Museum Professionals Who Aren't

One of the concerns across the museum field is the hiring of a person with specialist knowledge for a specialist position - for example, the job I had awhile back as the Curator at the Cody Firearms Museum.

This is a position that requires some specialty knowledge. Yes, the person in that job needs museum experience and understanding of the responsibilities of museum staff. It also needs knowledge of firearms.

Granted, you will find people who can take care of the collection without knowing the subject, but they cannot deal knowledgeably with patrons. They will not know where the collection gaps are. They cannot be a success going out and talking to Rotary about what they do. Positions above and below can do this, but they don't make a living as the subject expert.

The concern comes in when an organization is hiring. The organization needs the specialist. Who typically fits the mold? The enthusiast, the collector, the hoarder? It can be all of the above.

When the right person comes in, great success is had. Friends are made, gifts of money and objects come to the museum, and visitors come away better for the experience. When the wrong person comes in, things look great for awhile, but eventually the bill comes due...

I was reminded of this today when I saw an article out of France... This was a bad hire. Things likely looked tip-top. I'll bet everyone loved him. Granted, I don't know the ins and outs, but we have seen it done here in the US - moon rocks on ebay, guns walking out doors, and other outright thefts are the usual. The big stuff, though, is the use of museum funds to purchase materials for private use (embezzlement).

The case here is pretty bad. Most World War II armored vehicles sell in the range of $40-50,000. Most full-on tanks sell for a $150,000 or more... (And, yes, I know the M18 is not technically a tank...) Add in "arms and jackets" and we are talking something in the realm of $200-300,000 or more...

And people ask why audits are necessary.

As an aside, this also touches on a related subject - and one that can be almost as bad. Sometimes, a collector/museum employee is offered something for the museum that they want for themselves. They refuse the gift, but make an offer to purchase it privately. Don't know about you, but I consider this to be a conflict of interest, at least, and highly unethical... For more on this, take a gander at the American Alliance of Museums' Curatorial Code of Ethics as developed by the Curator's Committee (CurCom). (disclaimer - I was a member of the CurCom board at the time of the Code's creation and I am still on that board at the time of this writing)

Have a great weekend! (and don't embezzle anything from your museum!)

Museums and Firearms - why I do what I do

Well, today finds me in Montana, relaxing at my in-laws place. Tomorrow will find me at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman (where my museum career effectively began). I will be presenting my day-long seminar on Museums and Firearms at the Museums Association of Montana (MAM) Conference.

The first time I did this presentation was for the 2004 Mountain-Plains Museums Association (MPMA) Conference in Casper, Wyoming. I had been at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center as the Firearms Curator for about a year-and-a-half. I was leading a charmed life. I had my (at the time) dream job, I was being paid to talk to people about guns, history, and museums, and I was starting to build some great friendships in MPMA.

Anyway, here I am, almost eight years later. I moved on to a great (and in many ways better) job at a different museum. I am still involved with MPMA (I've been a board member for 6 of the last 8 years). I still love talking to people about guns!

Part of what I love about this is that I get to help cross the great divide - the divide between the gun guys and the Museum world. It's not that there are no gun guys in the museum field or museum folks who like guns. However, this is a small slice of a huge Venn diagram. There are lots of gun guys out there who like - but misunderstand - museum operations. There are many museum professionals who are responsible for firearms in their collections but don't fully understand them as objects or have concerns about guns and their accoutrements.

Unfortunately, the channels of communication between the two groups are limited. There are about a half dozen titled Firearms Curators in the country. I know most of them by first name. Some of these guys, by choice or job description, don't have the opportunity to talk to the general museum field. The museum field, tending to skew politically liberal, are often not gun owners. I, on the other hand, fall into both areas to a certain extent. As I have titled the blog, I am a Liberal Gun Guy.

Having set myself apart and acknowledging this difficult and sometimes tenuous position, I am more than happy to talk to both groups about how we can all get along. Tomorrow will be the sixth time I have presented this specific seminar. It has been seen by about 100 museum professionals and others to this point. I had several hunters skip the opening day of deer season to catch the talk in Bismark, North Dakota (thanks to the State Historical Society of North Dakota). I have had input from the (at the time) Firearms Conservator from Springfield Armory National Historic Site. I even have done the unthinkable - I enlist the aid of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

With the aid of these folks (and the host organizations I have dealt with), I get to talk to 20 more people about two of my loves - museums and firearms. Safety and identification, legal issues, conservation and care, and exhibition and curation will all be covered.

It'll be a great day!

Guns, Museums, and Security

I have a presentation I give to museum professionals about firearms. It is a full-day seminar and it covers all aspects of guns and museums. I cover safety and identification, exhibition, legal aspects (I bring in the local ATF Industry Operations folks for this), and security.

My security discussion includes background checks for staff AND volunteers, key control, vault/case access, record keeping, and other topics.

Unfortunately, most folks only think of security in terms of this robbery in Roswell, New Mexico. Short of bars on the door or thick plexiglass or safety glass instead of regular plate glass, nothing would have stopped this crime.

However, the crooks are IDIOTS. The reasons?

• Most museums have many things on exhibit that are more valuable than the guns. Most "Old West" guns are worth very little and the stories associated with them are usually just that - stories.  The resale value on these guns (Granted, I don't know what they took - although I can guess) is probably less than $500 each. This is based on the condition, quality, and type of most guns I have seen in Western Museums.
• Most guns made before the turn of the century may have, ahem, issues with modern ammunition.Try using some hot modern .45 Colt in your 1870s wheel gun. Good luck with that.
• Many guns made before the turn of the century use ammunition that is no longer available - well, at least at Wal-Mart... .45 Schofield, .44 S&W, .32 Short. or various .38s that aren't 'Special'. 

The most useful aspect of these guns to the criminals would be if all of them were manufactured before 1899, making them non-firearms. Possession by felons is then legal and these then fall outside of firearms law.

Have fun fencing them guys!