Welcome to our weekly museums in thew news roundup! Museum of Fine Arts reaches restitution deal to keep painting Museum Center: Would you vote for another levy? Smithsonian American History Museum to Have a New Leader Bruce Lee Museum Put on Hold Seattle history museum …
Public Historian, which is a great but seldom-updated blog, has linked today to a really fascinating new media commons project in which various contributors talk about their work and their intellectual pursuits – and how you can make a good career out of the things …
This is a bit older, but it still discusses the question in a variety of interesting lights: The Cultural Calculation: Museum Fees.
On the one hand: museums need any source of revenue they can get, and shouldn’t be selling themselves short. They are great enough that people should be willing to pay for the quality product they receive.
On the other hand: museums are a cultural resource, and any museum that relies on admissions to support any significant portion of its budget is not in a very good financial position for the longterm. Expecting families to shell out as much as $100 to visit your museum for a few hours is not exactly growing your audience and working with your community.
Speaking purely for myself, I tend to lean toward free admission. I know that I couldn’t afford to go to nearly as many museums as I do without my reciprocal admission benefits. I also think that pricing out families in the middle-income range and catering only to those who can spend significant amounts of money on a cultural visit is not the way to build audience. (Yes, families can purchase memberships to visit one museum multiple times, but we want them to be visiting multiple museums and broadening their exposure, right?)
I suspect few museums are willing to share the nitty-gritty details of their funding, but how much are museums really taking in from their admissions fees – 5%? 10%? Anything more and I’d really start to worry about so much of the budget depending on such a highly unpredictable and varying revenue stream.
What do you think, Tufts community? Yea or nay to museum admission fees?
From Museum Studies certificate student Kristin Powers, who’s currently doing her internship with the Cambridge Historical Society: In July, people in Cambridge, Mass. will have the rare opportunity to see inside nine different archives. The third annual Open Archives Tour will feature private archives, city …
Heads up on these great webinars – one of them has an early-bird registration discount that ends today. Care and Handling of Scrapbooks Live online webinar When: Tuesday, July 19, 2011, 2 – 4 PM Cost: $95 ($80 Early-bird Registration) Early-bird discount available until Jun …
I know I’ve mentioned TED talks before, but here’s a great new one from artist Shea Hembrey, about developing a diverse artistic style: