[Nhcoll-l] Collection management: trade or profession?

[Callomon,Paul]

Folks,

As research for a planned paper, I thought I'd canvass you all on the following question:


  *
Is collection management a trade or a profession? What's the difference?
- A trade begins with learning, practice and experience (an apprenticeship). Apprentices pass tests and become journeymen; they then produce a masterpiece (the origin of the term, nothing to do with the Mona Lisa) and gain master's certification and sometimes membership of a guild, which allows them to take their own apprentices and renew the cycle in their place of work.
- A profession begins with study and examinations. Practice with real clients can only begin once both have been completed (think: lawyers; surgeons; accountants). A period of internship or further training is usual, but a professional qualification (MD, JD, CPA etc) allows one to start doing things that are otherwise illegal (like cutting live people open, representing a defendant in court, etc).


A master craftsperson is mobile between workplaces at master rank, but a partially-completed apprenticeship might not be accepted outside the workplace in which it was created. There is no rank above master, and senior institutional management tends to be taken from the ranks of professionals.

Any capable young person can become an apprentice, and the lower bar for entry means the trades are often more inclusive than the professions (though unions can and do bias hiring somewhat). Master tradespeople can make more money than at least junior professionals, and are arguably more important to the running of infrastructure-based institutions like museums.


Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates

________________________________

Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
callomon at ansp.org<mailto:callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170



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