Staffing Trends – American Alliance of Museums

Say Cheese! A Candid Snapshot of the Museum Sector

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last month AAM released the results of our fifth “snapshot” survey of the field. These snapshots, which started as a means of checking in on museums and museum workers during COVID shutdown, now help us track recovery and continued …
Community Curating: A Macro to Micro View

By Elizabeth Merritt

In the second post in our series previewing sessions at AAM2018, Michael Berlucchi (Community Engagement Manager, Chrysler Museum of Art), Sandra Bonnici (Associate Director of Education, Diversity, and Inclusion, Madison Children’s …
Throwback Thursday: Revisiting the future workforce

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s Dispatches from the Future of Museums features a story about a report from the Labor Department that shows the rate of volunteerism in the U.S,. is the lowest it has been in a decade. The biggest declines are among those …
Interpreting the Future of Art Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve blogged about the emergence of new kinds of positions in museums over the last decade. This week, four leaders in interpretive planning from the Nelson-Atkins, Denver, and High art museums as well as the Detroit Institute of Arts …
Engaging with a “Director of Audience Engagement”

By Elizabeth Merritt

Earlier this month I blogged about Museum Jobs that Didn’t Exist in 2003, and what they tell us about the evolution of our field. Evidently the essay hit a nerve, as it quickly became one of the most read CFM posts ever, (about 5000 page …
Go East, Young Woman

By Elizabeth Merritt

Many people, giving advice to people aiming at museum careers, have pointed out that you have to be willing to relocate. (See, for example, Robert Connolly’s recent Thoughts on How to Get a Museum Job). Today’s post raises the question—how …
Museum Jobs That Didn’t Exist in 2003

By Elizabeth Merritt

(& what that says about the evolution of our field.) A couple weeks ago, I read a post on Coexist called “Eight New Jobs People will have in 2025,” projecting openings for Digital Death Managers, Un-Schooling Counselors, Digital Detox …
Flower Power: A Story of Organizational Re-Blossoming

By Elizabeth Merritt

A reporter recently asked me to name the biggest barrier standing in the way of museums adapting to the forces shaping the future. My reply was “ourselves—the funding and organizational structures that tether us to outdated models and …
No Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

The Field Museum of Natural History recently announced that it is cutting its budget by 7%—$5 million from its overall budget of ~$70 million—with $3 million of this coming out of the science departments.The museum has begun a process that …
Will You Lose Your Museum Job to a Robot?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Drawing produced by participants in the CFM “Drawing Club” event at the 2012 AAM conference OK, maybe not to a robot, but to increasingly sophisticated automation. This question is prompted by a report released last month by …