Last posting

After reading the last readings which have been assigned, it has been enlightening to see how far museums have come in employment and in other aspects. It is interesting to see how jobs have evolved from being just a few types of jobs with permanent status which were seen to be mainly to be academic to deal with more outsourcing of these jobs so museums do not have to pay to have to pay permanent staff. It is also exciting to see all the different museums which have been popping up across the world within so many different countries. It is also interesting to see where the country is going to go due to multi-culturalism. America is a land of many cultures, but there does need to be a common culture that all people can relate to. There are countries like France that have official language which cannot use words from other cultures. It is interesting to see museums handling all of these different cultures. It is important to talk about copyright, since it protects the intellectual property of people. Museums need to be careful about what they bring in so they do not violate some body's intellectual property. It has been also interesting to learn about the role of the registrar and how they contribute to the museum and its structure. Also, it has been interesting and good to see that more museums are popping up in different cultures in order to show what they are all about. In all, museums will never go away since there are so many different types of museums and they will continue to come up with unique ideas that people will want to see. As well, it is interesting to see how the impact of one's culture to determine how they are seen among different cultures, like a Jew among the Native Americans and see the affect of it on the world around them.
The last speaker we listened to was Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel speak about her job working as a registrar at the Denver Art Museum. She first talked about her background and how she got into her current position. She talked about some of the jobs she has done within her position like going with art work to make sure that nothing would happen to the art. Also, learning about customs brokers who go through and make sure that the art will get past customs and get to the location that it is supposed to go to. It was interesting to learn about the amount of insurance which is necessary to keep art safe and move it around if necessary. Also, it was interesting to learn about what is going on in the job market in museums.

Week IX

It has been interesting to go over the readings involving heritage and cultural policies. It is rather intriguing to over the issues which deal with particular pieces of the collection which come from different countries and to have to decide what to do when they re being requested to be returned to the country where they came from originally. This is seen to be a big issue, like the Parthenon marbles which the Greeks are requesting to have returned to them. This is still going on, even though the British Museum believes that the Greeks cannot take care of these pieces correctly. It was also interesting to listen to Heather talk about some of the African pieces in the Denver Art Museum where some of the pieces should be returned except the countries where the pieces came from could not take care of them properly. With all of these problems which are going on, this is why there is so much work to be done in creating good exhibits with the pieces which are there to put them in good historical context so they can be learning experiences for the patrons which come in and visit the exhibits. After reading a blog for my archivist class, it was interesting to see all of the different people who work together to bring about good quality cultural policy, including archivists, curators, and historians. Working with all of these people can make sure that there is a clear voice among the different collections.
It was interesting to listen to two different speakers this week, Andine Henning and Alison and Kelly at the Molly Brown House. With Andine, it was interesting to listen to what she told us about her job and what she does as a liaison between the headquarters and the United States. It was also interesting to listen to what the company does in injecting plastic into dead people after removing the fat and the blood out of them. As well listening to the facts which she gave out with the number of people who are on the list to donate their bodies and also the information which has been gathered through the showing of these bodies.
Also, listening to Kelly and Alison talk about the work they do at the small museum, the cleaning of the facility and the cleaning of the bird poop. It was enlightening to see all the work which goes into making a museum a good place to be. Also, how they work to create new exhibits which will bring people in, and also writing for the internal scholarly journal which gets sent out. It was interesting to learn about the programs which they have organized to go out to schools around the area and also the amount of original materials which is being brought into the museum.