Hi Robert--Welcome the the museum listserve!

From an employer's perspective (keeping in mind that my employees are
work/study students), I am always delighted to bring someone on board with web
experience.  You seem to know that larger museums often have webmasters or
even entire departments devoted to making sure the website is cutting edge and
regularly updated, but at small and medium-sized museums, it is often the case
that people who have trained to become employable in the museum field have not
pursued (or had the opportunity to pursue because they have been in the field
since before the current emphasis on technology was big) technological
training.

I try to provide this for my students by making sure they can operate a
digital camera, scanner, and learn our computerized collections management
system, and I imagine that if you were applying for a museum job at a smaller
institution solely on your technological expertise, the candidate with solid
museum training might win out over you.  BUT, if you have solid museum skills,
and well-developed technological skills too, my bet is that you would get the
job.  There just aren't enough folks in museums (myself among them) who have
that web-development component to their resume; see the Sweet Briar Museum
website at www.museum.sbc.edu for proof.  Our website is completely outdated
(the old area code and former director's name appear) and boring, but I don't
even know how to access it to update it, and the designer did this as an Eagle
Scout project and then vanished.  But, I have just purchased the Virtual
Exhibit component for the Past Perfect collections management system, and hope
to begin working on the website template this summer, so stay tuned...

This brings me to another issue: while you have acquired some wonderful and
valuable skills, be sure you are also pursuing experience with technology
specific to museums.  Becoming familiar with the various computerized
collections management system would also be a big plus in your favor.  You
could do this by volunteering on the weekends with a local museum--virtually
all of them have backlogs of cataloguing that need to be entered, and the
systems are pretty intuitive, so once you master one your skills will be
pretty much transferable.

Good luck!

All best,

Christian Carr
Acting Director, Sweet Briar Museum
Visiting Assistant Professor, Arts Management
Sweet Briar College
Sweet Briar, VA 24595
434.381.6246-phone
434.381.6132-fax

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