New Museum Podcast: Queering Museums

A new podcast began in February to mark LGBTQ+ month and is seeking to give an insight into the different way that LGBTQ+ museum workers and people in related fields are changing and shaping museum practice and museums themselves.

In it's first week, Queering Museums focused on not only the importance of telling queer histories in museums to address how they have long been ignored or silenced, but also the how important it is for young people and the LGBTQ+ community to see their history represented, as well as the different ways that museums and museum professionals are trying to do it.   

Each episode features interviews with people from different museums, the project doesn’t limit itself to a particular project or approach. This includes Margaret Middleton who talks about the importance of language, including the family friendly language, that makes space for children from families in all their shapes and constellations (see poster below). Their is also a discussion about how the stories and objects are often already there in museums collections, but have been hidden or obscured by euphemism (great example given about soldiers in the American Civil War). It’s also great to hear from people who work in “less obvious” positions in the museum infrastructure, or those discussing the ways that different types of museum approach the the topics (e.g. Episode 3 when talking about science museums and centres). 

Margaret Middleton’s poster summary of family friendly language, buy it here.

The podcast quality is great and the production is slick, which makes it a pleasure to listen to. You can download it via iTunes, listen on Soundcloud or sign up using the podcast app of your choice. And don’t forget to follow their profile on Twitter and those of the masterminds behind the project: Sacha Coward, Russell Dornan and Shaun O’Boyle. 

Current Episodes: 

Related reading, projects and exhibitions:

QueeringTheMuseum.org An online resource that states: “We focus on museums due to their ability to shape and define the communities in which we live. QTM believes that museums have a responsibility to account for the role played in constructing normalized ideas of race, gender and sexuality.”

Never Going Underground exhibition at the People’s History Museums in Manchester, opened last week by Ian McKellen and telling the history of the figt for LGBTQ+ rights. 

The National Trust’s page on Exploring LGBTQ history at their sites. An interesting looks at how the LGBTQ+ stories become hidden or obscured, but not all are lost forever. Working together with Leicester School of Museum Studies to create a legacy from the 2017 anniversary of partial decriminalisation. 

Historic England’s Pride of Place project has a list of aims and objectives, not least - as the body that administers listed buildings in the UK - "nominate buildings or landscapes for consideration for local heritage listing on the basis of their significance to LGBTQ histories”.     A blogpost by the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand about their LGBTIQ+ collections and their importance in making the histories visible. 

The National Archive’s page on the Queer City project. 

If you know of any other resources, projects, podcasts or websites that you think should be inclided, get in touch. 

Listen here

We’re Not That Hard to Find: Hiring Diverse Museum Staff

An infographic based on the guidelines by Joy Bailey-Bryant from the Jan/Feb edition of the AAM’s Museum about ways that museums can change their hiring and employment practices to encourage a more diverse and representative workforce. 

Rather than just repeating the data we already know about the worrying lack of diversity in many areas of museum education and employment, this attempts to unpick some of the causes, offering concrete advice about engaged museum might enact change and help recruit a more diverse workforce. The reasons for a lack of diversity in the museum field are manifold, but this addresses some of the mechanisms that are in place that can tackled, such as unpaid internships, proper career support and management of existing staff, where positions are advertised, and looking more deeply at applicants to see identify skill sets that aren't necessarily formal qualifications. 

As classically interdisciplinary places of learning, museums can only thrive when their perspectives are as diverse as the audiences and communities that they serve. If museums seek to be representative, then their staffing and institutions need to be as well. We know that speaking for marginalised voices and groups is inadequate, here’s how to do something about it. 

Other interesting resources and links

Posts on this blog that are of relevance:

If you know of any more projects or resources of interest, please feel free to submit them here. 

The results are in and I’ve been blown away by the responses. Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill in the online survey. It’s clear that for many of the people who responded, their situation is difficult and a source of pain. Others remain upbeat, despite being very aware that their carefully made plans and hard-won qualifications haven’t paid off (yet).

Now, I can’t pretend that this is a particularly scientific study, but I think there are some really interesting conclusions that can be drawn. I wish I had asked people to tell me what country they were in. Based on the responses, many were from the UK and US, but there were definitely some examples of either people working in those countries from elsewhere, or people working in other countries mixed in.

So, what kind of people took part?

Of the people who filled in the survey, 64% do paid work in museums or the cultural heritage sector (MCH), with a further 11% working in the MCH sector as volunteers (Fig. 1). I was a little surprised by this, expecting many more people who weren’t in MCH jobs to take the opportunity to give their feedback. However, 57% of people said that they either had or had considered, giving up on their goal of working in the sector (Fig. 2).

Of the respondents, 82% had studied for a postgraduate qualification with the explicit aim of trying to break into this particular sector. Almost one third of people who studied for a postgraduate degree either hadn’t found employment in the sector or were volunteering. Half of those who didn’t study for a postgraduate qualification with the aim of getting into the sector were working at museums and half were not. All the people volunteering had a postgraduate degree, presumably with the aim of supplementing their degree with experience and hoping for a role to come up.

