Museum Management

 Museum Management

1. Introduction

Museums are traditionally not ‘managed’ but ‘administered’. There is no specific manager in

museums, even in India but the entire museum management is performed by different staffs

under the directives of museum policies by and under the respective administrative

personnel like directors, curators, keepers, conservators, and education officers etc. who

have been groomed in traditional style of museum administration. The entire administrative

system of a museum is performed either directly under the Ministry of Culture, Government

of India by the Director Generals in case of national museums or by definite governing body

or Board of Trustees in case of other museums including the museums of national

importance.

Museum management is defined today as the action of ensuring the running of the

museum’s administrative, business and more generally, all the activities which are not

directly attached to the specific fields of museum work (preservation, research and

communication). In this regard, museum management essentially encompasses tasks

relating to financial (accounting, management control, finances) and legal responsibilities, to

security and upkeep, to staff management and to marketing as well as to strategic

procedures and the general planning of museum activities. The term management is of

Anglo-Saxon origin (comes from the French manège and ménage) and management

process illustrate a certain concept of museums – in particular its relationship to public

service.

Museums are not business firms that are driven by motives of profit. These are service

organizations of a unique type, whose mission is to collect and preserve the objects of

heritage and make them objects of entertainment and education. Hence the conventional

tools of management are not always very relevant in the case of museums. But museums

are also large organizations, employing large number of people of different background,

collecting a large number of unique, valued and significant objects of heritage and displaying

them for diverse peoples’ interests, locally as well as globally within the framework of limited

resources received from either grants from the government or donors, sponsors and thus

bounded with several restrictions. Therefore, museum management comprises with

collection management, human resource management, financial management, marketing,

public and media relations, safety and security as well as quality management. For all these

museum needs policies that provide opportunity to museum not only to review its activities,

but also to re-define museum’s purposes and directions. It is the basis for radically rethinking

for putting together and conveying museum's mandates, strategies and directions.

2. Objectives of Museum Management and Administration

∙ To understand the basic requirements of a museum

∙ To develop relevant policies and strategies for implementing the policies

∙ To run the entire system to achieve mission and goal of the museum

3. Components of Museum Managements

∙ Collection Management

∙ Human Resource Management

∙ Financial Management

∙ Marketing

∙ Quality Management

3.1 Collection Management

It is the management of the entire collection of objects in the museum including the

necessity of acquisition or taking loan of new objects, scope of objects, record keeping,

inventories, insurance factors, its care and conservation, exhibition, education and deaccessing

or giving loan to other museum under a defined policies. These can be

summarized as follows:

3.1.1. Acquisition of new object :

i) New acquisition must be in accordance with the mission of the museum

ii) Objects that are not in present permanent collection

iii) Immediate planning of museum, related to collection

iv) The object (s) must has/have intrinsic value and consistent with stated purposes,

scopes and activities of the museum

v) The object must have historical/ cultural/ artistic/ scientific/ technological/ antique/and

educational values

vi) Museum has the ability to provide proper care and storage of new object

vii) The object must have a verifiable record of authenticity and provenance

viii) The object must have detailed information with clear title

ix) All acquisition must be outright and unconditional

x) It must be verified that objects are not stolen and wrongly converted

3.1.2. Objects in collection

i) Scope and use of the present collection

ii) Documentation of every object in museum's custody

iii) Proper record of objects given for loan or taken as loan

3.1.3. Record Keeping

i) Documentation including cataloguing, legal status and physical condition

ii) Records associated with curatorial functions, information about an object

iii) Record Keeping of periodic inspection, safety and security

3.1.4. Care and Conservation of objects

i) Periodic record keeping of the conservation measures of an object

ii) Record of the pre and post conservation measures taken

iii) Record of strength and precautions required during storage and packaging

3.1.5. Insurance of objects

i) Insurance value of each museum object, fixed by the concerned panel/board

ii) Insurance value of the objects settled for conservation, packing, and transport

iii) Records of the insurance authority and receiving institutions taking objects as loan

3.1.6. Inventories

i) Uniform method of maintaining inventory records

ii) Periodic comprehensive inventories

iii) Spot-check inventories

iv) Inventories on missing objects

3.1.7. Loan

Documentation is essential about the terms and conditions for incoming or outgoing loans—

specifying its purpose, time period and contact details.

