[Nhcoll-l] filling the gap (Re: Collection management: trade or profession?)

[Douglas Yanega]

On 2/27/24 6:39 AM, Shoobs, Nate wrote:
>  I think what John articulated here is correct but perhaps unfortunate.
> I would love it if there were an international guild of museum 
> curatorial staff that had an apprenticeship system. (Or, 
> alternatively, if collections management were professionalized to a 
> greater degree and we became similar to university professors, art 
> museum curators, or librarians.) But neither scenario is currently the 
> case.
>
Not currently the case, but there are things that somewhat fill that 
void. At the risk of a little institutional self-promotion, allow me to 
post something from one of our campus student organizations:

"The Natural History Museum Club at UCR is a local branch of the Natural 
History Collections Care Network. Our activities include volunteering in 
collections on campus (such as the geology collection, entomology 
museum, and herbarium), museum science workshops, and tours and/or field 
trips to museums on and off-campus.

The purposes of the Natural History Museum Club at UCR organization 
shall be:

I. To provide multidisciplinary education, training, access, and 
opportunities for museum work to students which would otherwise be 
inaccessible or limited in scope

II. To interface with a nationwide network of like clubs on other 
university campuses

III. To facilitate interactions between undergraduates, graduates, 
staff, and faculty in fields utilizing natural history collections

IV. To further the goals of campus natural history museums"

I see from the NHCCN website (https://thenhccn.wixsite.com/nhccn/clubs) 
that at present there are only seven affiliated chapters, but it's a 
fairly new initiative, and hopefully other institutions will sign on. 
Part of that issue is promoting awareness of the organization, and as I 
am one of the campus advisers to our chapter, I suppose that promoting 
it here in this thread is acceptable and appropriate. These clubs are 
very much intended to fill the gap at institutions that have campus 
collections but do not have courses (let alone a degree) in collection 
management. Our chapter has been active for only a few years, but it has 
already helped a number of students, as well as collections. The last 
four museum technicians we've hired have all been students in our campus 
chapter, and I think the herbarium and geology collection on campus have 
also hired NHMC members. This gets us very motivated technicians, and 
gives them something tangible for their CVs, plus the potential for a 
very meaningful letter of recommendation, should they need one. I 
encourage people to consider looking into joining this network, and I 
can vouch for its benefits. It may not be much, but it's a positive 
step, for sure. Given time and a critical mass of members, I can imagine 
it eventually growing into another force for advocacy, which would be a 
good thing.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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