On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, Jeannine Finton wrote:

+++[CLIP] ++++

> In the past twenty years, the number of available museum jobs hasn't
> necessarily increased, but there has been a proliferation in the number of
> museum education/studies graduate programs. More and more people with
> master's degrees are entering the field each year. Simply having the master's
> degree isn't what it was a few year's ago. The market is increasingly
> saturated and people must find additional ways to stand out in the crowd.


Jeannine:

Very true.  This reminds me very much of what happened in France in the
1970s and 1980s.  At that time those wanting to go into museum work had to
do 2 or more years of courses at the Ecole du Louvre, up to a year
volunteering in a Louvre Department before the were allowed to sit for the
first time the yearly national open entrance examination for public sector
museum jobs.

Typically they would get through at the second or third attempt if they
persisted, but that DIDN'T give them a job.  Instead, their name was
published on a Government "Liste d'Aptitude" - i.e. list of qualified
persons who were at last allowed to APPLY for a museum job if and when one
was advertised!

By the mid-1980s there were over 800 people who had survived this far and
who were applying for jobs.  However, at the time there were less than 200
entry level jobs in that field across the whole of France.  In other words
there were four working lifetimes-worth of qualified candidates on the
"Liste" fighting over perhaps as few as four or five vacancies a year.

The solution was an astonishing and very ruthless one.  Legislation was
passed which simply cancelled or took away the qualifications that had in
some cases taken nearly 10 years to gain.  There were protests and a
sit-in occupation of the Director-General's office, but to no avail.

Finally, a new system was introduced under which the "Liste" was replaced
by an even tougher annual competition for direct entry into the new "Grand
Ecole" staff college for museum, archive, library, heritage and
documentation professions - the Ecole National du Patrimoine. Winners get
a full salary through the 18 months course and allocation to a permanent
job at the end of it. However, the number of places offered each year are
matched closely to coming vacancies (or pre-authorised expansion), and in
some years as few as two museum places have been on offer for the whole of
France.

Nobody seems to have researched what happened to the 800+ with the old
qualification but no museum job...



Patrick Boylan

City University, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK;
phone: +44-171-477.8750, fax:+44-171-477.8887;
Home: "The Deepings", Gun Lane, Knebworth, Herts. SG3 6BJ, UK;
phone & fax: +44-1438-812.658;
E-mail: [log in to unmask];  Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/

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