This is an interesting issue with many aspects; scuse me for butting in
several times.
 
I think Byron Johnstone said some important things about 'union ticket'
endorsement of professional qualifications.  It's a matter that's on the
mind of Museums Australia (our AAM) right now, in various guises.  One
rises in the Museums Studies Special Interest Group, where there's been a
call to monitor and perhaps assess the plethora of museum studies courses
now offered in Australia.  Some are known to have no professsional input at
all - cases where historians or librarians think they may be able to put
more studens bums on seats by offering sexy topics in public history or
cultural heritage management.  (Well, it's nice to think that our field
might be sexy).  One means of doing this would be to have Museums Australia
endorse approved courses, like the Institute of Architects does, and
engineers, and librarians.
 
However, I understand that in the UK, the Museums Association used to run
the professional Diploma course, but relinquished it some years ago to the
Museum Training Institute, an official body of some kind.  Can anyone tell
me more about this?  Was the training program just too difficult to operate
on a more or less volunteer basis, or what?
 
There's another aspect, which has come up in the Education Special Interest
Group, and that's Professional Development.  Architects and librarians  are
expected to maintain their professional registration with some committment
to ongoing professional training - what about museum people?  I mentioned
in another contribution to the list on this topic that the training that
museum people seek is overwhelmingly in management, computing, even stress
management, but not in museology or say, recent developments in collections
management or some such.  In part I know this is due to the requirements of
climbing the job ladder, that you have to move away from a discipline
specialisation and into management.  But I feel very sad that there are few
takers for short courses or even reading courses in the new museology (I
know, I tried to get one going).
 
It's an old observation that many discipline specialists in museums feel
more in common with other discipline specialists than with their fellow
employees in museum X or Y.  They identify as specialists rather than as
museum people.  Why is it so difficult to assert that our profession has a
character, a purpose, a worth in its own right?  That it has scholarly
dimensions that are worth spending time and energy on?
 
 
Linda Young
Cultural Heritage Management
University of Canberra
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