The best available estimates indicate that in the UK curators in the
traditional sense have declided from around 35% - 40% of the total museum
labour force to under 14% over the past 30 years.

Probably the absolute number of curators has not changed much but over
the period other jobs in museums - conservation, management, education,
support services, security etc. have virtually trebled.  On the other
hand the number of curators per museum is probably down significantly as
the total number of museums has greatly increased.

Spanish readers may find my paper "Los profesionales de los museum: su
funcion y definicion" in the Madrid "Revista de Musologia" (no. 3 - Dec.
1994) of interest on these trends. (Or I could post this (in English) on my .
WWW site when I get back from holiday mid-August. (I'm reading this in a
cybercafe!).

 Patrick J. Boylan  (Professor of Arts Policy and Management)

City University, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK;
phone: +44-171-477.8750, fax:+44-171-477.8887; e-mail: [log in to unmask]

World Wide Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/index.html