Catherine,

It appears you represent a small non-profit historic
preservation organization. I salute your efforts to
preserve the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia
with little or no public funding.

As a former Trustee with a poorly-funded public
library, the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music
Hall in Carnegie, Pennsylvania [which includes a small
Civil War Museum], I understand your dilemma very
well.

Regarding our Civil War Museum, as a Library Trustee I
coordinated weekly tours of the Museum, with the
assistance of a volunteer. Of course, neither of us
were paid.

> By small I mean sites with annual visitation of
> about 5-6,000 or less...
> We have found
> that having a full-time site manager (to handle
> day-to-day operations, docent scheduling, etc.) is
> no longer cost effective

When you talk about that small an annual visitation,
it is difficult to consider any full-time position as
"cost-effective." However, each facility has certain
fixed costs that have to be paid, to maintain a
quality program--otherwise, there may be no point in
continuing to maintain some of the facilities.

You need to evaluate your mission and your ability to
sustain such a mission. Then, to maintain most or all
of these historic facilities you will probably need to
implement a "smorgasboard" of alternatives.

With limited funds and historic facilities throughout
the state, there is no "magic bullet" to solve your
problem. Part-time staffing, some voluteer help, and
cooperative programming with other nearby museums are
all alternatives that you will need to try, as you
have suggested.

Perhaps you could alternate scheduling of certain
historic properties within a reasonable distance. One
may be open one day, with another open the next day,
so your staff could handle both assignments.

With limited funding, creativity will be needed to
meet your mission. I wish you all the best in
providing this important service to the people of
Virginia.

gaw

--- Catherine Dean <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Date:         Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:23:06 -0400
> From:         Catherine Dean <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Question about Historic Site
> Staffing
> To:           [log in to unmask]
> 
> Please Note: This message has been cross-posted on
> Museum-L, AASLH Small Museums, and AASLH Historic
> House Museums.
> 
> Dear Colleagues:
> 
> My organization, which manages more than two dozen
> historic sites across the Commonwealth of Virginia,
> has been actively seeking alternative methods of
> site management for some of our smaller sites over
> the past few years.  
> 
> Unfortunately our sites are fairly diverse
> geographically and while they do share the services
> of statewide staff (Director of Preservation,
> Curator, Educational Coordinator, PR coordinator,
> etc.) we haven't been able to combine on-site duties
> within the organization effectively and currently
> have part time staff handling operations at several
> of our sites, with limited success.  We have found
> that having a full-time site manager (to handle
> day-to-day operations, docent scheduling, etc.) is
> no longer cost effective and have been looking at
> other models (including sharing staff with other
> museums, which we have had some success with so
> far).  I have been asked to find out what type of
> staffing is the norm (or at least which typeS of
> staffing are the norm) at small, seasonal, historic
> sites and house museums.
> 
> By small I mean sites with annual visitation of
> about 5-6,000 or less.  By seasonal I mean sites
> that are open several days a week during the busy
> tourist season and closed during the slow months
> (perhaps with weekends during the fall and spring). 
> 
> 
> We are interested to know how many similar sites
> have full time operations staff (site managers/site
> coordinators/administrators, etc.) and how many make
> do with part time or volunteer management.
> 
> If you have (or are) a full-time operations person,
> is he/she taking on additional responsibilities
> (including, for example, curatorial
> responsibilities, doing lots of marketing, or acting
> as director of the organization)?  Do they spend a
> large portion of time organizing friends-groups or
> planning special events and programs?  We typically
> require our administrators to handle scheduling,
> oversee maintenance, make deposits, etc. but they
> are not responsible for docent training or tour
> development or all but the most basic publicity and
> PR, which is handled in our statewide office.  
> 
> Has anyone else developed partnerships with other
> institutions to handle staffing issues?
> 
> If you rely on part-time or volunteer services how
> to you recruit and retain qualified staff?  
> 
> Any input would be appreciated on list or off
> ([log in to unmask]).
> 
> Many thanks!
> Catherine Dean
> 
> 
> Catherine E. Dean
> Curator of Collections
> APVA Preservation Virginia
> 204 West Franklin St.
> Richmond, VA 23228
> 804-648-1889 x313
> FAX: 804-775-0802

gaw

Glenn A. Walsh
Electronic Mail - < [log in to unmask] >
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