I have a perspective on attracting younger people to organisations
which you may find heretical, but I challenge you to consider its
truth.

Young people tend to have other things on their minds than
professional associations. They may have young families and find that
school or sport activities occupy their attention. They may love
their jobs in museums, but might also love music and dancing, and
devote any extra energy to those ends. They may feel relatively
powerless in their jobs and feel that ICOM participation is, as one
younger heritage person said to me lately, 'too high up the food
chain for me'. I confess that in my twenties and thirties, I felt
ICOM was not my scene becasue that aspect of the museum world wasn't
within my financial reach.

But people change. They get older, more confident, better resourced.
They begin to be interested in organisations like ICOM. To put it
bluntly, maybe there is an age segment to whom ICOM appeals.

We should not dismiss the activity of we middle-aged and older
members. In some ways, I consider the desperate search for young
people to particpate in organisations (it's also an issue in museum
visiting) is a kind of ageism. Young is beautiful, young is best, if
we don't attract the young we are not a vibrant organisation.

In this International Year of Older Persons (older persons are always
20 years older than oneself), let us not devalue the activity of
people over 40, or 50, or 60, or however you define 'not young'.

Of course, for myself, I can sign off as always young!






Dr Linda Young
Research Fellow
History, Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
Tel: 02-6249 4008
Fax: 02-6249 3969


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