Open Forum

I had a question for all of my museum people. 

I've worked in a couple of museums and visited several. From my experience, museums have gallery guards or monitors. (By monitors, I mean museum workers physically in the gallery to monitor the artwork). I have seen the consequences of guards not being present in a gallery (unfortunately) and our museum has taken on traveling exhibitions where it's stated in the contract that guards must be on duty in the gallery. 

Now and then over the years I have had guests (rarely) who will tell me that they are uncomfortable with guards or monitors in a gallery with them and they "have been to hundreds of galleries and having guards or monitors in the gallery is not common." 

I believe this to be false (and whether true or false, our museum still requires we have someone in the gallery when guests are present to ensure the safety of the artwork) but I wanted to know how many of you work in a museum that does not have gallery monitors or guards and how many of you do. If you do, have you run into issues with guests not liking guards or monitors to be present and how do you handle a situation like that? 
And if you do not have them in your galleries, what do you do to ensure the artwork is protected? Or what type of museum might not have that? (i.e. a hands-on exhibit or something)

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Lindsey Knight
Education Curator
Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College
Conway AR
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Lindsey, I have worked full-time in half-a-dozen museums, and done peer reviews or consulted with dozens, and I can't think of more than a couple that operate without guides/guards/monitors in the gallery spaces. The functions of the gallery staff can be anything from completely passive, to actively giving tours (sometimes, the only was to see the museum) or giving a friendly greeting, offering an introduction to the space, and asking for any questions. I know of a very view museums where electronic monitors were supposed to let visitors know when they were too close to art works or otherwise out of bounds, but generally the visitors did not know what the alarm message meant, or whether it was intended for them or someone else (they tended to think the latter). 

I should add that it is a matter of safety, to have a person on duty in public museum spaces, should anyone become ill, or fall, or become a problem in some way.

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Bruce MacLeish
Curator Emeritus, Newport Restoration Foundation
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Hi Lindsey,

I consult, and have served as collections staff at over two dozen museums in my career, and have found that issues occur more frequently when there's no human presence monitoring gallery spaces.   As you note, guards or attendants may be a requirement for travelling exhibitions, loans or indemnity programs.   But it may also be a requirement for the museum's own collections insurance policy. so you want to pay attention to that.

Even when cameras are used to replace in-gallery staffing (even when the public is notified of electronic surveillance), problems are not caught in real time.   

Often the lack of funding and serious concern for collections (and visitor) security that results in the absence of gallery attendants ALSO means a security guard may not be present at the console, or monitoring multiple screens, 100% of the time.    By the time damage is done, or an accident (object-related or not) occurs, it's too late to stop it or report it.    It can take a fair amount of time and effort to go back and review the videos to find the incident, and even then, depending on the placement of cameras, it can be unclear what actually happened, and who was involved.    And sometimes, the incident is not even visitor-related.   A live attendant will be able to pinpoint the time that the text panel fell off the wall -- confirming that it was or wasn't due to vandalism -- or when the mouse ran through the gallery, or the leak came through the skylight.   True, these problems don't always occur during visitor hours when the attendants are present, but having the extra eyeballs during busier periods is important back-up.   

If a visitor objects to the presence of live staff, it's either their own issue  surrounding "authority", or some bad previous experience.   Consider who is staffing your galleries?   As education curator, how can you help advise make changes in attendants' or guards' behavior to keep them informed, engaged, discrete and truly visitor-friendly, without being intrusive.   As a college gallery, I assume most of your visitors are from the school community.   Do visitors feel uncomfortable with uniformed college security staff?   Would trained art history students in gallery-logo T-shirts be more appropriate monitors for your shows (with security backup)?    Community volunteers?   

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Batja Bell
Registrar
South Orange NJ
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There are probably several thousand small museums or historical societies across the country that don't have staff stationed in galleries the whole time they are open. That's probably more due to size and financial restrictions than an active choice. I would say your visitors who say they have been to many places without staff in the galleries are probably telling the truth.

That being said - if a museum can afford to have a staff member or volunteer present in a gallery, they should. Visitor comfort and accessibility is important. That's why staff diversity is important. Ensuring our staff stationed in galleries are welcoming or as inconspicuous as possible is also important. Having staff in galleries should be about more than object safety; it should be able the visitor's too. Those stationed in galleries should be able to point visitors to resources (restrooms or bubblers), provide interpretive content when that is their job, intervene when necessary for human safety, and provide quick responses for medical needs (with appropriate training or simply by having a phone to call for appropriate assistance).

For some visitors to cultural heritage organizations, the presence of someone acting as a guard can seem unwelcoming or threatening. As professionals in the field we can and should work with those visitors to find ways to change that perception (or the reality if they are unwelcoming/threatening). But removing staff presence from galleries is rarely to right answer. (I want to emphasis rarely - there are instances when removing staff from a gallery during specific group visits is the appropriate answer).

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Katie Latham
Dir of Collection Management
Wisconsin Historical Society
Madison WI
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