Incoming loan

Detail information regarding objects, owner and conditions for security, transport,

conservation, maintenance, display measures etc.

Outgoing loan

i) Record of receiving institutions and purpose of taking loan

ii) Person/institution taking the responsibility of security, conservation, maintenance etc.

iii) The borrower must complete and return a 'Facility report' noting security, lighting,

temperature, and humidity control.

3.1.8. Procedure for De-accessioning

Museums should reserve the right for de-accessioning of any object under the following

criteria:

i) If the object is not relevant and useful to the purpose and activities of museum

ii) To exchange, donate or sale to another museums / institutions.

iii) If the object deteriorated beyond usefulness

iv) Repatriation of any stolen objects from any other places and claiming by its owner

3.1.9. Research

i) Research on existing objects and its scope in serving society

ii) Developing policies regarding invitation of external researchers

iii) Research on market conditions including visitors survey, service feedback etc.

iv) Research on new modes of information dissemination

v) Research on theme of new exhibition

vi) Research on the capacity building of existing staff

vii) Research on security, care and conservation of objects

3.1.10. Exhibition

i) Theme of exhibition in a proposed year and a proposed period of time

ii) Exhibition action plan and strategies for its implementation

iii) The policy for permanent, temporary, travelling and mobile exhibitions

iv) Should address visitors, resources, roles of exhibitions and permanent displays

v) Must acknowledge the guidelines on visitors care and disability

vi) Must communicate messages, knowledge and entertainment

vii) Determine evaluation to avoid repetition of drawbacks

3.1.11. Education

i) Specify the education mission statement, the education policy, the education strategy,

and education action plan

ii) It should discuss audience, budget and resources, type of educational provision, roles

and functions within the museum, networks outside the museum, training, marketing

and evaluation. (Hooper-Greenhill, 1991)

3.2. Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management is concerned with the management of people or staff of an

organisation for utilizing their ability, efficiency, qualification and experience in accordance

with the pre-determined mission and objectives of that organisation.

In a museum, human resource management is very much important in accessing the

available intelligence, qualifications, experiences, communication skills, managing power

etc. that are required to handle huge number of objects and their oceans of information in

the service of society. For managing human resource, a database management regarding

staff is required:

3.2.1. Staff Structure

i) Total numbers of sanctioned post

ii) Available staff and deficit of staff

iii) Scope of utilization of available staff

iv) Scope of fresh appointed in the vacant posts

v) Hiring of staff

3.2.2. Database Management of Staff

i) Total number of staff— existing and retired, their designations, departments, contact

addresses with telephone numbers

ii) Database of all staff according to their academic qualifications, experience, training

exposures, achievement etc.

iii) Database of the required knowledge in different field of museum's activities

3.2.3. Database of Resource Persons (excluding staff)

i) Database of the resource persons in relevant field associated with the museum for

consultation

ii) Database of the required resource persons for consultation

3.2.4. Interns and Volunteers

i) In deficit of staff museum can appoint interns for a definite period and purpose from

relevant fields

ii) Museums may engage artists, experts and retired staff as volunteer for various

purposes time to time

3.2.5. Professional Development/Capacity building of staff

This is an integral part of human resource management to improve the quality and capacity

of present staff for better performance. Thus, museum must provide scope and opportunities

to its staff in terms of training, capacity building program, educational enhancement etc. with

appraisal and reward facilities.

3.3. Financial Management

Finance is the base of any organization without it no organization can survive. Thus, it needs

to generate as per requirement and manage well so that it can be utilized fullest and

effectively on defined purposes maintaining strong management. This can be done in three

important steps—Budgeting, Fund generation and utilization in a cyclic order to establish

efficiency of a museum.

3.3.1. Budgeting

It is the estimation of required fund in a financial year for running all heads and activities of a

museum. It must include:

i) Salary and all recurring costs

ii) Fixed costs like on communication, electricity, day-to-day maintenance etc.

iii) Implementation of new plans and projects

iv) Gallery renovation, repair and periodic maintenance

v) Capacity building of staff, organizing training and public services

3.3.2. Fund generation/management

∙ Fixed annual government funding from Central or state government

∙ Utilization from the available deposit in bank

∙ Regular incoming resource from ticket, sales-counter, and auditorium rent etc.

