I do not have a lot of personal experiences with museums as a patron, with much of my museum going experiences being as a tourist, with examples including the corning museum of glass and the New York Spyscape Museum, which I saw on a family trip when I was still in high school. While I enjoyed the experience of these museum’s they didn’t really stick with me through the years, and I feel my experiences as a patron are less useful for examining this question than my experiences as an anthropologist with UAF’s museum of the North. When reading this week’s materials, I noticed that museums were primarily described in the context of being public spaces, with their role in researching materials taking a secondary role in their interactions with the public. I feel like my own perception of the importance of museums in assisting academic research changed when I begin studying anthropology.
Prior to studying anthropology as a undergrad, my primary criteria for determining what made a good museums, was based on how interesting the exhibits were and how accessible the information presented was to me as someone without prior knowledge. In general, I was interested in museums more as a source of entertainment and trivia than as a serious source of knowledge about other cultures or the natural world. When I began studying to be an anthropologist however, I begin to think of museums as a part of the broader academic community and as a way to learn about other cultures, through research of artifacts and through dialog with communities. My perspective of museums changed even further after I got my bachelor’s degree here at the University and I began looking for work in the field of archaeology.
In 2021, I was part of a site survey in Katmai national park, funded by the Museum of the North, which was my first major field experience as an archaeologist, outside of the Alaskan Interior. I greatly enjoyed the experience, and following the season, I began seriously considering long term employment at a museum as a viable career path. This gives me a very different perspective on museums than the average patron, which I felt had much more to offer for considering this question than my limited experience as a patron of a handful of museums.
Understanding what makes a museum a museum requires looking beyond their interactions with the general public, and taking into account their role in the broader academic community. A significant amount of the Archaeological fieldwork being done by modern archaeologists is only possible because we have museums willing to store the collected materials, even if the majority of those materials are never put on display.
A museums can be different things to different people. To a young child a museum is a place to see interesting objects and learn about the world. To a professional archaeologist a museum is place of employment and way for their work to be seen by the general public. We cannot simply reduce the definition of what a museum is to a single definition without first addressing the context in which museums exist and the many ways they interact with world.
My question for you is this, How has your perception of what a museum is changed over the course of your life, and how much of this change has been shaped by your cultural background vs your personal experiences?
For me, visiting well funded and poorly funded museums over my lifetime in different cities throughout the world has taught me they all are invaluable and to never overlook or undervalue any museum because they all have some jewels to learn from. This has changed me in that I have maneuvered myself into administrative/employment positions at a few museum, thus I understand the need for funding exhibitions and research as well as the many nuances of promoting the missions of museums through programs and events.
I like the point you make in viewing museums from a professional viewpoint. I’ve only ever visited museums as a tourist, so to speak. I’ve often wondered what would change if I were to approach it as a career field, and you’ve basically hit the nail on the head: museums are storage facilities for hundreds of thousands of objects and as a showcase for the career fields of anthropology and history. My perception of museums changed once I got the results of my DNA test back – it showed that I’m 30% Scottish, and I immediately visited Scotland to visit everything related to my ancestoral history and compared everything to American museums. I distinctly remember visiting Edinburgh Castle’s museum, and was taken aback when they described American Revolutionary War soldiers as “rebels”.