition. As someone working for an institution that's been collecting for centuries, it's a major commitment of resources to acquire something that goes well beyond the purchase price of the book. That legacy of collecting is both an advantage and a burden: we have rare books now that the institution bought as new books 200 years ago. But also for the vast majority of our history, the collecting was done by white men for white men to use, and today's collection reflects that. (I am also a white man.) While it's important for us to continue to build on traditional areas of collecting strength, I want to expand the breadth of the collection in documenting the experiences of people who are underrepresented in it. A lot of libraries like mine formed a particular intention to do that in 2020, and it's notably affected the market for that kind of material--more competition and higher prices.
One thing that's frustrating is that even in 2022, we haven't ramped up our capacity to digitize material in proportion to the demand for it, which accelerated massively when we were closed during the pandemic, and is still elevated, so we're still running backlogs of several months. People assume I can just snap my fingers and get things digitized and that's not really the case.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:30 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Special collections libraries are often intimidating to new users, with lots of rules and procedures they don't encounter elsewhere, along with a history of being elitist and exclusionary places that cultivated that intimidation to keep out the wrong sort. I am always eager to do outreach to new users to demystify the experience of visiting special collections, and to share my excitement about our collections and all the cool stuff we have that anyone can come look at. Occasionally I sit on the greeter's desk in our lobby, and it's very satisfying to welcome people who are visiting for the first time and hopefully to provide reassurance if they're feeling at all tentative about it.
My priority in new acquisitions is first and foremost to buy things that will be used, in research, teaching, or exhibition. As someone working for an institution that's been collecting for centuries, it's a major commitment of resources to acquire something that goes well beyond the purchase price of the book. That legacy of collecting is both an advantage and a burden: we have rare books now that the institution bought as new books 200 years ago. But also for the vast majority of our history, the collecting was done by white men for white men to use, and today's collection reflects that. (I am also a white man.) While it's important for us to continue to build on traditional areas of collecting strength, I want to expand the breadth of the collection in documenting the experiences of people who are underrepresented in it. A lot of libraries like mine formed a particular intention to do that in 2020, and it's notably affected the market for that kind of material--more competition and higher prices.
One thing that's frustrating is that even in 2022, we haven't ramped up our capacity to digitize material in proportion to the demand for it, which accelerated massively when we were closed during the pandemic, and is still elevated, so we're still running backlogs of several months. People assume I can just snap my fingers and get things digitized and that's not really the case.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:30 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have worked for 30+ years in art museums and historic properties in both the US and the UK, and apart from the amazing experiences with the collections themselves that previous commenters have described, the almost-universal experience of those working with collections is that they are underpaid and understaffed. Moreover, volunteers are key for basic functions at many institutions, even large ones, so often even junior paid staff develop significant managerial experience (without necessarily getting credit for it). In major US cities this also means that most people working in art museums are either over 65 or come from relatively privileged backgrounds; in rural US museums (which are less likely to separate art from other collections) it's more often just the former. There is an almost incomprehensible gap in everything from ideology to everyday staff responsibilities between institutions that are well-resourced (eg the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard/Yale, the Getty) and everywhere else. From a user perspective, this means that smaller institutions often seem both more responsive and more nimble (see Horace Rumpole's comment about digitization and imagine how it might be different at a museum with a staff of five and a much more niche collection, for example).
I can't cite a specific formal study, but I've seen many over the years, and they affirm my experience that elite institutions are far more likely to employ a higher proportion of [cis/white/men], for reasons I assume are obvious, which impacts one's daily life as a staff member in all kinds of ways, especially if one is not a [cis/white/man].
In both the US and the UK, the same qualifications (in my case, a PhD in art history and extensive work experience) will result in lower pay in the museum sector than in academia. In the US, salaries do reflect the local cost of living -- expensive cities will have higher salaries, although they won't be objectively high. I left full-time museum work to go back into academia because although I was intellectually privileged I was not financially so; without a spouse or family money to back me up, my $45k curatorial salary in San Francisco in 2007 was... not enough to maintain even the sort of work wardrobe that was expected of me, let alone food and shelter (yes, this is slight sarcasm -- but those soft expectations can be harder to handle than the basics; no one at work cared if I lived in my car, as long as I looked presentable to donors at exhibition openings). In the UK, although London jobs come with a token cost of living subsidy, museum salaries are laughably low regardless of geography -- literally half academic salaries, and utterly untenable unless one has a separate source of income or the institution is located in a rural part of an inexpensive county (which might be an imaginary place altogether these days). Libraries and archives seem to do much better, and the resulting difference in the social diversity of museum/historic property staff (particularly art museums, but also history museums) compared with libraries/archives is, in my experience, stark.