∙ Achieving funding for definite projects from government and national and

international private funding agencies

∙ Achieving corporate sponsorship for defined purposes

∙ Inviting donations with tax exemption facilities

∙ Developing friends of museum

∙ Product development including souvenir items, publication, educational kits

∙ Organizing need based training program, seminars, workshops, nature camps,

exploration etc.

∙ Organizing/participating in commercial exhibition, fairs and festivals

3.3.3. Utilization of fund

It is the important part of any financial management to utilize the received fund against the

specific job within the specified period for establishing the efficiency of the museum and for

getting more funds in next financial years. The utilization must be audited by Central Auditing

Agency or any competent authority agency.

3.4. Marketing

Marketing is the management process, which confirms the mission of a museum or gallery

and is then responsible for the efficient identification, anticipation and satisfaction of its

users’ (Lewis, 1991).

3.4.1. Marketing Mix Principle of 7 P’s

Any service marketing depends on Marketing Mix Principle of 7 P’s (Akar, 1999, adopted by

the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK). Marketing of Museum is also depending upon

these 7 P’s factors that need to consider while planning for marking activities. These are:

The First P: It is the Product or Service Package. In Museum, activities are the main

product and information about that need to be disseminated.

The Second P: It is Price. To earn revenue and survival cost, any non-profit making

institutions like museum can charge price against its various services. Price should be in

accordance with the quality of service, otherwise more price may discourage visitors to avail

those services.

The Third P: It is Place or the area of distribution. For launching any service it is very much

important for museums to know the nature of the location it exists and nature of the location

of the target people, it is going to serve.

The Fourth P: It is Promotion of services or products of a museum. It needs to aware

common people about the existence of the museum, its various user-friendly services and

products. It is the modes of communication between the museum and target group for

understanding visitors or users properly.

The Fifth P: It is People or visitors or employees. If the museum do not know the peoples’ or

visitors’ demands for whom they are going to provide their service, the entire marketing effort

and investment will go in vain.

The Sixth P: It is Physical Evidence. Service is not a product, since visitors cannot see a

service, but they definitely see various tangible clues of the service like facilities,

communication materials, education, knowledge, entertainment, price etc. On the basis of

these factors, visitors take the decision that whether they will avail it or not.

The Seventh P: It is Process Management. The importance of process management is that

it assures service availability and consistent quality.

3.4.2. Importance of the Marketing of Museum

 Museum organizes various services for the use and benefit of general people.

Marketing brings people close to the services

 It Generate interest among ‘Target People’ about museum and its activities

 Essential to compete with other entertainment institutions

 Ensure social accountability of museum

 For image building of museum in society

 For Resource and Fund Generation

Chief aim of marketing is to increase sales figure. While informing about a museum, people

get interest about its collection and services, they generate desire and develop conviction

about museum visit. Their visit, purchasing museum objects, enjoying various services will

increase revenue.

3.4.3. Public Relations and advertising

A. Public Relations

'Public Relations' is the medium through which an institution can market itself among

common people and can develop prospective visitors.

1. The Public Relations work of a museum should be sighted on three targets:

 Should transmit information of the subject matter it contains through exhibitions,

lectures and publications (as per its policies)

 Should attract as many museum visitors as possible (to arouse public interest)

 Should awaken interest and goodwill for the museum (not only among visitors, but

also with official and politicians, potential financial institutions and donors)

2. Postulates for successful Public Relations Work

There are three pre-requisites for having effective museum’s Public Relations:

 A good gallery/exhibition/shows/service/product

 Be factual and correct: Every statement of information in the text or picture

must be accurate and scientifically incontestable.

 Be understandable: Explanatory texts are important, but it should be as brief

as possible, clear and understandable for laymen.

 Offer a graded information program: A museum for everyone should have

something to say to every age group, to every level of knowledge.

 Appeal to mind and emotions: A museum should be instructive and

attractive, alive and entertaining with humor, to make the learning easier.

