There are several issues running through this series of e-mails, including
salaries of museum personnel, museum unions, the necessity of specialized
degrees, and raising funding for salaries in museums. This last issue
included running museums more like businesses.  I comment on the latter to
try to add some clarity, with apologizes if I am rambling on about what is
already obvious.

There is no doubt that it is important for museums to be run, within the
scope their missions, as financially effectively as possible.  Many aspects
of running a modern museum are indeed essentially those of a business.
Like other non-profit institutions, however, museums generally distinguish
themselves from businesses through their missions.  Museums do not have
profits as their goal, but instead seek financial assets in order to
further their missions in education and/or research.  One way for a museum
to achieve its mission, of course, is to hire, keep, and maintain the
productivity of the best employees, and therefore financial assets that
permit good employee wages and benefits are critical to the long-term
success of museums.

Museums must undertake some combination activities that together maximize
achievement of their goals and keep them financially well-off (yet
non-profit).  Cost-benefit analyses of potential museum activities that
take into account both finances and mission (business cost-benefit analyses
use only $) seem to be an underutilized method in museum management.
Obviously for any particular museum there may be a fuzzy area between what
does and does not fall under the museum's mission, and between profit and
non-profit (not-for-profit). This issue has been a source of contention
within the staff and Board of numerous museums as the museum industry has
evolved (especially toward the entertainment industry) over the past decade
or two.  In summary, today many museums are run more than ever like
businesses, but the business analogy can be taken only so far, and decision
making in balancing business with education and research is complex.

Having said that, my impression is that most museums do have too few museum
staff sufficiently business savvy or entrepreneurial to create and choose
wisely among various financial options.  Museum staff generally do not
enter the museum industry from the business world, and there has not been
enough money at most museums to hire business professionals at a salary
experienced business people would accept. This is, of course, a
chicken-and-the-egg problem: While qualified business people may help raise
the very funds needed to create their own positions and raise the salaries
of others, many museums are strapped just to hold on to their most
"fundamental" staff such as curators and educators.  It seems that museums
that have chosen more administration/business-oriented staff at the expense
of museum professionals have in at least some cases not fared well.  Some
museums try to overcome their lack of business personnel with business
people on their Board, but Trustees generally lack the time and commitment
necessary  to make the difference that a full-time staffer would.

In closing, it should be noted that increases in unrestricted funding even
through better financial planning will not necessarily translate into
better salaries anytime soon unless museum administrators consider low
salaries to be a priority problem and are waiting to raise salaries as soon
as funding is available.  Otherwise increases in funds may simply increase
the number of positions and be used for other purposes.  It is important
for the staff concerned about their salaries to raise this issue (on
friendly terms) with the people who control their salary.  It may also be
advisable to try to work together with administrators (if you don't
already) to create new funding options; I have heard of models in which
salaries depended to some extent on funds raises through the initiative of
the employees (though this wouldn't work well for everyone everywhere).
However, it seems that there are plenty of people around willing to take
low salary positions, and some small museums may not survive without them,
so the situation is not likely to change across the field for some time.

Perhaps AAM's role could be to publish strongly suggested salary minima for
various types of positions (with some adjustment for location); their
stance could be that, while not all museums may be able to meet these
minima immediately, these museums should work toward these salaries in
future financial planning.  These same figures should be released to
schools with museum studies programs.  Though museums, like nearly every
other industry, on average pay too much attention to degrees, in the
long-run our field will benefit through the academic research and study
done in these programs.

Rob Ross






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Robert M. Ross
Director of Education
Paleontological Research Institution
1259 Trumansburg Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
U.S.A.
phone 607 273 6623 ext 18
FAX 607 273 6620
e-mail [log in to unmask]
PRI web site: <www.englib.cornell.edu/pri>