Horace Rumpole's comments about how incredible it feels to facilitate access are absolutely on target: every time I've made it possible for someone look at a "real" whatever-it-is that excites them, without the intervening glass/rope/security guard, I've felt a renewed sense of purpose. Similarly, the project of rescuing/recuperating/preserving marginalized histories through their archives is vital and rewarding work, primarily, for me, because of how powerful it is to help people feel seen, and to see themselves valued (this also applies to me directly when I work in/with queer and immigrant histories with which I identify). Which I guess is why despite "leaving" museums fifteen years ago I'm about to get involved with my fourth museum/gallery-building project!
Part of what I want to capture in that last paragraph is the power of objects and archival materials to generate a sense of wonder, as well as a sense of connection. It might be true that my primary goal as a curator, for myself and for everyone, is to make it possible to look, and look, and look, until we are so powerfully moved by something we see that we are driven to learn something about ourselves and each other.
posted by obliquicity at 9:07 AM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
I can't cite a specific formal study, but I've seen many over the years, and they affirm my experience that elite institutions are far more likely to employ a higher proportion of [cis/white/men], for reasons I assume are obvious, which impacts one's daily life as a staff member in all kinds of ways, especially if one is not a [cis/white/man].
In both the US and the UK, the same qualifications (in my case, a PhD in art history and extensive work experience) will result in lower pay in the museum sector than in academia. In the US, salaries do reflect the local cost of living -- expensive cities will have higher salaries, although they won't be objectively high. I left full-time museum work to go back into academia because although I was intellectually privileged I was not financially so; without a spouse or family money to back me up, my $45k curatorial salary in San Francisco in 2007 was... not enough to maintain even the sort of work wardrobe that was expected of me, let alone food and shelter (yes, this is slight sarcasm -- but those soft expectations can be harder to handle than the basics; no one at work cared if I lived in my car, as long as I looked presentable to donors at exhibition openings). In the UK, although London jobs come with a token cost of living subsidy, museum salaries are laughably low regardless of geography -- literally half academic salaries, and utterly untenable unless one has a separate source of income or the institution is located in a rural part of an inexpensive county (which might be an imaginary place altogether these days). Libraries and archives seem to do much better, and the resulting difference in the social diversity of museum/historic property staff (particularly art museums, but also history museums) compared with libraries/archives is, in my experience, stark.
Horace Rumpole's comments about how incredible it feels to facilitate access are absolutely on target: every time I've made it possible for someone look at a "real" whatever-it-is that excites them, without the intervening glass/rope/security guard, I've felt a renewed sense of purpose. Similarly, the project of rescuing/recuperating/preserving marginalized histories through their archives is vital and rewarding work, primarily, for me, because of how powerful it is to help people feel seen, and to see themselves valued (this also applies to me directly when I work in/with queer and immigrant histories with which I identify). Which I guess is why despite "leaving" museums fifteen years ago I'm about to get involved with my fourth museum/gallery-building project!
Part of what I want to capture in that last paragraph is the power of objects and archival materials to generate a sense of wonder, as well as a sense of connection. It might be true that my primary goal as a curator, for myself and for everyone, is to make it possible to look, and look, and look, until we are so powerfully moved by something we see that we are driven to learn something about ourselves and each other.
posted by obliquicity at 9:07 AM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
I work with an extensive private collection of art and books, with a particular focus on contemporary drawings. In the past 30 years, we’ve donated more than 2000 works to organizations in almost every state. We currently have more than 700 irks of art and close to 3000 books on hand, though we are hoping to whittle that down. (Negotiating donations is part of my job.) I’d be happy to answer any specific questions, but without knowing what kind of info you want, it’s tough. Feel free to contact me: Laura at laurakcurtis dot com.
posted by LauraKC at 10:07 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by LauraKC at 10:07 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
As someone who has done unglamorous, badly paid, precarious work in these glamour fields (with the occasional semipermanent benefited job), there’s always the “dealing with rich people” problem. For all the frustrations of giant bureaucracies, a capricious multimillionaire has a destabilizing influence all their own.
Oh, you probably won’t meet them a lot. Special people are employed to deal with them. And they may be a foundation, not an individual. But “the funder wants this”, “the funder cares about another thing”, “the funder has not explicitly stated they will fund preliminary work on these collections”, “the funder has changed their mind”, “the funder says we must take Great Granduncle Joseph’s collection of racist salt shakers”, “the funder’s child’s wedding will occur in this space”, “the other department has a funder that is paying for a new Virtual Reality Innovation Zone, so you must pack up and move these collections”.... and my favorite “oh, the funder isn’t actually giving us this object, it’s just going to live here and we’re responsible for it but legally they still own it and a hundred years from now so will their descendants so god help you if you want to deaccession it”.
posted by Hypatia at 10:26 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh, you probably won’t meet them a lot. Special people are employed to deal with them. And they may be a foundation, not an individual. But “the funder wants this”, “the funder cares about another thing”, “the funder has not explicitly stated they will fund preliminary work on these collections”, “the funder has changed their mind”, “the funder says we must take Great Granduncle Joseph’s collection of racist salt shakers”, “the funder’s child’s wedding will occur in this space”, “the other department has a funder that is paying for a new Virtual Reality Innovation Zone, so you must pack up and move these collections”.... and my favorite “oh, the funder isn’t actually giving us this object, it’s just going to live here and we’re responsible for it but legally they still own it and a hundred years from now so will their descendants so god help you if you want to deaccession it”.
posted by Hypatia at 10:26 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Donations can indeed be a delicate business, which is why our current collection statements are very narrow and specific. They weren't so much in the past, which is why our shelves are stuffed with many things which, in my humble professional opinion, should never have been accepted by the library. Many of them were never accessioned, just thrown on the shelves for future generations of librarians to deal with, so figuring out what to do with it was a lot of what I did during the period of the lockdown when staff were allowed into the building but the public wasn't.
