I have been busy lately, so have not joined this discussion.  I do,
however, want to reiterate something I have offered before.

Someone needs to develope a "Cerification" program that would be recognized
by A.A.M. and other museum organizations.  The latter need to be convinced
that they should set a requirement that xx number of professionals in a
given museum be "certified" before that museum can be accredited.  It would
work sort of like Universities (unless something has changed since I worked
in that world); accreditation hung in part on the qualifications of
faculty.  They had to have xx number of Ph.D.s on staff or they risked
losing their accreditation.

I would certainly be helped by such a requirement.  We are a County museum
and employees of the County.  If I could tell the Commissioners' Court that
my Curator must have a Masters degree; my librarian a MLS; my education
curator a BA with teacher certification and; all with "A.A.M. Certification
in their specialties, I could also tell them that they will have to pay
salaries that are competitive with say, educators with similar degrees (and
that ain't asking a whole lot here in Texas!).

The net effect would be to limit the number of people in competition (only
those who are certified will be considered) and in so doing, drive wages
higher.

Would anyone care to join me in the effort?



------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
museum_bob
[log in to unmask]
http://www.bchm.org

----------
From:   Robert Mac West[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Friday, June 19, 1998 9:38 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: "entry-level" job uproar

Let me suggest a somewhat different tack to this never-ending string.