christopher henry whittle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I noticed a museum offering an "internship" for a nominal stipend
>recently.  It seems to me that if museum professionals do not value the
>work involved (the internship was educational and supervisory) more, then
>the people who fund museums will decide that all work therein can be
>done by volunteers and interns.  That will really make the bean-counters
>happy.

in my view, the reliance on low-paid students and interns is the most
dangerous and disconcerting trend that i've seen in museum hiring.

i worked as registrar for a mid-sized corporate collection for several
years before going back to grad school in a completely unrelated field.
needing to pay my rent, i took a part time job as a registrarial intern in
a small museum. i was obviously hired because of my qualifications and
experience (and because i qualified for federal student aid) and was
utilized more as a co-registrar than an intern.  that is to say, the
responsibilities that i was given went well beyond those that one would
give a "typical" intern.

this museum hired many other "interns" in addition to myself. the biggest
concern for those hiring seemed to be the budget more so than the
collection or the education of the students.  many of our interns had no
real love or desire to be in the museum field and were hired simply
because it was cheaper than hiring professionals or some (budget-ally
speaking, less qualified) students with real interests in museum studies.
(you could hire students from certain schools for half the price because
their home school would kick in half their pay, or if they qualified for
federal student aid, the hiring institution saved lots of money.)

some aspects of the experience really made my sick. (others, of course
were wonderful and i wouldn't trade them for the world).

* i was obviously doing more (and more responsible) work than i was paid for.
* hiring me took a job away from someone who could have learned more than
i did from the experience. (tho, i doubt anyone would have enjoyed it as
much.)
* some youngsters were doing jobs they had no real interest in doing or
interest in learning about.
* other youngsters were not getting jobs and experience because they went
to the wrong school or didn't qualify for federal aid.
* those who were hired were often given truly responsible tasks, (such as
handling valuable works of art that belonged to rich people with expensive
lawyers :0) that in my opinion they shouldn't have been doing.
* and of course, we had volunteers who, while their loyalty and love for
their work could not be questioned, were nonetheless pretty scary to watch
on the job.

Obviously, i can only describe the things i've seen and have no way of
knowing how widespread these problems are.  i hope that these kinds of
hiring practices are not typical of the workings of other museums, but i'm
afraid that budgetary concerns are not only there for the institution that
i worked for. fortunately my immediate supervisor was an excellent and
highly moral individual who did his best to rectify many of these
problems.  unfortunatley he had little personal power to work with.

my experience (again, only anecdotal) in the corporate world is that is
has its own set of problems. but at least where i was, one could rely on
the competence of one's immediate staff/colleagues and know that respect
for one's experience and skills translated into a reasonable pay check.

don't get me wrong: i'm all for hiring interns and using volunteers.
however, when i was comin' up, in collection management, i was hired as a
student worker and TREATED as a student worker.  i was never given more
responsiblity than i was capable of handling. i doubt that i'd have been
hired if i was not really interested in the work. (in fact, special
arrangements were made to hire me because i DIDN'T qualify for federal
aid, but those hiring felt that i was the best qualified for the job.)
moreover, i was certainly never asked to do the job of a professional with
the pay of an intern. (that is, until more recently!)

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kjk