Lois' analysis of this chronic budgetary problem is right on
target. For what it's worth, the problem is not limited to museums.
Care of cultural resources on public lands is afflicted with the
same patterns. Part of it is the 'spotlight' effect...you can whoop
up enough public and political support to get a new visitor center
or museum or exhibit area built and splashily dedicated (usually
by over-estimating visitation and under-estimating staffing needs),
and then you've got maybe three years to get things running right
before the spotlight of public attention moves on to the next
glitzy project. After that, you'll have trouble just keeping the
light bulbs replaced!
Similarly, I have yet to see an agency that doesn't rely exclusively
on stabilization to preserve historic structures and sites, and often
object collections, too. A lot of money will be spent, often with
ballyhoo, to stabilize a resource to a maintainable state...and then
it isn't maintained. There's no sex appeal in the dull, plodding,
day-to-day monotony of maintaining things, especially where there
are more apparently urgent, threatening, exciting, visible projects
on which to focus the budget. So, 3-5 years later (or more, depending
on the resource and conditions), original fabric has been lost
irrevocably, people get excited, a new stabilization project is
launched, and the cycle begins again. Little by little, more money
is spent on repeated stabilization than good maintenance would
have cost, and the net effect is episodic loss of original material and
replacement by successive doses of modern fabric.
Keep arguing with your clients, Lois; my experience proves you are
100% right (you're also an exception...too many consultants play
right along with the game of inflating visitation and lowballing
staffing in order to sell the next monument to somebody or
other).
Tom
--
Tom Vaughan "The Waggin' Tongue"
<[log in to unmask]> (970) 533-1215
11795 Road 39.2, Mancos, CO 81328 USA
Cultural Resource Management, Interpretation, Planning, & Training
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