 Appeal to the senses: The museum visitors not only have eyes, but ears

and hands as well. Whenever possible and within permissible limit, the

visitors should be allowed to touch and handle objects on display.

 Being different from competitors:

To establish unique position among competitors, a museum has to be different. One

should accentuate what is special about one’s own museum and emphasis this

repeatedly in Public Relations and Advertising texts.

 Enthusiasm and positive thinking:

Enthusiasm is infectious and thus in order to ‘market’ convincingly and successfully,

museums must have to maintain a ‘sacred fire’. Giving importance to bring out the

positive aspects first and formulating the facts in the most positive way, it can do.

3. Maintaining Public Relations

It involves process of communication with common target audience. Maintaining Public

Relation is very much essential with the Institutions, Visitors, Media and Community. It can

be proceed in following ways:

 Selecting target institutions

 Communication through e-mail, sms service, telephoning, sending representatives

 Inside the museum communication from ticket counter, reception desk, visuals

 Visitors’ assistants through publication, gallery guide, directions, announcements

 Media relations by giving press and media release

B. Advertising

Museum is a social non-profit making organization and thus, museums may go for low cost

advertisement or unpaid advertising for reaching people.

 The newspaper is the most effective mass media of communication. Giving

advertisement here is cost effective and can reach to large number of people at a

time. This may be in two ways

 Unpaid- new creation, press release, article

 Paid- advertisement of new events

i) Hoarding in busy places always attracts attention of large number of viewers. To

make it cost effective, museum can invite corporate houses to sponsor hoarding in

shared basis.

ii) Museum can distribute colorful printed folders, leaflets, posters and brochures having

detail information about the museum and its activities to schools, tourism department,

travelling agencies in different cities, hotels etc. as advertisement.

iii) Display balloon is an attractive media of advertisement. Museum can advertise itself

in a display balloon above its building

3.5. Quality Management

Quality Management is a system tool that contains all the elements needed to administer an

organization. At the same time it expresses the best operational practices, promotes a

process of evaluation and auto-evaluation of performances aiming at all-round improvement.

It acts on following 10 elements:

1. the building;

2. the collections;

3. the presentation and interpretation of the material on display;

4. museum publications and the shop;

5. the educational programs;

6. activities other than those that are deliberately and obviously educational;

7. publicity and marketing;

8. management;

9. attention to the physical comfort of visitors;

10. the general atmosphere of the museum;

3.5.1. Model on Total Quality Management (TQM)

There are few models that service sector organizations follow to achieve quality certification.

Museum may practice 5 S Model, developed by Osada in Japan for achieving total quality:

S-1 Structures

 Staff should not be excess or less in organization

 Staff should be trained, oriented for their capacity building time to time

 Staff motivation through appraisal and promotion system

 De-accessioning objects which are not needed

 Treat defects, leakage, breakage and their causes

 Daily “Things-to-do” List

 one hour meeting everyday

 One location file (e.g. LAN server)

S-2 Systemize

 Museums should have both manual and computerized system of database

 Everything must have clearly designated name & place or well labeled

 Every place should have a ‘responsible person’

 Functional placement for leaflets, folders and useful materials for visitors

 Easy-to-read and understand directions and notices

 30-second retrieval of information/document and colour coding devices

 Regular maintenance in every system

 Sufficient visitors’ amenities and safety measures against fire and any crisis

S-3: Sanitize

 Routine cleaning in public areas, exhibit and stores

 Individual cleaning responsibility should be assigned

 Make cleaning and inspection, and correction of minor problems

 Cleaning of unwanted documents, discarded papers, files, furniture at regular basis

 Data cleaning and up gradation of software including virus protection

 Clear directives for visitors and their regular surveillance for maintaining constant

clean museum environment

 'Danger' warning signs and marks

 Electrical wiring neatness and switch labels

 Well maintained parking and visitors’ waiting

S-4: Standardize

 Transparency in every process management

 Development of relevant policies and its proper implementation

 Responsibility labels on floor plan or at site

 Prevent noise and vibration at source

 Department/office labels and name plates

S-5: Self-discipline

 Execute individual 5-S responsibilities

 Proper dress code of staff for easy identification by visitors

 Good communication and telephone practices

 Practice dealing with emergencies

3.5.2. Evaluation

Museum evaluation to be able to successfully apply quality in the museum management, the

basic requirement would be the efficient and correct evaluation, in other words, both market

research and operations research. Dr Saroj Ghose (2003) stresses on SWOT (Strength,

Weakness, Opportunity & Threat) analysis to point out what needs to be done, and putting

problems in perspective.

