Working In Museums – American Alliance of Museums

Museum Work as Socially Engaged Art

By Elizabeth Merritt

Hi, Nicole here! During January’s inaugural leg of the Future of Education Road Trip, my fellow fellow Sage Morgan-Hubbard and I were wowed (and not a little moved) by our meeting with Socially Engaged Artist daniel johnson at …
Neurodiversifying the Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

One topic I’ve explored here on the Blog is how museums such as the Pacific Science Center are making themselves more accessible to visitors with autism. And with ACLS Fellow Nicole Ivy, I’ve examined efforts to diversify the museum …
Volunteers and Museum Labor

By Elizabeth Merritt

As I untangle the strange economics that shape our field, I’ve written several posts exploring the causes and consequences of the generally low salaries attached to museum work. In The Museum Sacrifice Measure I asked how poor people are …
Museum People are the Best!

By Elizabeth Merritt

Dan and Marieke at the Renwick Galleryin Washington, DC One of my favorite museum podcasts—Museum People—just launched its second season with an episode profiling AAM’s own Laura Lott. In this series, produced by the New England …
Speaking with the Next Generation of Museum Workers

By Elizabeth Merritt

Did you create a museum in your room when you were a kid? Did you—like the Field Museum’s Bill Stanley—have a #butterflymoment when you realized working in a museum could be a real job? The more I wrestle with the challenge of building …
Tools for Exploring the Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

This post is one of a series highlighting insights, recommendations and resources from TrendsWatch 2016, the latest edition of CFM’s annual forecasting report. Download your free PDF copy here. It may provoke some giggles that …
Museums & Employment: Casting a Wider Net

By Elizabeth Merritt

Diversifying the museum workforce is going to involve all players in the labor market rethinking traditional assumptions. In her January guest post (“One Graduate’s Job Search Story”) Sophie Stein encourages recent …
Research Roundup: SurveyingThe Employment Landscape

By Elizabeth Merritt

With today’s post, ACLS Public Fellow (and CFM Futurist-in-Training) Dr. Nicole Ivy launches a new occasional feature on the blog: a roundup of recent research relevant to her work and (we hope) to yours. As part of my wonderings about …
Laboring over Art

By Elizabeth Merritt

I have a super-quick musing for you today, sparked by something I read last Friday: Looking at How Performers Are Paid for Performance Art There has been a lot of talk lately about labor conditions and pay equity in museums (looking at …
Futurist Friday: the Future of Work, and Happinesss

By Elizabeth Merritt

In a recent article in the Atlantic, Derek Thompson refers to work as the “unofficial religion of America.” Thompson is the latest in a long lineage of prognosticators envisioning a future in which most people don’t have …