Robin,

You're dealing with an age-old frustration that most of us who were once
new graduates have experienced. If you take it one move at a time, this
too shall pass!

The internship you are doing was a smart thing to do, and becomes the
first item on your resume, to which you will immediately start adding
more. There are a few jobs which require only a BA, and while you are
looking for one, how about a paid internship somewhere?  There have been
many advertised on this listserve in the last few months. Also, there
are many opportunities for seasonal work as interpretor in educational
programs (your history background is a plus for these). Even if your
real goal is collection care and management, you'll get opportunity in
any internship to see how collections relate to other aspects of museum
programming which will be an important understanding later on when you
are working with collections.

Or, find a job doing something that will later be valuable in museums,
even though it isn't a museum.  Often the first jobs out of school boil
down to getting whatever you can get that will in some way help your
resume for later opportunities. I've known students who got jobs in
completely different fields while they volunteered and looked for museum
work, and in doing so learned aspects of marketing, graphic arts,
computer related jobs, management, grant writing, educational
programming, etc. that later were factors in landing a museum job.  See
if you can find a museum professional locally who can help you figure
out how other kinds of jobs might translate to later museum
opportunities. You'll be surprised at how many do. (Since you know
railroads, think of it as developing a job market 'switching system.')

While there are established 'proper care' techniques in collection care
(which, incidentally, seem to change constantly as we gain new knowledge
and also can vary geographically due to climate), very often decisions
must be made taking into consideration the differing characteristics of
an artifact, as well as several conflicting needs and constraints of the
museum --a simple and basic example is whether to use an artifact now,
for educational use or protect it for long term preservation for future
generations (or some combination thereof). For any given artifact there
are at least 5 or 6 factors (or more) that would go into that decision,
that would alter the decision outcome.

It has always seemed to me that a major purpose of graduate school was
to prepare you to avoid making major mistakes in doing the wrong thing,
and to learn to make decisions based on these multiple considerations.
So do grad school as soon as you can, even if only part-time. And while
you are in grad school take all the resume-building opportunities you
can: extra internships, summer jobs, week-end receptionist in a museum,
etc. It will start adding up quickly.

On the job training?  Look at it from the professional's point of view.
For the reason mentioned above, it takes a huge amount of one-on-one to
train someone on-the-job, and most museum professionals just can't
afford the time, being pressed to do so much in their own job. (Not to
mention that about the time you get someone trained they are likely
leave for a better job and you have to start over again!)  Additionally,
you are constantly at risk using someone who isn't trained in what *not*
to do, and when you are dealing with irreplaceable artifacts, that seems
not worth the risk, especially when there are so many people who do have
either training or experience available.

The bottom line is that it takes hard work to get into the museum field,
and when you do, you work very hard for pay that usually isn't
comparable to other fields. The flip side is, however, that you can have
tremendous job satisfaction knowing that the work you do makes a
difference, while doing something you really enjoy.

Good luck!

Lucy Sperlin


Robin wrote:
>
> I will be graduating college with a B.A. in history in 2 months time. I
> would like to pursue a career in museum work. Graduate school is of course
> planned for the future, not the immediate future, but sometime within the
> next 3 years. I was looking through a museum newsletter and became very
> frustrated when all of the jobs in museum work that I was interested in
> requested that the applicant have 3 to 5 years of experience. The is a
> double edged sword here folks. How am I supposed to get that many years of
> experience when I can't get a job because I haven't had a job to gain that
> many years of experience? I am a huge fan of volunteerism, but I certainly
> can't volunteer in a museum for the next 3 years. I am currently doing a 6
> week internship at a locan railroaders museum, getting introduced to all
> aspects of museum work. However, 6 weeks isn't 3 years. There are people,
> me being one of them,who would want to be able to take over caring for
> historical artifacts and want to learn the proper techniques for doing so,
> but run into problems because we are unable to find people or programs that
> are willing to do on the job training. Remember, if you (as in museum
> professionals) are worried about who will take care of artifacts and other
> historical aspects, rest assure there are people out there who are more
> than willing to learn the craft, just teach us.
>
> Any advice and/or comments would be wonderful and most appreciated.
>
> Thank you
> Robin F.
>
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