Museum evaluation may be of many types, basic intention of all being to gauge the highly

complex process of communication through museum exhibition. Two major types of museum

evaluation are the visitor evaluation & exhibit/exhibition evaluation (using visitors), both

together termed as visitor studies.

A. Visitor Evaluation

It involves the experience of the museum visitors, both quantitative and qualitative. This can

be broadly explained through the following scheme:

Demographic study

1. Psychographic study

2. Behavior study

3. Cognitive psychology study

B. Exhibit/ exhibition Evaluation

It is the determination of the success or worth of an exhibit/ exhibits to identify certain

qualities or attributes by eliciting expressions of liking or preference for the exhibit being

evaluated, and finally obtaining scores as to the degree to which an exhibition possesses

these qualities. Finally having identified the qualities and measured them and obtained

visitor’s preference there remains the task of evaluating the results − has the exhibit passed

or failed. To do this, some sort of yardstick is needed against which a decision would be

made.

Three basic methods are adopted in such exhibit/ exhibition evaluation –

1. Large Scale Sample Survey, both random and control

2. Behavioral Observation.

3. Pen and Paper Test (questionnaires).

Exhibit evaluation (using visitors) can be done by the group of mock-up visitors using

following steps:

1. Front-end Evaluation— is conducted at the beginning of developing an exhibit's or

program's themes and contents

2. Formative Evaluation—is a method for judging the worth of a program while the

program activities are forming (in progress)

3. Summative Evaluation—is the assessment of participants on the outcome of a

program and done after development of the program but before inauguration

Quality is the conformance to requirements. Here, in museums, the requirements are the

services including communication. Quality audit & accreditation is required to ensure quality

in museum services. The ICOM’s International Committee for Regional Museums (ICR) took

up the matter and brought out a booklet in 1999 titled Museum Accreditation, a quality proof

for museums. ICR is working on producing a handbook on the subject to classify the

museums according to their quality performance, like the ISO accreditations in the cases of

manufacturing & service industries, star (*) systems in the hospitality industries or the

alphabetical ratings in the non-banking financial institutions.

4. Governing Body/ Board of Trustees

The term ‘Governing Body’ has been referred to signify the superior authority concerned with

the policy, finance and administration of the museum. In India, regardless of who owns the

museum, a museum has a Governing Body. This may be an individual minister or official, a

Ministry, a Local Authority, a Board of Trustees, a society, the Director of the museum or any

other selected individual or body. For examples the Board of Trustees of the Indian Museum

Kolkata is constituted by nine members including the Governor of West Bengal as Chairman.

Sometimes, the Governing Body is divided into committees on special aspects of museum

programmes. Again, in some cases like in Bal Bhavan, Board of Management is

administered instead of Board of Trustees. In some cases an Advisory Board accompanying

their Governing Body like in case of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya,

Mumbai. All the management operations are persuaded by the respective governing bodies.

5. Summary

‘Management in museum is the most high-profile aspect of museum activity at present.

Every facet of the museum activity is being examined and re-evaluated as never before. This

will not be a short-lived fashion, a passing fad of interest before another area of museum

work is placed under the microscope. Management is likely to remain one of the key issues

for museums into the next millennium’. (Kevin Moore, 1994). Management, even at its best,

is only a single dimension of a museum’s overall operation. Excellence in a museum must

depend as well on the quality of its educational and other programmes, the importance of its

purpose and the disciplinary value of its collection. None the less, it is difficult to conceive

that a poorly managed museum would ever be able to achieve and sustain a level of

excellence for any extended time. Good management may not be the measure of a good

museum but, in the long run, it would most certainly appear to be one of its critical

prerequisites.