{"id":3877,"date":"2014-05-15T17:21:15","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T22:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.une-sen.org\/press\/?p=3877"},"modified":"2014-09-02T15:52:07","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T20:52:07","slug":"international-museum-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/?p=3877","title":{"rendered":"May 18 – International Museum Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"intmuseumday\"<\/a><\/p>\n

May 18 is International Museum Day; so, you may wish to plan a visit to a museum near you this weekend! Our nation is home to some very spectacular museums; for a great number of our members, it\u2019s also where they work!<\/p>\n

But our museums haven\u2019t been immune from budget cuts in the name of austerity. The members who work in that sector are grappling with some unique challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people who work within museums, galleries and archives would much prefer to have funding agencies at arm\u2019s length,\u201d explained Terry Quinlan, professor of conservation at Algonquin College, in Ottawa. The college has the oldest-running museum studies program in Canada, with 40 years in operation.<\/p>\n

Our national museums have the all-important task of collecting, researching, interpreting and preserving items of cultural significance \u2013 items that we all own, collectively. Meanwhile, the federal government has a legal obligation, under the Museum Act<\/i>, to provide the means for these institutions to perform that work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a fundamental core requirement of public institutions; the federal government must supply them with the funds to achieve their mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Increasingly, however, museums are rubbing shoulders with corporations to meet their fiduciary responsibilities. Quinlan points to Barrick Gold\u2019s $1M sponsorship<\/a> of the Canadian Museum of Nature as a troubling example of this trend. He calls the increasing amount of corporate influence \u201cfrightening\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite the new source of funding, however, there\u2019s still a disturbing amount of cost-cutting happening in national museums and historic sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the country, we\u2019ve seen pretty major slashes,\u201d explained Quinlan. \u201cIf you take a look at Parks Canada, many people are unaware that Parks had service centres across Canada that cared for our collective cultural artifacts from all our national historic sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government shut them down; there\u2019s only one facility left in Ottawa. According to Quinlan, even that facility\u2019s operations have been scaled back; they used to have about 20 conservators \u2013 they\u2019re down to about 7.<\/p>\n

While the preservation side of things is taking a hit, so is these institutions\u2019 capacity to really engage and educate visitors. Sadly, 26 historic sites lost the interpretive guides that make history come alive \u2013 that make learning more engaging. On Parks Canada\u2019s 2012 list of national historic sites moving to the \u201cself-guided\u201d format, Laurier House was twelfth on the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been partnering with Laurier House for 15 years,\u201d said the conservation professor. \u201cI\u2019ve watched those guys get beaten up something fierce in the last six years. It\u2019s an exceptional site, there\u2019s plenty to interpret, tons to share with the public, and they\u2019ve completely scaled it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Quinlan says there\u2019s a push to do tours of the site through an app.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s completely bizarre,\u201d he added. \u201cI think that some divisions of the federal government are quick to jump onto technology and suggest that because it\u2019s a cheaper way of doing things, it\u2019s a better way of doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t buy that. Give it five years, you\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if you can\u2019t engage people through the internet, you have to get them in the door. Quinlan says many museums are trying innovative ways to reach people outside their typical audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the bigger challenges \u2013 and a lot of institutions are trying to do this now \u2013 is to capture that middle-of-the-road demographic,\u201d he explained. \u201cPeople between the age of 20 and 35 \u2013 they\u2019re trying to get them engaged in learning about their collective cultural past. They\u2019re trying contemporary technology to do that; they\u2019re trying innovative ways to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to him, the Canadian Museum of Nature\u2019s Nature Nocturne<\/a> series are a great example of trying to reach that demographic. The museum describes its late-night events as \u201ca chance for adults to play and enjoy the museum on their own terms.\u201d All the galleries are open to visit, but there\u2019s the added bonus of music, food and drink\u2026 and a dance floor!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Royal Ontario Museum is doing something very similar to that,\u201d added Quinlan. \u201cWho knows how successful those things are going to be; they\u2019re just starting now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great. I think that if you try to remain the institution of the past, you\u2019re not going to survive. It\u2019s just not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 18 is International Museum Day; so, you may wish to plan a visit to a museum near you this weekend! Our nation is home to some very spectacular museums; for a great number of our members, it\u2019s also where they work! But our museums haven\u2019t been immune from budget cuts in the name of … <\/p>\n

>> “May 18 – International Museum Day”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,17,19,173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3877"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3892,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions\/3892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}