labor – American Alliance of Museums

The Future of Museum Labor: Exploring the Latest COVID Impact Data

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last week the Alliance released the results of our most recent snapshot of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on US museums. We launched this series of surveys in June 2020, a little over 3 months after the World Health Organization …
Lessons Learned from SARS (and Strikes) at the Ontario Science Center

By Elizabeth Merritt

Often the best way to foresee the future is to revisit the past. In March, professor Marjorie Schwarzer offered an overview of how US museums responded to three pandemics in the 20th century. Today on the blog, Jennifer Martin, Julie …
Museums and Equity: Volunteers

By Elizabeth Merritt

42% male 22% African American, Asian, or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity 66% under the age of 55 49% with less than a college degree That’s the demographic profile of volunteers in the US*. Does it describe your museum’s volunteers? For many …
Revisiting Volunteers and Museum Labor

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m working on an essay about museum volunteers and diversity, exploring how this issue intertwines with efforts to diversify our staff, boards, and audiences. What are the barriers to volunteering? Is the opportunity and ability to …
The Power of a Paid Internship: Creating pathways to careers in museums

By Makeba Clay

In 2015, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation issued a report on diversity in art museums that reinforced what is obvious to anyone working in or affiliated with the industry: non-Hispanic white men dominate leadership positions, and there is a …
Leading By Example, Not by Mandate

By Laura Lott

Champion museums and nurture excellence in partnership with our members and allies. This is the Alliance’s mission statement and a call to action that is driving results across the museum field. There is no Alliance without our members! …
Labor of Love: Revaluing Museum Work

By Emma Boast and Maddie Mott

This post was originally published on Medium, December 20, 2017. Over the last few years, museum workers have been increasingly vocal about job dissatisfaction. At the 2015 American Alliance of Museums (AAM) annual conference, several …
Recruiting a Diverse Workforce Through Unbiased Hiring

By Elizabeth Merritt

In spring 2017, CFM launched a FutureLab project to help museums explore new hiring practices to create more equitable workforces. Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site was one of the first museums to sign up as a lab partner. In …
Labor 3.0: Lights Out

By Elizabeth Merritt

What: automated “lights out” manufacturingWhy museums should care: disruptions to labor and increasing economic inequality impact our communities and our audiences, as well as museums’ own financial bottom line.Many …
Honoring Curiosity

By Elizabeth Merritt

Emily Graslie, Chief Curiosity Correspondent at the Field Museum of Natural History, has been named as the 2017 recipient of the Nancy Hanks Memorial Award for Professional Excellence. As a long-time fan of Emily’s YouTube series The Brain …