A few words of concern on the exhaustion of the musetech sector. October 30, 2013
Old-ish Content Warning!
Now that I’m on the second leg of my “Drinking About Museums Listening Tour,” (ha!) a few themes are starting to emerge as I talk to museum professionals around the country (and soon, the world!), and I wanted to note them down before I forget.
First, the good news. It’s clear that, as far as technology goes, we’re not fighting the same battles that we were even a couple of years ago. Technologists that I’ve spoken to seem to not have to fight as hard to convince their directors/curators/educators/whomever that a given technology project is important. We still have to fight for resources (and strategic integration of technology efforts is still a problem, but that’s another post), but at least the conceptual battle seems to have been won, or at least is tilting in favor of more innovation on the technology side. I think this is a good thing.
And now, the bad news. In conversation after conversation, I’m astonished at how tired everyone seems. Almost every single person I’ve spoken to, from across disciplines and institutions, complains of overwork. This isn’t the normal, everyday “we’re being worked like crazy” complaints of the non-profit worker, but rather a “we’re working 12-hour days every day now and still can’t even come close to keeping up with the work” sort of complaint. And that worries me.
Almost universally, it seems that museums are expanding their (exhibition/publishing/web/etc.) programs, and asking more out of their staffers, but are not addressing, over the long term, how that level of increased activity will be supported. It also doesn’t seem that increasing institutional capacity is being addressed in a structural way; workers are simply being asked to do more, in the same way they already are, rather than being given an opportunity to step back and determine whether there might be more efficient ways of achieving the same goals. The phrase I keep hearing is, “there’s no longer any time to be thoughtful about my work at all.”
This worries me quite a bit–it seems to me that museums are buying their current successes on credit. Staff can be asked to work flat-out occasionally, but to ask that day in, day out, all year round, is ultimately suicidal. New York, LA, and London can count on a steady supply of people to replace the ones that burn out and leave, but smaller cities do not have that luxury. This leads to a significant structural problem in the museum sector that will be really hard to fix.
I feel like there’s a lot more to say about this, but I’m interested to hear from you. Am I overstating the case? And are there museums out there that are addressing structural problems and increasing efficiency? I’d be interested to hear about creative solutions to this problem.