1 4 connecting collecting: introduction 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 16
connecting collecting: merritt Beyond the cabinet of curiosities: Towards a modern rationale of collecting Elizabeth Ellen Merritt American Association of Museums There is an emerging consensus in the United States that museums ought to have formal, written, board-approved collections plans that create a rationale for how they shape their collections. The impetus for this comes in part from increased awareness of the additional resources needed to care responsibly for the vast collections museums hold in the public trust. Dialogue in the museum field has led to the conclusion that sound collections planning begins with the creation of an intellectual framework to guide decision-making. The Institute of Museum and Library Services estimates there are approximately 17,500 museums in the US – about one museum for every 17,500 residents. This diverse assembly includes zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens, science museums, art museums, children’s museums, transportation museums, history museums, historic houses, as well as specialty museums focusing on a wide variety of subjects from clocks, quilts, and typewriters to dentistry and funerary customs. Almost three quarters of US museums are privately governed, non-governmental, nonprofit organizations, meaning they have been granted tax-exempt status by the federal government. Most of the rest are government museums, city, state, or federal institutions, or a mixture of both (a private organization cooperating with a government entity to run a museum.) A tiny number are for-profit. A typical US museum has: • annual operating expenses of $783,000 • 6 full-time and 4 part-time paid staff, and 60 volunteers • a building of nearly 23,000 square feet, which costs $3 per square foot to operate • almost 34,000 visitors a year • a $6 admission fee (though the vast majority offer free days or other methods of providing free admissions) More than one fourth of these museums were founded in the last quarter of the twentieth century, many spurred by the US bicentennial in 1976. AAM’s data suggests that more than 500 museums opened in that year, and as many as 3,000 museums were founded in the 1970s overall. 1 This proliferation has resulted in increased demands on sources of funding. For private, nonprofit museums, only 13 percent of their support comes from local, state, or federal government, and 40 percent comes from private and corporate philanthropy. On average, private nonprofit museums earn more than a third of their income from activities such as membership and admission fees, space rental, museum store sales and food services. The median amount contributed to annual operated expenses from draw on the endowment is about 12 percent. 1 Unless otherwise noted, data cited in this paper come from AAM’s published research, primarily Meritt, ed (2006). 17