Role, organization and management of Museums

1
Role, organization and management of Museums

• Hatto Fischer
• HERMES Project
• Volos 13 14 June 2005

2
Role of Museums

• Museums make their unique contribution to the
  public by collecting, preserving, and
  interpreting items of past and present cultures
  and cultural heritages and through active use
  make them accessible.
• Museums offer more insight and reflection than
  most other media, which tend to offer merely
  digested opinions to the public.
• The museum is often in competition with these
  other media for the favour of the public. But
  here it is important for museums to have the
  media and politicians recognise the museums
  potential and attribute the right support and
  role to them when addressing and fostering
  cultural understanding.
• Although diverse in their missions, museums have
  in common their non-profit form of organization
  and a commitment of service to the public.

3
Aims and Means

• Their collections and/or the objects they borrow
  or fabricate have to be based on sound research,
  while exhibits and programs should be designed so
  that the public feels invited to participate.
• As memory institutions they ensure all stories
  are told and perceived in a just and fair manner,
  and by linking human creativity to ongoing
  development show value of human life on earth.
• By preserving and promoting cultural heritage
  (both tangible and intangible), they articulate
  and strengthen cultural identities.
• By bridging cultures, they further cultural
  understanding in times of conflict, tension,
  globalisation and multicultural challenges to the
  social structures of societies and nations.
• By offering formal and non-formal education
  through their collections and knowledge, they
  give to participants and the general public a
  unique opportunity to address individual, social,
  cultural and political issues and even to
  challenge false self understandings.

4
Museums root value

• Although the operating environment of museums
  grows more complex each year, the root value for
  museums, the tie that connects all of us together
  despite our diversity, is the commitment to
  serving people, both present and future
  generations.
• - Code of Ethics for Museums (AMM)

5
Organizational models

• While legal forms can be public (national,
  regional, local), private, public-private,
  corporate, the organizational form must adopt to
  the original set-up, aims and forms of
  realization.
• The organizational set-up includes
• Board
• Personnel / paid staff
• Volunteers
• Advisory groups
• Friends of the museum
• Good governance requires sound management,
  professional museum practice, spirited
  communication, networking, evaluation and link
  with the community.

6
Set-up and operational principles

• Strategic guidelines
• Develop vision, values, mission in the spirit
  of the times
• Realize the area in which the museum wishes to be
  known by as valid source of knowledge and
  inspiration for present and future
• Develop program ideas and novel ways of
  displaying things in interrelationship between
  the permanent and the temporary
• Consider the best practices to fulfill ethics
  of museums in all domains of operation and
  services
• Operational guidelines
• Secure resources and define financial objectives
• Unpack the archive or collection to give access
  to future work
• Define phases of implementation / benchmark
  performances
• Create interesting environments (for meetings,
  events, etc.)
• Work with community, communicate beyond museum
  walls

7
Management principles

• There exists no simple formula for good
  management
• Good judgment is most crucial, but also intuition
  and a common sense
• Thorough knowledge of the work environment is
  needed
• Clear identification of policy options and
  anticipation of future developments
• Major duty balancing stakeholders expectations
• Government / regional and local authorities
• Other and key board members
• Visitors (see profile and museum as civic space)
• Friends of the Museum
• Experts
• Ability to handle both internal and external
  controversies were they may arise.
• Maintaining the high profile of the museum in
  public.

8
Principles in program development

• Use spaces of the museum to allow for new
  developments (inner/outer relationship, content
  building location linkage, materials used,
  atmosphere etc.) with emphasis on accessibility,
  visibility, sound, shapes
• Adapt structure of building to house collection
  already known versus learning to use the space
  anew fresh view of new visitors.
• Build up of collection to acquisitions e.g. give
  staff regular responsibilities
• Offer activities and services in support of
  ongoing programs (art trips, lectures, workshops,
  curriculum facilitation, education / training
  programs)
• Museum products linked to programs (gifts,
  guides, publications)
• Infrastructure requirements / multi media
  accessibility (web based services)
• Improve staff performance and upgrade knowledge
  of museum practice
• Maintain link with visitors, community and
  international world
• Secure future programs to ensure the museum is an
  ongoing experience
• The Museum needs to leave behind the aura of
  being a sacred temple and become a place alive.

9
Program development outer conditions

• The role of the Museum is subject to re-thinking
  and re-shaping in response to changing framework
  conditions
• - demographic developments
• - changes in cultural values
• - economic development
• - changing profile of social income of groups
  likely to visit museums
• - competitive environment / other museums
• - e-challenges and other technological changes
• - changing needs for education and training
• - changes in museum practices and roles
• All these changes call for constant re-balancing
  of inner / outer requirements while having to
  respond in a novel way to reality.

