Museum Development Officer Network

This paper was delivered by Dr Dan Robinson, Director, Cultural Heritage, Queensland Museum at the MAQ State Conference, 15-16 September 2001, Cairns

Background to initiation of the Network
Hidden Heritage

Recommendation 3:
Recommendation 6:

Implementing the Museum Resource Centres/ Museum Development Officers program
Current situation
Successes
Challenges
Where to now

Acknowledgment:

Background to initiation of the Network

The Queensland Museum initiated its outreach to community museums in 1978, with a workshop at the Museum, linked to publication of the modest booklet The Small Museum. Subsequently we convinced the State Government to make funds available for grants to community museums, starting in 1982-3, when we contacted about 90 known museums in Queensland. The Queensland Museum administered the grants program until 1996, when it was taken over by Arts Queensland, who, as you know, continue with responsibility for museum grants. There are now well over three hundred groups with museum interests on the contact list.

The Queensland Museum followed the initial workshop in 1978 with a range of short workshops that continue today. In 1992 we published a more ambitious guide for community museums, A Manual for Small Museums & Keeping Places, edited by Richard Robins.

Apart form these Museum based activities, from 1986 to 1996, I was the Queensland Museum officer with, as one of my responsibilities, travel to visit community museums and provide some on the spot advice.

During that period the Museum raised with Government the possibility of securing funds for additional dedicated travelling museum advisers, particularly looking at the remedial conservation needs of community museums. Unfortunately our request was not successful.

We recognised that the emerging power of Arts Queensland might yield more positive results, and that led to a considerable Queensland Museum input into the deliberations leading to the publication by Arts Queensland of Hidden Heritage in 1995.

Hidden Heritage

There were two recommendations from Hidden Heritage that were relevant to the establishment of the Museum Development Officer Network.

Recommendation 3:

It is recommended that a Regional Network of six Museum resource Centres staffed by professional Museum Development Officers be established under the auspices of the Queensland Museum and supported by a Technical Advisory panel with broad stakeholder representation.

Recommendation 6:

It is recommended that Local Government on a regional basis play an equal partnership role with State Government in establishing and maintaining the regional network of Museum Resource Centres and that Local Government representatives participate in the Museums Industry Development Committee, the Museums Assessment Panel, and the steering committees for development of a Statewide Museums Policy and a Queensland Cultural Tourism Strategy. Local Government's financial contribution should be proportional to the population in each Council area in the region and be additional to existing levies.

During the discussions that led to these two recommendations, several issues arose.

One was the extent and mechanism by which the Queensland Museum would be involved. The decision was that to ensure the professional recognition and professional support for the MDOs, they would be employed by the Queensland Museum, and that, where possible, the Museum Resource Centres should be established in branches of the Queensland Museum. The idea of letting non-branch centres out to tender was suggested.

A second point of contention was whether Art Museums and Galleries were to be served by the Museum Development Officers, in addition to Community Museums and Keeping Places. The final decision was that they were to be included, and current MDO activities recognise that decision.

The third issue concerned a desire that a 50% contribution from the State towards the cost of the Museum Resource Centres and the Museum Development Officers should be matched by a 50% contribution from Local Government in the regions served.

Perhaps it is not surprising that my recollection of discussions at the time is that the Local Government Association representative on the Reference Group for Hidden Heritage expressed some doubts about this idea.

Implementing the Museum Resource Centres/ Museum Development Officers program

Our view of the growing lobbying power of Arts Queensland was confirmed when they secured New Initiative funds from the Queensland Government, to initiate the Museum Resource Centre/ Museum Development Officer Program. Up to six MDOs would be employed by the Queensland Museum, with salary and related costs devolved to the Museum from Arts Queensland, while Arts Queensland would negotiate the establishment of the Museum Resource Centers and associated financial contributions. Each Centre was to be set up under a tripartite agreement between the Local Government Consortium, Arts Queensland and the Queensland Museum. Those agreements were to be for an initial period of three years, to be renegotiated at the end of that period.

While the concept of basing the MRCs on Local Government consortia, prepared to contribute 50% to costs, may have seemed reasonable to the State, Seumas Andrewartha, charged by Arts Queensland with implementing the program, found that finding consortia organised and willing to support the program was very difficult. As a result, the program was implemented in steps over an extended period, rather than all at once, and no two regional agreements are with similar consortia. The last two negotiated were based on signing up one major Local Authority, and assisting the MDO to recruit additional partners. In none of the negotiated agreements is the Local Government contribution approaching 50% of the average $100,000 a year it costs to support a Museum Resource Centre and MDO.

