Museum Directors
Customarily, the board of trustees hires the museum's director, who is the chief executive officer and fund raiser of the institution. Directors, working closely with the curators and heads of service, legal, and financial departments, act as liaison between staff and board. Most directors are appointed from curatorial ranks and must be adept at administration, fund raising, and public relations. They must also be conversant with architectural and design considerations in order to mediate between those who promote extreme functional design of interior space and exteriors and those dedicated to preserving the traditional concept of the museum as a cultural monument in itself.
Funding
Recent cuts in public funding and increased competition for money from private sources, coupled with inflation and rises in taxes, have led museums to seek new sources of revenue. Museum memberships and sales of publications and reproductions in gift shops and by mail order are among the means of raising funds. Admission charges have been adopted by some museums but are opposed by others, on the ground that cultural and educational opportunities should be kept free. Many museums have adopted as a compromise the voluntary contribution policy, with amounts suggested for general admission; some museums exact an admission charge only to special exhibitions.
Funding for such shows has customarily been obtained from municipal, regional, state, or federal sources, as well as from the private sector, including foundations. Among the few federal agencies that grant funds to museums, the Institute for Museum Services (created in 1976) is the only one that provides much-needed operating expenses. Since 1981 it has been an independent agency within the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities.
Present Problems
In recent years all over the world, “blockbuster” exhibitions—enormous traveling shows such as the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” or “Picasso”—have attracted huge crowds. Many of the spectators were not, previously, frequent museum visitors. The long- or short-term impact of the popularity of this kind of exhibition has still to be assessed in terms of the educational goals of museums. Some museum professionals worry that, with media attention focused on these spectacular events, curators are diverted from the research, publication, and education that are the real purposes of museums. Other officials, in the U.S., argue that such mass audiences are needed to attract government and private funding and to build new public support for museums.
Many major U.S. museums, beset with economic problems in the latter part of the 20th century, reported inability to supply the number and variety of programs and services required by ever-growing numbers of visitors, totaling in the millions annually. Besides the need for increases in professional curatorial, design, and education staff, there are demands for new facilities for classrooms, libraries, and children's galleries, as well as for preservation and conservation work. Renovations and additions must also be done to satisfy federal legislation requiring museums to provide access and facilities for handicapped visitors.