10
Types of Models

• Public museums operate in support of official
  governmental in respect to their corporate values
  e.g. Te Papa National Museum of New Zealand
• Foundations have greater independence because
  they do not rely on governmental funds, are more
  project and network orientated, special services
  to the community e.g. Eugenides Foundation
• Private Museums e.g. Benaki most successful in
  terms of differentiated donation and contribution
  possibilities while offering a model of dynamism
  in different strands (archive, civilizations,
  exhibits)
• Private Public Models operating costs covered by
  government - co-financing in return for services,
  contingent of tickets etc. main activities
  around key collection commercial gallery gift
  shop
• Corporate Museum (e.g. OTE telephone museum)

11
Public-Private Partnership model Franz Gertsch
Museum in Burgdorf by Bern

• Five pillars will sustain and finance the
  enterprise.
• 1 By negotiation with the public hand aim for
  coverage of running costs. Swiss law allows
  coverage of these costs by means of co-financing
  if 50 contribution comes from private side.
  These subsidies are offered for services in
  return e.g. use of space for conferences and a
  contingent no. of tickets for free entry.
• 2 Membership in the circle of friends is
  differentiated for a public of interested lovers
  of art and promoters all the way to companies.
  With regards to this there is being made a
  differentiated offer an services made in return.
  They include art trips and purchasing of art
  works.
• 3 Not explicitly but as an additional source of
  income, money from entry tickets and transactions
  in the shop will be a further pillar. The 5
  pillars take consciously away the pressure from
  the institution to measure alone its success by
  the number of visitors.
• 4 The commercial gallery is a separate business
  venture from the museum the art park management
  AG and will realize special exhibitions of
  contemporary art. Whether or not pressure of
  having to be successful is taken of from need to
  shape contents of the programme, that remains to
  be seen. At the very least it is not left on its
  own. The business contacts of Willy Michels
  should bring also a financially interesting
  public to Burgdorf.
• 5 The benefactor remains available for shaping
  and establishing the museum.

12
A hint about Corporate Museum

• Involves direct cooperation with companies, i.e.
  museums taking on the task of building company
  museums, museums setting themselves up as event
  venues for companies etc.
• There is still some reluctance regarding this
  kind of cooperation, one consideration being how
  to control ethical issues.
• Critical differences In our part of the world
  there continues to be a strong focus on culture
  as an event compared with culture in which
  visitors, companies and politicians expect value
  for money.
• The economic potential for museums in building
  close bridges with the corporate culture seems so
  far to have been greatly overestimated in
  political terms.
• This is, therefore, a significant issue, although
  it has not yet been understood in public terms
  what this new type of museum will mean in the
  cultural landscape.

13
Financial planning principlesdiversification as
key to success

• Crucial is the identification of stock value, how
  maintained and increased over time.
• Burden of success is not put on attendance,
  exhibition, event performance by diversification
  of revenue sources (e.g. a commercial gallery
  with profits going 100 to the museum and running
  costs are covered by co-financing agreement with
  government (the case of the Private Public
  Model).
• Crucial is the legal framework for value
  creation e.g. law for foundations.
• Revenue differentiation matched by proper
  resource allocation
• Differentiated visitor profile as expression of
  official museum policy (individuals, students,
  groups of children, youth, adults, elderly
  people, families study groups etc.), friends of
  the museum (different grades) defines the
  constituencies of the museum and its packages
  (free entry, art trip, special hosting) as
  indication of different treatments and types of
  memberships in correspondence with services in
  return (free entry, space for events)
• Types of activities (workshops, lectures, guides,
  art trips etc.), gift shops, publications
• Kinds of donations (additions to collection, new
  collection, property, financial gifts etc.)
  legally sound and not conditional (the example of
  the Benaki Museum in Athens)
• the special role benefactors and what structural
  influences they want (avoid inner conflicts)
• governmental co-financing and grants (often
  exerts pressure in wrong direction i.e. too much
  education or over expensive exhibitions, but also
  investments not sustainable over time)
• other types e.g. fund raising campaigns for
  special purposes e.g. purchase of a painting or
  restoration or maintenance / expansion of the
  building

14
Institutional Assessment Monitoring

• Understanding of museum practice
• Quality of cooperation between board and staff
• Sense of mission and purpose
• Performance and achievement targets
• Knowledge of profession museum practices
• Team spirit and cooperation between paid staff
  and volunteers
• Practical and long term involvement of people
• Servicing the general public and community

15
Conclusions

• Museums remain highly innovative and creative
  institutions if they face openly the challenges
  coming from both the public and latest
  developments.
• Although multi media has provoked a search for a
  new identity by museums, there is a need to
  remain present in the realm of reality.
• Museum activities become diversified if extended
  beyond the museum walls and are taken further
  (e.g. the web based narrative, but also new
  curriculums for schools).
• While every display or item has intrinsic value,
  such a fact is not truth by itself but requires a
  context of understanding and interpretation to
  further the search for truth.
• The context in which an art work or collection is
  presented contributes to how the story of the
  museum is told in respect to the sui generis of
  art, culture and development.
• Let the museums mature around a cultural
  understanding of their roles in society.