VAM Circuit Riders Visit the Old Coast Guard Station Museum in Virginia Beach

“For foot candles, it’s a little high for paper, but not that bad.” – Jeanne Niccolls

If you know what the quote above means, then maybe your job has something to do with care and conservation of your museum’s collections. VAM staff members were privileged to accompany our Circuit Rider team of a curator (Jeanne Niccolls) and an archivist (Bradley Wiles) to the Old Coast Guard Station Museum (OCGSM) in Virginia Beach for their one-day mini needs assessment of the collections and storage areas. It was fascinating to see the process, and to hear about the challenges faced by those who are charged with the stewardship of museum collections.

While every collecting institution has its challenges, those at the OCGSM are unique indeed. I had this thought as I looked out from the collections storage area, enjoying the million-dollar view of the Atlantic Ocean, with its wisps of salty foam being blown around by humid ocean breezes. Humidity, variations in heat/cold, sunlight, salt, and sand- not to mention threats posed by tropical storms and hurricanes - are all part of the environment where the collections of the Old Coast Guard Station Museum are held. Theirs is quite a challenge indeed. As we walked through the museum and the collections area, I overheard museum staff (Director Kathryn Fisher, Registrar Leslie Small, and Educator Darcy Nelson were in attendance for the visit) and Circuit Riders discussing the following issues, to name just a few:

• Lighting and pest control
• Budget issues when different entities own the building vs. the collections that the building houses
• Accessibility of collections for monitoring purposes
• Collections insurance

The visit made me wonder – “Where do you begin?” with collections management. Apparently my question was not unique. Said Kathryn Fisher, director of the OCGSM, “I didn’t know where to start…. All I could see were the brambles, regardless of there being a forest beyond.” Well, one of the things that Kathryn started with was welcoming a visit from VAM’s Circuit Riders. After the visit, the VAM Circuit Riders provide participating museums with a detailed report that outlines recommendations for collections priorities and indicates simple - usually inexpensive - actions that can be taken immediately or in the next couple of years, and occasionally long term plans/suggestions that may require budget planning.

Find out more about Circuit Riders as well as the Old Coast Guard Station Museum in the upcoming Spring edition of the VAM Voice member newsmagazine. Interested in applying for a Circuit Rider visit? Find out more online at www.vamuseums.org. 

Show 'em the Money: Getting Good Data on the Economic Impact of Museums

Today I attended the Leadership Forum at the end of the Conference. The panelists spoke on "Heritage as a Catalyst for Community Revitalization." In the Q&A section, you could hear the frustration--and the opportunities--in the need for all of us who work in cultural institutions to demonstrate the tangible, economic impact to our communities. Michael Loveday made the same point in his keynote address this morning.

As was noted in the discussion at the Leadership Forum, we are often very good at sharing our passion for the importance of our respective missions but we aren't as good at expressing the economic benefits of our institutions. If that's true of individual institutions, it's even more so of museums in the aggregate. AAM has done done an admirable job in providing data for the national economic economic impact and encourages museums to complete an economic impact statement for members' respective institutions, all found here.

But what about for Virginia? Or for regions of Virginia? Do we have the kinds of economic impact studies that would give us the ability to "show the money" to legislators, county boards of supervisors, city councils, and the like? VTC has data that shows the economic impact of tourism, and you can break this down by county or city, but I can't find any data that would parse that information with regard to museums. You can see what they offer here. It's good stuff, in the aggregate, but not exactly what we need to create a set of talking points.

Is it time for VAM, VTC, VCA, VFH (or V-somebody else?) to commission such an economic impact statement? The most recent ones I could find, after a brief online search, are ten years old (or nearly ten years old). There are probably newer ones for specific regions or for specific institutional types (i.e., art museums, science centers, etc.) but we need to have economic impact statements for all types. If one way that we can be more successful in our advocacy is to speak with one voice about our economic influence, then we need data that can be aggregated for localities, regions, and for statewide.

Any thoughts on where this data is or how we can go about getting it? Can you show me where I can see the money?

I plan on raising this issue to my fellow VAM Council members for discussion at our May meeting.

VAM Responds to Randolph College Decision to De-accession Works from the Maier Museum of Art

The Virginia Association of Museums (VAM) released a letter sent to President John E. Klein of Randolph College, in which the Association expressed its opposition to the sale of four paintings from the college’s Maier Museum of Art. The letter (attached) was approved by the Council (board of directors) of VAM, the largest state museum association in the United States.

The paintings, which are slated to be auctioned in November by Christie’s in New York,
are: George Bellows’ Men of the Docks; Edward Hicks’ A Peaceable Kingdom; Ernest Martin
Hennings’ Through the Arroyo; and Rufino Tamayo’s Troubador. The college intends to apply the expected $32 million in revenue to its operating endowment, and to endow the Maier Museum Director’s position. [Museum Director Karol Lawson resigned in protest on October 2, the day after the paintings were removed by college officials. The controversy also prompted the resignations of the museum’s associate director and a member of the college’s art faculty.]
“It is the consensus of the Council that the Randolph College Board of Trustees and administration are making a grave mistake in treating works of art in the Maier Museum
collection as financial assets that can be sold to fund operating expenses of the college,” noted
Scott H. Harris, VAM President. “Such a clear violation of accepted museum standards compromises the museum’s ethical standing among its peers, and sets a disturbing precedent
that may hamper the collecting efforts of other institutions.”

Museum staff contacted VAM two years ago, when the college Board of Trustees began
looking at the art collection for possible sale. VAM’s Executive Director Margo Carlock made a
presentation on the ethics and standards of deaccessioning to the Board in September 2005.
“The museum director and staff acted in a responsible, professional manner in seeking to
provide a full range of information and professional museum perspective to aid the board in its
decision-making,” said Carlock. “It is regrettable that the board chose to take the action that it
did.”

As a museum professional, what do you think about this issue? Blog with us!

- Margo Carlock