Hi Folks,

I am preparing for an AAM session in L.A.with Lonnie Bunch and Elaine
Gurian.
While I know something about the Can. museum labour market stats and
phenomena, I would like at least some data on the U.S. museum field and
any information on museum work in any other countries.

Or perhaps it's more your stories and anecdotes since the fact and
figures are very evasive.

Perhaps you could respond to any or all of the following:

How many museums in the U.S. are there? Or more importantly how many are
being formed, being closed or significantly transformed so as to alter
the workplace.?
(The 1989 Survey worked with a univese of 13,886 institutions but
reduced that by 25%  as ineligible,duplicates, etc., or small  The final
survey was 2,167.
My sense is that Canada has had a harder time with museum downsizing,
layoffs, and reflects our higher unemployment rate.)

How many museum workers are there?

Do we have any breakdown of workers by type (however defined)?
-type of museum by type of museum
-type of museum-subject
-type of museum- governance
-geography

What is your sense of the job dynamics going on in US museums?

How much retrenchment is going on and what is the impact on museum jobs?

How great is the phenomenon of out-sourcing, or contracting out?

What is the nature of consultancy as a career option for museum workers?

You might be interested to know that I have compiled a Career Planning
fieldbook for museum workers and know my Canadian data, to the best that

we can. I would like to include a US section of a few pages in order to
make the work as relavent to U.S. museum workers as possible and
assuming it is relavent .Likewise I would be just as interested in any
data, observations or anecdotes about museum work phenomena in any
country.My sense is the issues of museum work cross international
boundaries and that we may have much to share with one another.

The fieldbook will be available later  in the year both in hardcopy and
CD-ROM version, both in English so far.

Thank you very much,

Lynne Teather,
Assoc. Prof.
Museum Studies Program,
University of Toronto,
[log in to unmask]