Just briefly during 1999-2000 the intended appointment of six MDOs was achieved, but by that time the first of the agreements was approaching the end of its initial three years and the local consortium was not able to continue support. At the same time, Arts Queensland realised that, with salary increases to the MDOs and other cost increases, the initial funding allocation to the program was no longer able to support all six positions at the level initially negotiated and the Central Western Museum Resource Centre ceased operation. Incidentally, one indication of the initial success of the program was the number of requests from client museums in that region for the program to be reinitiated

The expectation of Hidden Heritage, that six MDOs could effectively serve the needs of community museums, keeping places and galleries across the whole State, was not achieved. At the peak of operation, for the short period when we had six MDOs employed, they were serving about 62 of the 135 Local Government areas in Queensland.

The impossibility of six MDOs serving the whole State was further reinforced when, as soon as an MDO began work in a region, the number of expected client groups suddenly grew. For instance, in the Toowoomba & Golden West region the expected 30 or so client groups grew rapidly to over 50

Current situation

The Queensland Museum currently employs five MDOs.

You may have met four of them here at the conference.

The expectation of the MDOs, in terms of their Position Descriptions is:

The Museum Development Officer will provide a professional advisory and “hands on” training service to museums, art museums, keeping places, and museum employees, paid and volunteer, throughout ........... The Officer will work from a Museum Resource Centre .............The service will cover all areas of museum operation including policy development, funding, collection development, conservation, interpretation and marketing. The primary objective of the position is to raise the level at which non-professional museum workers in the region can maintain, develop and exhibit the heritage collections under their care to a professional standard.

Regional differences and regionally identified needs have meant that each MDO has placed emphasis on different parts of the identified services. This also means that it is not easy to compare the overall success of the Program from region to region.

Successes

Having someone resident in the region, able to follow up on training sessions or workshops they have organised or run, has resulted in significant improvements in the way the museums in the region are working. As always, there are some groups that are able to benefit more than others, but the overall client response has been very positive.

An example of the sort of results being achieved is reflected in recent grant allocations to community collecting groups, where well thought out regional projects, fostered by MDOs, have been very successful. Across the regions served, in the last financial year, grants of at least $850,000 have been secured for museum related projects.

In their three monthly reports, each of the MDOs is able to report on a wide range of different positive outcomes being achieved by their clients. My earlier knowledge of the slow progress being made before the advent of the MDOs further emphasises the success of the program.

Queensland's achievements through this program have been mentioned positively, and with some envy, by other States at, for instance, Council of Australian Museum Director Conferences.

Challenges

Operation of tripartite agreements involving Arts Queensland, The Queensland Museum and the Regional consortium has generated some issues of concern to the Regional consortia. Negotiations, so far not concluded, have been in progress for some time between Arts Queensland and the Queensland Museum, to determine if the Queensland Museum could take over the Arts Queensland part of the program, and reduce the renegotiation of agreements to a two way process.

Differences in local operational arrangements, in areas such as provision of office accommodation and vehicle use for the Museum Resource Centre, have required negotiation of different operating arrangements in each region.

Major capital developments in the community museum area, funded through Centenary of Federation projects such as the 32 Heritage Trails projects in Queensland, will place an added load on MDOs in the regions already served, and will increase the need for MDO services in regions currently missing out.

The large gaps in service, with only about 40% of Local Government areas currently served by an MDO, present perhaps the greatest problem. Negotiations by MDOs to secure expansion in some regions, through adding Local Government or other partners, are showing some promise, but overall this will add only a small number of Shires.

Where to now

Recognising the problem of the major gaps in service, and the benefits to regions currently served, the Queensland Museum submitted a proposal seeking additional funds for the Program, for possible consideration by the Cabinet Budget Review Committee (CBRC). The Museum received over a hundred letters of support for its submission from current and prospective clients of an expanded state wide network.

Unfortunately, Government decided that the only proposals to go to CBRC for funding this financial year were those that were election promises and, as valued as the MDO program is in terms of regional services, it was not among the election promises of the current government.

The Queensland Museum believes strongly in the program and will continue to seek funds to maintain and expand it.

One internal option to strengthen the program is being considered as part of the Organisational Review under way in the Museum. It is proposed to link all of the Museum's Regional Services, including the MDO network, under one Program, and base the directing of that Program in Toowoomba, a regional centre already hosting an MDO. Possible gains from this are a regionally sensitive perspective, and potential Government recognition of this as a truly regionally based regional service.

Acknowledgment:

The MDO program has been partnered by Museums Australia (Queensland) in a number of areas: in providing workshopping opportunities; in development of formal training resources for volunteers in community museums; in securing funds to pilot appointment and operation of an indigenous MDO; and finally in giving me the opportunity to speak about the program today.

DJ Robinson