Dear Museum Professionals,

I also work in a free museum and disagree with your concepts. We are a rural
community and have the contemporary American adolesent problems of our age.
Our museum staff could have doen what it appears that many of our fellow
museum professionals are doing, staying out of sight behind our museums
locked doors content to let the modern world and its problems pass by.
Instead we endorsed to go forth and expose ourselves to our communities
progeny. Exposing them to their heritage and culture which is contained
within their community museum. Monetary concerns were never once an objective
in tendering our communities history to its youth the program here in is
unfunded.

A monetary value, how does one place a price on a communities history or it
treasures?
When we as professionals begin to argue over a museums option to charge
admission or not, then we have reduced our profession to a tacky and
superficial level. Some collections are well worth tthe price of admission to
pay for conservation. This decision is one best determined by the museum
board and community as a whole. To make the statement that to not charge
admission makes a museum worthless is out of line.

We must remember why there are museums and that we are not in the
entertainment business but are an extension of our communities education
process. If the communities children are shunning your museum then you as a
museum have shun the children long ago. If you wish children to place a value
on their past then you must help them acquire an understanding of it through
experience. To gain this experience the children must be given a chance to
become a part of their community.

The Union City Area Historical Society & Museum extended to our youth this
chance through the student conservators program. We extended to students 6
through 12th grade the ability to earn public service hours by assisting the
museum with projects and conservation. The student came at first only to get
out of classes at school, now they come on their free time Saturdays, Sundays
and after classes. What did we offer them trust a sence of community and a
place to learn self worth. They have become a strong influence working with
staff developing new exhibits We went out into our community and the youth
come freely to the museum not kicking and screaming. When class come from the
schools the students see their fellows working as a part of the community not
being pushed or bossed but accepted as staff.

Our youth is our future if they are not a part of our community history and
its museum operations, then why have a museum, who will care. The question
here has nothing to do with fee or free but has everything to do with how the
museum is presented. The museum has presented an object to expose students in
a quiet learning manner a program which offered fun, responsibility and
community values within the museum.
The program does not always work, some students still come to see what they
might steal ofr destroy. This is suppressed by their fellows standing guard
over what they feel rightfully belongs to them the student conservators.

You don't drag a child into a museum you entice them in and present them with
the wonders of the world. Let me tell you that this is our job and it hard!
The subject of money has nothing to do with children and museums. If you are
doing your job the children will come.

In closing, lets leave the subject of admission and the problems with todays
children to other adults:Who have better things to do with their time than
listento persons venting their personal hostilities and anger over choosing
the wrong career.

The UCAM Staff