Dealing with proposed donations from artists can also be...challenging. A colleague and I went through a situation with a photographer who wanted to donate some prints and negatives which got so bad in terms of his (constantly shifting) expectations and demands (which escalated to insults and harassment) we informed our manager that we would no longer communicate with him in any way, shape or form and forwarded any emails we received from him to her.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:02 PM on December 22, 2022
Dealing with proposed donations from artists can also be...challenging. A colleague and I went through a situation with a photographer who wanted to donate some prints and negatives which got so bad in terms of his (constantly shifting) expectations and demands (which escalated to insults and harassment) we informed our manager that we would no longer communicate with him in any way, shape or form and forwarded any emails we received from him to her.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:02 PM on December 22, 2022
I’m a registrar at a university museum in the middle of the US. I’ve been in the field now for over twenty years and just now have started making over 40K so take the previous comment about being underpaid as seconded by me. (I come from a middle-class family that prized education but isn’t particularly wealthy, and none of my coworkers are, but we live in a relatively low-cost-of-living city.)
We’re a small staff so my day can vary greatly. Sometimes I’m answering emails all day, sometimes I am helping move heavy paintings or changing lights or measuring something . A lot of it is unglamorous- I do a lot of filing, data entry, working with a photographer, making sure things are moving logistically. Occasionally there was a courier job that took me somewhere cool, but that has slowed in the Covid era.
I am in the basement so I don’t have to deal with visitor services much. I do have to work with donors to get paperwork but we have a person who does fundraising and donor relations so I send her lists of things a lot and she does all the delicate handling along with the director. I’m just expected to be polite and efficient.
I do love working with students and seeing some of them get so interested in the artwork we’re sharing. I also love quiet moments in the vaults when you get a personal experience with an incredible artwork - you build a relationship with them on a different level. Same with walking through a gallery as things start going up on the walls and you get a sense of how it will feel when it’s complete.
I’m willing to answer questions if you have any - just memail me.
posted by PussKillian at 4:55 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
We’re a small staff so my day can vary greatly. Sometimes I’m answering emails all day, sometimes I am helping move heavy paintings or changing lights or measuring something . A lot of it is unglamorous- I do a lot of filing, data entry, working with a photographer, making sure things are moving logistically. Occasionally there was a courier job that took me somewhere cool, but that has slowed in the Covid era.
I am in the basement so I don’t have to deal with visitor services much. I do have to work with donors to get paperwork but we have a person who does fundraising and donor relations so I send her lists of things a lot and she does all the delicate handling along with the director. I’m just expected to be polite and efficient.
I do love working with students and seeing some of them get so interested in the artwork we’re sharing. I also love quiet moments in the vaults when you get a personal experience with an incredible artwork - you build a relationship with them on a different level. Same with walking through a gallery as things start going up on the walls and you get a sense of how it will feel when it’s complete.
I’m willing to answer questions if you have any - just memail me.
posted by PussKillian at 4:55 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
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For the newspapers, I oversee the acquisition of current Toronto dailies, which we collect in bunches and wrap in archival paper for long-term storage, and retrieve and return older papers (which involves un- and re-wrapping them) when patrons request to see them. I'm also working on getting all of our historical papers properly catalogued, which most were not when I started this position two years ago. I also provide reference service on the desk like the other librarians in the department.
I've already achieved my main goal in this position, which was to clean up the collection in general and leave it in better shape than I found it; when I took over, there was an extremely large amount of unprocessed material sitting on the shelves which my predecessor did not get around to. I went through all of it, going back to boxes marked "1997," and either added it to the collection, discarded it or sent it to the library's book and ephemera sale. I also created finding aids and inventory for other staff members because the guy I replaced (for whatever reason) seemed very protective of his collection area and more or less refused to train anyone else on it, which was very bad practice and customer service. I also trained everyone in the department on the location and retrieval of items from these collections, which is another thing he never did.
My main obstacle is probably the inertia created by library bureaucracy, which is probably not dissimilar to the bureaucracy in other large organizations, and of course the public can be frustrating (although not nearly as much in my current position as when I was on the reference desk in regular neighbourhood branches; I do not miss those days).
I mostly love this job, and marvel daily at the cool stuff I get to see and work with.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:00 PM on December 21, 2022 [10 favorites]