Again looking at whether people were engaged in employment of volunteer activities in the MCH sector, there was a definite impact on how hopeful people felt about their future. Despite being employed in the sector and the majority having postgraduate degrees in the field, over 40% had nevertheless considered giving up. The volunteers (all of whom had postgrad degrees) were less optimistic about their career prospects, almost 70% having considered ceasing to pursue a career in the field. Those who didn’t work in the field of their choice were understandably the most discouraged. Over 70% have considered giving up and the only respondents who actually had given up were in this group. 

Knowing when to call it a day

The post in which the survey was originally contained was titled “Knowing when to call it a day”, so one question asked how long it took people to begin seriously questioning whether they would be better off pursuing other career options (Fig. 6). A significant number of people began to reach this point after 2-3 years (40%), almost 27% after 4-5 years of unsuccessfully trying to establish a viable career. Those people who gave up did so after 4-5 years.

Almost 60% of the people asked had no Plan B.

What made you consider giving up?

Of those people who had considered giving up, the reasons were similar; lack of jobs, lack of opportunity for advancement, fruitless job searches, lack of financial means to continue volunteering or pursue postgraduate training.

An important factor was also whether people considered themselves to have a “Plan B”; 62% of all those asked didn’t and few had set concrete limits or a timeline for how long they would continue to try. One person was allowing themselves two more job searches before dedicating themselves to the job they were currently doing, despite not considering it a Plan B, that is, something they had consciously chosen.  

What makes you carry on?

When asked what made them carry on, people talked about their interest, their passion, how specific and tailored their experience and qualifications are, how much time and effort they had invested that they couldn’t just walk away. One person stated simply “It’s what I do”.

Anything else you would like the world to know?

The role of luck

Many people – both those working in the sector and those who weren’t – seemed to be at a loss at what advice they could offer. Those working in MCH jobs very often considered themselves lucky to have them, with one stating:

The role of money and postgraduate qualifications

Another recurring topic was the matter of postgraduate degrees and that one person called the “overprofessionalisation” of the sector. Several expressed anger at the money they had spent on postgraduate qualifications that they felt had neither helped their career prospects, nor prepared them for the real world of museum work.

Another aspect were financial pressures: people were either unable to afford university, unable to afford to volunteer or unable to afford their student loan repayments to gather experience or take very low paid jobs. 

Again, this survey was dipping a toe in the water, to get a feeling of how other people were feeling and can’t be considered scientific. I've drawn out some of the major topics addressed and it is clear that there is a prevailing sense of discouragement and a not insignificant amount of anger at he competition and high threshold for experience and qualifications required to get even a foot in the door of what is often a low paid and precarious profession. 

The discussion about the role of postgraduate qualifications does raise the question of whether the sector needs so many people with this form of training. I remember 10 years ago when applying for my MA reading the very promising statistics of the number of graduates who had gone on to work in the field. However, one financial crisis later, a bruised and battered museum landscape, widespread closures and a debate about whether postgraduate qualifications are desired by employers, the field has changed.  

Here are some links you might like to look at, to dig a bit deeper:

Museum Workers Speak

Museos Unite (now defunct)

Suggestions welcome!

See below for a link to a survey to have your say or consider leaving a comment. 

There is a quote from Maurice Davis' report “The Tomorrow People: Entry to the Museum Workforce” about the difficulties of breaking into a museum career that seems to have resonated. It's one of the most 'liked' posts on this site, despite being a thoroughly dejected and negative piece of information. 

There are many - and I mean many - people who aspire to museum careers or work in the cultural/heritage sector who find at some point asking themselves "how long am I going to keep this up?". How long is long enough to keep striving towards a goal before admitting to yourself and others that it probably isn't going to happen and it's time to come up with a Plan B?

The problem with Plan Bs is that many people have by this point gained expensive post-graduate qualifications, perhaps have extensive volunteer experience, gathered whilst working to pay the bills in unrelated sectors. Plan B is often to give up on a dream and simply continue with the job you took to bridge what you thought would be a short gap before you got your foot in the door. Few people are in a position to retrain for a different field, gain more qualifications or begin volunteering in a different sector. 

It's not news that museums are a difficult sector to break into, with all the manifold causes such as funding cuts, short-term contracts, more qualified people than jobs, demanding job descriptions for low-paid (and sometimes even voluntary) positions, the list goes on. And there are enough tips online about how people might try and break into the sector.

My question is, at what point do people give up? Is it after a particular number of years? A set number of "thanks but no thanks" emails in your rejection folder? And is the decision a conscious one? Do people simply run out of mental energy to apply for so many jobs until it eventually tails off to nothing? Or do they reach a point where, for their own wellbeing, they decide to let go of something that chips away at their self-esteem and free themselves of the burden? How long does it take people to reach that point? 

