Managing in the museum organization: II. Conflict, tasks, responsibilities

Abstract

In most museums conflict is usually over territory and about the functional and hierarchical authority of people: the basis of and limits to authority. Does a curator’s expertise in historic buildings extend to expertise in communicating that knowledge to the public through exhibitions ? Does a public relations person’s expertise in communication extend to expertise in knowing what to say? Should an educator alone determine the content of educational experiences? Should an accountant determine how scientists can spend their budget? In the new businesses of mass education and public relations the technical publication must become the exhibition or collection guide, the objects which ‘spoke for themselves’ must be interpreted to the previously unaware. This has meant a loss of control for the curator who previously had to talk only to other scholars, even if they were amateurs. Some of the consequences have most recently been elaborated by Newsom (1980), Miles (1985), Schreiber (1986)-in her study of the relationship of staff training to the use of collections for interpreting the humanities-and by museum professionals invited to comment on this issue. Recent observations suggest to me that, like adherence to laws forbidding discrimination, contribution by all museum professionals to public programs will be mandated unless those responsibilities are recognized voluntarily. Thus, many of the large scholar-based natural history museums in North America now require a demonstrable contribution to public programs by their curators before promotion will be granted. This is written into the industrial agreement with the Curators Assocation at the Royal Ontario Museum (David Barr, pers. comm.) and mandated at the British Columbia Provincial Museum, where some fifty public activities have been identified (John Peart, pers. comm.). The conditions for boundary conflict often emerge in the exhibition process. It is generally accepted these days that designers, educators (usually) and marketing people (sometimes) must be involved alongside the scholar in a team putting together major exhibitions. In such situations a focus on leadership and high quality communication is preferable to rigidly defined functional roles. However, in the exhibition project team the