Skills Most Valued for Entry-Level Professional Museum Positions

2011

In recent decades there has been a rapid expansion in tertiary education programs that purport to prepare students to become workers in the museums and collections sector. These programs are highly variable in terms of focus, content and pedagogy. Those seeking employment in a diverse sector such as ours need to be aware of the range of opportunities and challenges of working in a variety of geographic and organisational circumstances. There should also be an understanding the sector's reliance on voluntary labour and the difficulties in establishing a chosen career track especially if it has been conceptualised with a focus on major cultural institutions. Similarly, practitioners from all parts of the sector, major cultural institutions and smaller regional organisations alike, should give input concerning the skills and knowledge required of graduates to those designing tertiary study programs. The last national dialogue on this issue predates the establishment of many of thes...

Recruiting and Hiring Museum Curators and Directors: A Human Resource Tool for Local Government, Museum Trustees and Cultural Managers, 2003

Digital Profiles / Skills in Museums Today_v3, 2022

Updated and extended version of the recopilatory intended to be useful for museums, museum professionals, universities, and Public Administration, of examples of digital jobs offerings in museums and of the digital skills demanded. The document basically contains lists, graphics and excerpts/quotations -duly credited- about: - real departments /jobs in museums - examples of digital job offers & requirements - skills needed (and digital skills shortage) - testimonials of museum professionals - working Panorama post COVID-19.

2018

One by One' leverages interdisciplinary scholarship to understand how to deliver a transformative framework for museum workforce digital literacy. The objective of the first phase of the project has been to map how digital skills are currently supplied, developed and deployed in the UK museum sector, and to pinpoint current changes in the demand around these skills.

Museum Magazine, 2018

Topic: The training and professional development of museum staff What are the essential qualities that make a good museum professional in present day museum world? The ideal (museum) professional is a devotee of his/hers (museum) specialization but with a strong sense of belonging to a wider whole. Are dermatologists, gynecologists or pulmonologists distinctive professions? No, they are occupations, specializations within the medical profession and exist by the arguments of medical science. So, I if you accept the comparison, I would say, that talented, noble and responsible curators can exist as the result of a happy coincidence, but no job let alone a profession can be founded upon such fortuity. But talent and devotion helped by seminars, symposia and practice, create however, many good professionals. They have a broad insight into their basic academic discipline and deep interest in understanding of the world around them. Only from that can they provide the users of their museums with a needed, correct, honest product. What are some changes compared with the past standard? Alas, there has never been an international standard, which is both, good and bad. Generally, the changes are great and beneficial: more and more future curators receive some kind of professional training but it has to become obligatory and,-good. Our conference in Dubrovnik is part of that collective effort in learning (at least) by the best examples (www.thebestinheritage.com). However, this partly spontaneous process is not what any profession would consider as strategy for its future. The disastrous fact is that probably 80% of curators working in museums have received only their specialist academic training and no specific education for the public service they run. What kind of young talent is most likely to shape the future of the museum? I am afraid that the future of museums will increasingly depend upon holders of power. But we have to master as much of our mission as possible. The young, talented, scientifically well trained, educated for the heritage profession and devoted to public good might assure us some chances. Privatization, commodification and commercialization are destroying professions. I hope some countries and cultures will know how to retain public services and prevent delivering the society unconditionally to the profit predators. We need to have young curators who will finally establish a profession. Societies thrive on professions and they have been created for that. A good memory on what values humanity is founded will be the condition for survival of the mankind when casino capitalism finally pushes the world into the abyss of artificial intelligence, cyborgs and hybrid human beings. We desperately need the memory of quality, of basic values and virtues of humanitas. We need those with a mission,-who want the world get better,-if that does not sound obsolete in this cynical and hypocritical world. The public can learn only from those whom it loves; on the other hand, to be loved one must love first.

2019

The economic and political "effervescence" at the turn of the 20th century and early 21st century strengthened the strategic management of organizations, focusing on the management and training of human resources, as this sector is linked to their sustainability. Museums and, in general, cultural operators, whether state-owned or private, in their efforts to create an upgraded "micro-environment" that will consistently diffuse knowledge and wisely highlight entertainment within an anthropocentric mentality, adapt to the new reality, by applying effusive practices from other scientific areas. The Museum, as a social space where conceptual misrepresentations, cognitive models and cultures interact, reflects the need for a change in its organizational structure, while at the same time making imperative an effective human resource management which should be reflected in the museum's external functions, from exhibition design to communication practices. Museum exp...

Museum Management and Curatorship, 2020

Ideas and expectations about professions and about the process of becoming a professional are changing. Once defined largely by licenses or certificates, many fields of work are looking for more decentralized ways to determine what is a profession, and who is a professional. Many are turning to more decentralized ideas about professions and self-directed processes for lifelong professional learning. An increasing number of fields are using competency frameworks as one mechanism to guide professionalization without standardizing the preparation of those who work in the field. Research is needed to assess the viability and the impact of these frameworks on the individuals, institutions, the field, and ultimately on the public audiences they serve. The field of Informal STEM Learning (ISL) is uniquely poised to benefit from and contribute to the conversations and practices that are moving professional learning towards more self-directed paths.

Like a bad penny, the question of whether museum work is a profession keeps turning up in museum writings but with few conclusive results. The problem defies easy solution, largely because the concept of professionalism has been subject to multiple definitions and interpretations not easily applied to the museum. An examination of commonly accepted sociological criteria for professionalism, such as a discrete field of expertise, occupational associations, formal systems of training, standards, and a code of ethics, suggests that museum work is at best a semi-or pseudo-profession. But the degree to which the museum occupation corresponds to this abstract model should not divert attention from larger considerations of the social role of the museum staff. To understand better the current dynamics of professionalism in the museum setting, museum workers must also be seen in terms of their past efforts to generate public acceptance of their autonomy as an occupational group.

ICERI2019 Proceedings, 2019

This paper aims to present the Mu.SA - Museum Sector Alliance project, funded by the European Commission, more specifically by the Erasmus+ Program and the Key Action 2 (Cooperation for Innovation and Good Practice Exchange), which supports the Sector Competences Alliances (575907-EPP-1-2016- 1-EL-EPPKA2-SSA). Building on the results of a previous project (eCult Skills_2013-15), funded by the Lifelong Learning Program, weaknesses in the museum sector were identified at the level of digital and transversal competences. The Mu.SA project intended to contribute to the mitigation of these fragilities, in order to empower museum professionals, as well as those who aspire to be, to better face the challenges of Information and Communication Technologies and to enhance their museums and Society by promoting their development and sustainability, building on larger and stronger synergies between different sectors of education, training and youth, for the better articulated interaction between research, policies and practices and for the best use of references for recognition and validation of competences and qualifications. Thus, based on the identification and characterization of a set of emerging professional profiles and respective competences, the Mu.SA - Museum Sector Alliance aimed at, and has been, developing an Open Educational Resources repository to support individual equipping in more than forty digital and transversal competences. These duly structured resources are offered in different formats of education and training courses: a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), certified and of a generic and introductory nature; and a Specialization Course, credited and structured considering e-learning, face-to-face and work-based learning contexts. The legitimate and reasoned expectation of building communities of practice will also contribute to ensuring the sustainability of the results, beyond the duration of the project. Among the other positive expected results, at the level of those more or less directly involved in its activities, there may be an increase in the spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship, a more active participation in Society, a greater capacity for understanding, respect and response. Keywords: Museum professionals, digital & transversal competences, education needs, Mu.SA – Museum Sector Alliance project.