Quote is from App. II of Maurice Davis’ report. 

If you get five minutes, I would be really interested to hear from other people about how they made decisions to seek out a career somewhere else, the reasons they persevered and any tips they might have. Click here for a quick survey that will take 2-5 minutes (depending on how much detail you want to go into). Depending on the responses, I'll write up a blog post with the findings.

Alternatively, please leave a comment in the comments section on the blog page. 

In considering updating the list of links to multimedia resources relating to museums and museums studies, I have rediscovered some of the great content that museums make available via services such as SoundCloud.

There’s no museumsandstuff.com content on their yet (although there are tentative plans forming… watch this space), but I try and add interesting finds as I go along. At the moment I have a few playlists that might be of interest to the museum enthusiast, including lectures held at museums and relating to their current exhibitions, lectures about museum studies, curatorship, and more. Click on the screengrab above to visit.

SoundCloud is free to listen to and can be listened to via mobile apps or online via your computer. Your free account also means you can upload three hours of audio, after that you will need to pay a monthly subscription for either the ‘Pro’ or ‘Pro unlimited’ plans (€5 or €9/month).

If you know of any great museum/culture/documentary/discussion podcasts or even relevant individual episodes from otherwise unrelated feeds that you think fit the bill, let me know and I’ll share them!

Tip for the day: The British Library’s “Taking Liberties” series of talks and discussions to accompany the exhibition. 

Looks like there will be some interesting new museum books this year! I'm especially excited about "Museums Equality and Social Justice" and "Post Critical Museology".

Anyone know of any other good reading lists like this online? I could always add a tab on the home page like the free resources one, along the lines of "required reading". 

What would you say?

I know, I know. I am still not posting as much as I would like to, but I'm still rushed off my feet! Sorry!

But, readers and subscribers, I saw this and thought of you:

You can also gain exclusive free access to one chapter from each book in the series - so you can try before you buy.

Museum Studies day at British Museum

I went a few years ago when I was studying at Leicester and it comes highly recommended. If you are currently feeling a bit down or disenchanted with a career attempt in the museums field, this is the kind of thing is the kind of thing to recharge your museum-love battery.

Go there, listen and ask questions. And if they say something revolutionary or striking be sure to report back!

Click the link and join in the discussion. Which skills do you think you wouldn't be able to do your job without? Or wouldn't you employ someone without? I would have to say that the number one skill that is keeping me anywhere near the game at the moment is sheer detirmination and dogged tenacity.

For those of you who don't know, Dr. Richard Sandell is the head of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. Referred to here as a 'museums guru', Richard focuses on work of social agency and inclusion in museums (see bio and selected bibliography here). He is also a thoroughly lovely man and was the supervisor on my Masters thesis. I don't know who put the video up, but they obviously agree too.

Apparently, he is also a Taiwanese aboriginal percussion instrument player. Who knew?? I found this via Richard's Twitter page.

Museum studies aging well

By Jennifer Lanthier, posted Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Museums -- public or private -- are a beloved trope of fiction, a source of mystery and intrigue for everything from novels and comic books to films. But in real life?

"There's a real push these days for social ethics in museums," said Professor Jennifer Carter of museum studies. "We're talking about museums involving communities in programming, in exhibition development, in a much more open-ended way."

She cited the recent decision by Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, to consult Haida peoples about its collection and the Royal Ontario Museum's move to involve First Nations elders in the construction of its First Nations hall.

"Museums, as colonial institutions, developed their own categories for naming objects, so we're looking at how we can make those categories more reflective of the communities that used those objects," Carter said.

Museum studies is celebrating 40 years at the University of Toronto and the program recently hosted a sold-out conference, Taking Stock: Museum Studies and Museum Practices in Canada. Students, alumni, faculty and museum professionals spent more than two days wrestling with topics from pedagogy to partnering with First Nations.

"We wanted to take stock of what's been done but also to think through and create new research alliances for the future," said Carter, conference chair. "We hope that we opened the door to different kinds of thinking and practices."

Museums are as much about narratives as collections or display and deciding what story you want to tell and how to tell it is a challenge, said museum studies professor Lynne Teather.

"We're grappling with the thorniest issues of people's cultures and how we represent them through the objects we hold or the way in which we show them and engage publics," Teather said.

The trend in recent years towards memorial institutions such as Holocaust museums or museums based on an idea, such as human rights, rather than a collection, also presents challenges, said Carter.

"How you present traumatic information is very sensitive and also how you institutionalize memory," said Carter. "We're talking about the role of museums in developing historical consciousness."

Teather, who began lecturing at the university in 1979, said "the conversation here has always been cutting edge." She pointed to a student thesis from 1989 that argued northern museums could only work if communities and indigenous peoples participated.

"Many of our students have gone out to push practice, to be a conscience wherever they were working," said Teather.

Some of these projects sound so fascinating! It must be so inspiring to sit in on these talks and listen to people describe their projects.

Back from London!

This from PastPort: