Thoughtful change is taking place at OMP. Historically, we tried to respond to all requests that came our way. We have served as hosts and trainers for international museum workers, provided on-site training for national audiences, and offered courses to Smithsonian staff. We seldom turned down a legitimate request for our services. We can no longer serve three audiences (international, national and Smithsonian) when effectively serving one would deplete our existing resources. In the next five years OMP will focus its mission to accommodate national audiences. If, in our efforts to serve national audiences, there are courses, programs or initiatives that our Smithsonian and international colleagues wish to participate in or take advantage of, we will accommodate them when possible.
Several thoughts have brought us to this conclusion:
Small, emerging, rural and culturally specific museums in this country are in need of our services more than other types of museums because they have fewer resources, less money and limited or no access to the support they need. In addition, because of their status, these museums are in the greatest danger of closing their doors.
With new budgetary constraints and mandates to rethink organizational structures, we must aggressively pursue our mission as service providers and be more realistic about where our priorities should be directed.
Other than SITES and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), there are no Smithsonian offices with a mandate to focus on outreach activities and neither of these concentrate on museum studies, training, information dissemination or professional services.
All office programs and services, such as audiovisual products, information management, American Indian training and consultancies will be viewed in terms of how they serve a national audience. Our marketing strategy and our annual needs assessment will be refocused to concentrate on enhancing our communication with, and understanding of, a national audience and we will seek ways to establish formal partnerships and cooperatives with other associations to better serve our national audience.
In all of our planning and activities, we are serious about our commitment to compel museums to be more proactive about diversity. We are especially interested in models, case studies and approaches to diversity in museums that are working well. We want to continually find ways to bring museum professionals together so that they can debate, discuss and learn from each other. Our interests include (but are not limited to) interpretation of controversial and sensitive issues in museums, recruiting and maintaining multicultural staffs, attracting diversity with exhibitions and public programs and education and learning theory.
We have already begun the process of change. This year the office expanded information services to museums with the publication of this journal, the OMP Bulletin. With it we will continue to highlight current research in museum studies and share what we have learned with wider audiences like you.
We are currently working with the Smithsonian Institution Libraries to develop an on-line database of theses and dissertations related to museum studies. The database will be added to the Smithsonian Institution Bibliographic Information Service (SIBIS) and will be available through the Internet in 1994.
The office continues to serve the museum community in terms of assistance and training through the American Indian Museum Studies program, which sponsors courses for American Indian tribal museums and internships at the Smithsonian. We are planning workshops at the Smithsonian for a national audience that are similar to the old Workshop Series held a few years back. We will continue to offer the Awards for Museum Leadership program, an annual museum management seminar for people of color working in museums. The newly created Fellowships in Museum Practice program sponsored four museum scholars at the Smithsonian during the year. Research topics ranged from family learning in museums to collections management policies.
Consultation services to museums were expanded this year with assistance given to the Anacostia Museum, Arkansas Territorial Restoration, Fort Wayne Museum of Fine Arts, Shadows on the Teche, Colonial Williamsburg, the Puerto Rican Preservation Trust, the American Association of Museums, the National Park Service and the town of Blytheville, Arkansas.
The office continues as the central service office for Smithsonian interns, hosting over 700 interns at orientation and registration sessions during the year, and providing career counseling and other programs. In addition, the office has developed the Museum Internship Cooperative, a new cross-cultural internship program that will begin in June of 1994. The Internship Cooperative will sponsor interns who will work in special projects at the Smithsonian for three months, followed by three months of work at selected African American and American Indian museums throughout the United States. Also under development is a new internship initiative organized with the Inter-University Program for Latino Research that will focus on research opportunities for Latino graduate students working toward doctorates.
In the future we want to produce a Museum Masters series that invites veteran elders who have made important contributions to the field, to engage in an evening of informal discussion with museum professionals at the Smithsonian. We are also exploring the idea of a management training program, to be held at sites across the nation, which will focus on administrative issues at the supervisory and first-line management levels.
These are our plans for the foreseeable future. I believe that OMP provides a valuable service to the field, one that is vital and necessary. Too often training, staff development and internal education are the first things to go when budgets get tight and resources scarce. The irony of our situation is that we are being asked to do more with less and increase our revenue when those we serve have less money to give for such activities. But like all of you, we will continue to produce quality programs that serve real needs.
(Dr. Rex M. Ellis is the Director, Office of Museum Programs.)