What are Museums...are they essential?

Yesterday, in my Intro to Museums class we began to discuss, what museums were and what their purposes are.  At face value this seems to be a simple question.  Museums display artifacts and tell history that people can then come and see, but is that really the right answer?

Most museums are considered non-profits and so have to abide by certain laws and tax codes to get the benefit of not having to pay taxes.  According to the US Tax code museums serve an educational purpose that allows them to avoid taxes.  Just because the government says museums must hold this role, does it mean that museums are limited to that function, should or should not that be the main function of museums?

Many of us in the museum community say that museums are essential to a community, and that the education purpose that they hold is what drives their purpose.  What happens if a museum is not the most essential part of a community though?  Public health, feeding the poor, school education, and so much more might come across and in fact be much more vital to the surrounding community.  How does a museum stay relevant and in business in this type of environment?  One must remember that museums are in fact businesses and that they still have a bottom line to meet at the end of the year.  

Can museums achieve success and relevancy by serving other functions in the community.  In class we discussed other things a museum can do to not only make money but also stay important to the community.  For instance, in a Korean immigrant area of New York City, a house museum devoted to Quakers is being established.  How is this relevant at all to the community it is being places in?  How can it make itself relevant and bring in the funding from its very different community to stay open?  My suggestion was to offer an ESL program.  This way a museum is still acting as an educational institution and is also finding new ways to bring people into it, different grants would also be available to the museum.  

Other suggestions included hosting weekly dinners for low-income families.  Not only would this get people into the museum, but it would also be an opportunity to serve traditional quaker food, serve them in a traditional manner, or at least discuss how the Quakers did things.  The bottom line is that in this economy the museum needs to find new ways to stay sustainable and relevant in the community around it, and maybe some good, hard  thinking outside the box is necessary.  

Can extra, new services also provide additional support and marketing opportunities for a museum?

Cooperstown Graduate Program....Learning about museum studies

CGP Graduate Class of 2011

Today, marks the end of my first week of official classes at CGP.  It has been a great week, filled with really interesting discussions, which has made me sure that choosing to go to this program was the right decision.  I've talked about "Culture and Collections" and "Research and Fieldwork" already.  Today, I attended two more classes: "Introduction to Museums" and "American Cultures I."  Both classes provided very stimulation conversation and debate, among a group of people who were all very passionate about what they talked about, which made the experience very cool.

Our major project in the Intro to Museums class involved working with the Oneonta World of Learning (OWL).  OWL is a group of mothers in Oneonta looking to create a children's museum in Oneonta, NY.  Our job is to research and investigate the feasibility of the project, then offer informed advice about whether the museum should be built, and if so, how much money is going to be needed, where the money may come from, what things will need to be included, etc.  I find, since this is a largely financial investigation that my background in Accounting will probably come in very handedly.

In American Cultures we talked about the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.  We discussed why and why not we thought it was a success, what our opinions were of it, and the troubles faced by museums addressing the issues of American Indians. It was a very interesting discussion.  Part of what I personally thought was wrong with the museum was that it was created my a large variety of different tribes, all contributing to the final exhibition space, and each group had an identity that they wanted portrayed.  The museum was focused more on what the tribes wanted displayed and talked about and less focused on what the audience was interested in seeing.  According to the readings that we did, it seemed that there was a more   internal instead of external focus.  A museum is a business, it should be focused on bringing in people and appealing to the public, not just forcing ideas of there.

Both classes today we had intense discussions about what the purpose of a museum is and what a museum should or should not be doing or be responsible for.  It got me thinking more and more about different aspects of museums, which was awesome.