The Historic House Museum community is also dealing with issues of relevance and professionalism. There is a “background” initiative, lead by the Association for State and Local History and the National Trust to understand the issues affecting house museums, defined in an editorial, published in History Magazine, and Preservation in 2002. The article can be found at: http://www.aaslh.org/images/hhouseart.pdf

In it, the author, Gerald George makes several points, there are too many house museums… many are failing, they don’t use assets well, less obvious is an argument that that house museums are at the same time too professional, and not professional enough.

By that he means that we don’t have professional staff (either volunteer or paid), and can’t be open enough, or take appropriate care of the artifacts, but the staff we do have sometimes uses the museum to “hide out”. I believe that he thinks that with our (If you haven’t figured out by now I run a house museum) limited training we implement curatorial rules with out understanding and as a result suck the life out of our buildings.

My favorite quote from the article… “Changing a museum can be a fight; it is easier to complain of the limitations of the audiences. However, the group generally agreed, disrespect for one’s public can be a major inhibitor.”

How does this apply to railroad museums? The article is about reaching your audience as a primary goal. Too often we fight the battle against rust and rot and complain about lack of outside support when it might be better working to reach our visitors, who will then support our projects…

Randy

Is the purpose of a museum to please the visitors, the public, the large donors, the politicians, the news media, your peers, the members, the officers, the directors, the trustees, or the staff?

Yes.

dave

Okay, Dave, I'll see you and raise you:

How?

Oh, and while we're at it, please be sure to add how to concurrently please the power company and other local utilities, the local government tax assessors, the accountants, the IRS, and the neighbors.

Sandy, I never said it was possible.....where would you get an idea like that?

dave

I lumped "the local government tax assessors"and "the IRS" with the politicians, and "the neighbors" with the public. I didn't think of "the accountants" and "utilities", they might go in one lump.

... and somewhere in the midst of trying to please everyone, we hope we can keep it all from falling apart around us...

I would argue "none of the above". I don't think any Museum was founded with a purpose to "please" someone. I doubt that appears in anyone's Mission Statement. Most railway Museums were founded to preserve and display (and in some cases operate) obsolete railway equipment and other railroad-related objects. Some (I would guess for example the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton) were established mainly to provide economic stimulus to a community.

However to fulfill its Mission Statement, almost every Museum needs to at least satisfy some or all of the groups in Jim Bolyan's post.

by doing something that graps the publics eye for a day or two, then try something else

its unfortunate, but if you are gonna get the dollars you gotta get a promotional system going that gets people excited
the fate of railway pres can not lie with our govt or big donors

moneys tight, so you have got to fight for every dollar

and even more important don't waste a dime

dr

I have gathered several other articled and documents from this effort and recommend them as reading for the railroad museum community. If anyone would like copies, I can email them to you if you can take 3MBs worth of attachments.

Accountants are easy to please.