Jay, your are describing almost exactly what happened to the institution I am now working at. I am doing the same sort of work your Curator of Collections is doing, and I'm "just" the registrar. Relating this to the Salaries thread, I probably as Registrar, get paid alot less that someone with "Curator" in their title does. Yet I am doing now what in the past, a Curator as "caretaker of the collection" did. and get this - my degree's are in Studio Art and Library Science! (horror of horrors! Mr. Whittle) Allison At 12:41 PM 7/31/97 -0500, you wrote: >I come to this long thread very late in the game but I >desire to add my two cents. In response to the post fom >"Hodcarry" who suggested that curators have lost some degree >of professional expertise as a result of "generic" museum >programs, I could not disagree more. > >Using my own institution as an example, we have 35,000 >artifacts in our collection which began in the attic of a >historical society member in 1961. The objects collected >are diverse, and generally relate to the history of our >county from about 1872 to the present day. Unfortunately, >like so many other "small" museums, we did not have a >professio curator until 1986. Consequently, our records >before then are scant. Compounding the dificulty is that >whenthe museum was moved to its present location, the >facility experienced a renaissance of sortsand the community >began donating objects at a rate beyond the capacity of the >staff to handle. > >Today, our curator of collections struggles with reconciling >scant or non-existent accession records, sometimes poor >provenance information, and a host of other difficulties >including a storage area retro-fitted into a ninety year old >structure. > >For all that (and I'm sure there are a great many curators >out there with similar stories), our curator has done a >fantastic job of organizing the collection, making it >accesible, studying unique pieces when possible, and >following any leads on provenance she has. While I'm >certain that she would like to be continuing her studies >into her area of historical expertise, the demands of the >job do not allow it. > >She may not know the difference between a match plane and a >jack plane, but I would certainly not trade her experience >and expertise for a curator who had so specialized an >expertise that the big picture would receive the sort of >attention it should. > >In other words, at our facility, the issues of the forest >are far greater than the issue of a single tree. What I am >driving at is that institutions are at variuous stages of >professional growth, and I'm willing to bet that there is >a far greater need for general knowledge among the majority >of the nation's museums than specialized knowledge. I would >like to believe that someday our facility will have a >Curator of Agricultural Tools & Equipment, but that day is >many, many, years away. Until then, however, we will keep >working and keep studying our collection in hopes that one >day we will be able to look at the smooth bore and the >rifled barrel and be able to tell you what caliber it is >without the benefit of the firearms manual. > >In the meantime, should our curator's salary be determined >by the lack of "specialized knowledge" Hodcarry mourns? No, >and hell no!!!!! We're doing the best we can, and we're >doing a very good job of correcting 36 years of curatorial >difficulties. Just my two cents (or maybe that rant was >worth a dime.) > >Jay Smith >Executive Director >Reno County Museum >Hutchinson, Kansas >--usual disclaimers apply-- > ******************************************************************** Allison A. Smith Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Registrar Museum of Art [log in to unmask] Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA ********************************************************************