Karen:

The simple answer to the number of courses is "many hundreds", and
the number still seems to be growing exponentially. ICTOP, the Training
Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) published its
first world survey in 1970 and identified around 30, but by the time we
published our latest directory about 5 years ago there were around 400
entries - about 75% of these in the USA.

There is however a serious problem over definition.  Some claimed museum
studies "courses" turn out to be little more than a couple of academic
credit units within and undergraduate or postgraduate degree in a related
academic field, such as art history or anthropology; I remember one that
seemed to consist of little more than a few hours' unpaid stewarding or
working in the bookstore of a university museum during vacations.  When
the AAM equivalent of ICTOP applied basic quality and content criteria the
300+ North American "courses" come down to something nearer to 30, as I
remember it.  There is something similar in Britain, where the national
training organisation for the cultural heritage (CHNTO) lists around 60
courses and programmes across various museum-related fields, though the
Museums Association only recognises less than a dozen of these for
part-exemption within the Association's own professional qualification and
CPD (Continuing Professional Development) regulations.

Also, very many, perhaps the great majority, of new developments of the
past 10 years or so have tended to have a wider focus in order to both put
museums in the broader cultural context and to increase the employment
potential of their graduates.  Thus you will find some extremely good
museum studies or museum management programmes as specialisations within
multidisciplinary "heritage management", "cultural management" or "leisure
studies" or similar courses, or as joint programmes with other subjects,
such as a museum or arts related academic subject or with business
management.

ICTOP tries to maintain an on-line directory of specialised courses which
have adequate web sites, though we know that this is far from a
complete listing of all centres and courses, with some other
teaching and learning resources and links, such as the ICOM
"Curricula Guidelines for Museum Professional Development" (the
latest development of the UNESCO/ICOM "Basic Syllabus" originally
published in 1971).

This is at: http://ictop.icom.museum/courses.html

(Note that there's no "www" in our new "dot museum" address! Also, that
we are very glad to have suggestions for further entries.)



Patrick Boylan
(Chairperson, ICOM-ICTOP)





On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Karen Knutson wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I'm sure (hoping) that someone out there has had to make an estimate
> of this before...the question is:
>
> How many degree or certificate programs are there in museum studies/
> museum education, and approximately how many students do they serve?
>
> I've been to Global Museum and Petersen's, U of Toronto sites, and
> have found only lists. According to one grad program search engine
> there are 39 programs in the Eastern U.S. alone! (After this count I
> got tired). Could someone please help me out? A number either for the
> US, (or North America, Canada, and the UK) would be so helpful!
>
> Thank you kindly,
> Karen Knutson
>
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