Topic: Cultural institutions
Research Report
November 10, 2020
Structuring Collaborations
The Opportunities and Challenges of Building Relationships Between Academic Museums and Libraries
In 2019 Ithaka S+R received funding from the Mellon Foundation to study the structural relationships between academic museums and libraries. Ithaka S+R conducted interviews with museum and library directors, and in some cases other senior staff, at thirty universities. Based on these interviews, three institutions were selected for short case studies as examples of effective collaborations: University of Iowa, the Atlanta University Center, and Princeton University.
Blog Post
October 6, 2020
Ithaka S+R Is Hiring
Two New Analyst Job Openings
Are you passionate about higher education and the arts? Our work helps these organizations and their support providers—including libraries, publishers, scholarly societies, and museums— enhance scholarship, instruction, community engagement, and student success. Ithaka S+R is hiring for two new positions that will work on some of our most exciting research and advisory projects. Both roles will work collaboratively on research projects that lead to publications including grant-funded research…
Blog Post
August 19, 2020
Exploring the Effectiveness and Durability of Digital Preservation and Curation Services
Announcing a New Research Project Funded by IMLS
With generous funding from the Institute of Library and Museum Services (IMLS), we are pleased to initiate an 18-month research project to examine and assess how digital preservation and curation systems (DPCS) are developed, deployed, and sustained. Because our cultural, historic, and scientific heritage is increasingly being produced and shared in digital forms, libraries, archives, and museums are increasingly dependent on digital platforms to support the curation, discovery, and long-term management of digital…
Blog Post
August 17, 2020
Teaching with Cultural Heritage Online During the Pandemic
New Mellon-Funded Project
Today we are excited to announce a new project funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will explore how teaching and learning with cultural heritage collections and materials is evolving in response to the pandemic. Instructors who seek to use cultural heritage objects from museums, archives, and special collections face unique challenges when adapting to remote teaching. What is needed is deeper understanding of, and better support for these instructors in this current moment. This…
Blog Post
June 12, 2020
How Will Museums Live Up to their Solidarity Commitments?
Last week at the American Alliance of Museums Virtual meeting, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, Secretary Lonnie Bunch, and Lori Fogarty discussed the protests that have erupted across the country and around the world, in order to start a dialogue about the museum’s role in confronting structural racism in America. Since the reignition of Black Lives Matter protests by George Floyd’s murder, many museums…
Blog Post
May 26, 2020
Measuring What Matters
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Academic Library Strategic Plans
Equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility have become buzzwords across the higher education sector with leaders at many institutions asserting these as strategic priorities and key values. In our most recent national survey of US academic library directors, conducted in fall 2019, we included new coverage of these important topics. And, now, as we face an academic year that will likely be shaped by budget cuts and re-prioritization, we wonder about the degree to…
Blog Post
May 6, 2020
Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility
African Memory Institutions and the Response to COVID-19
The implications and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic can vary greatly depending on demographic, political, social, cultural and economic factors. Therefore the regional documentation initiatives–now being undertaken by cultural heritage institutions throughout the world–are essential to capturing local circumstances and experiences. This work is vital to help future generations understand the extent of the pandemic and its vast impact. To this end, and in collaboration with several international preservation advocacy organizations, UNESCO recently made a public…
Blog Post
April 24, 2020
The “Viral Pandemic Exclusion” Clause in Business Interruption Insurance Policies
After one month of quarantining to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the economic impacts of closing small businesses and cultural centers are becoming apparent. In the weeks and months to come, affected organizations will seek relief from numerous institutions for these sacrifices, which were necessary to comply with local orders, decrease the burden on the healthcare industry, and save lives in their communities. The form that relief will take remains to be seen. In cases where cultural organizations…
Blog Post
April 13, 2020
To Survive This Pandemic, Some Museums are Pivoting to Virtual Engagement
Museums are in trouble. Consider the three primary sources of revenue for museums: earned revenue from visitors, private support, and endowment income. The first is indefinitely suspended, advocating for the second is increasingly difficult to justify during a public health crisis, and the third has been dramatically reduced by losses in the market. The Met and MoMA are laying off hundreds. While the threats those museums face are not necessarily existential, many other museums with smaller budgets will…
Blog Post
March 20, 2020
Leading in a Time of Uncertainty
Some Reflections
The COVID-19 public health crisis gripping the world today has been a sprint for leaders over the past week or two, making urgent decisions about closing facilities, virtualizing the workforce, and providing services online. In the weeks and months ahead, we will face a full marathon, with colleagues, services, and in some cases businesses needing care and tending in a period of great uncertainty. In a public health emergency, every organization must ensure it is caring…
Blog Post
March 18, 2020
Cultural Organizations & COVID-19
Documenting Virtual Engagement Strategies
Efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 have fundamentally, and in many cases permanently, transformed the landscape of cultural consumption. As of Monday, March 16th, over 400 major US museums have closed their doors and ceased their traditional programming. While this is an essential part of collectively weathering a public health crisis that is likely to overwhelm the US healthcare system in a matter of days, these closures invariably introduce a deep degree of precarity for hundreds of…
Blog Post
January 23, 2020
Brooklyn Museum’s Paid Internship Program
When considering the themes of the art world in 2019, money seems to dominate the narrative, perhaps slightly more than usual, and from a few different angles. Jeff Koons reclaimed the title of most expensive sale of an artwork by a living artist at $90.2 million. Protests addressed the controversial philanthropy of Kanders and the Sacklers, among others. Museum staff unionized at the…
Case Study
January 23, 2020
Internship Program Evaluation
Brooklyn Museum and Citi Foundation
Citigroup and the Citi Foundation have supported two years of paid internships through the Brooklyn Museum’s education department. The $125,000 grant is part of the foundation’s “Pathways to Progress” initiative. In 2017, Citi Foundation committed $100 million to this global effort to support pathways into careers for emerging professionals. The funding allowed the Brooklyn Museum to hire twenty interns, ten for the summer of 2018 and ten for the summer of 2019. The goal for this funding was to provide…
Blog Post
January 22, 2020
Copyright Education for Cultural Institutions
A 21st Century Approach for Libraries, Archives, and Museums
Today, Ithaka S+R is co-publishing, with Columbia University Libraries, a summary report about a roundtable held over the summer about Copyright Education in Libraries, Archives, and Museums. This is the latest step by a group of copyright experts and educators towards strengthening and sustaining copyright education for memory institutions and the research and educational missions they serve. Ithaka S+R’s, in close partnership with Columbia’s Rina Elster Pantalony and Lyrasis’s Tom Clareson,…
Blog Post
December 18, 2019
Gearing up for a National Survey of Art Museum Leaders
This winter, we will field our first national survey of art museum directors in partnership with the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and with support from the Kress Foundation. This study builds on our previous work with art museums, including the Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey, case studies with eight AAMD museums, and research into the organizational structure of art museums, as…
Blog Post
September 12, 2019
How Can Academic Libraries and University Museums Effectively Collaborate?
Ithaka S+R is conducting a study on the relationship between academic libraries and campus museums, looking specifically at how they are governed and structured. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we are in the process of inviting forty universities to participate, and over the Fall will interview the directors of both their museum and library in order to learn more about how these campus units operate in relation to the university and to one another. …
Blog Post
July 10, 2019
Studying the Organizational Structure of the Art Museum
In recent years, American art museums have faced a complex set of institutional demands, from scrutiny over ethical issues concerning donor relations, to hiring practices and efforts towards making the museum more accessible to the public. At the same time, museums enjoy a high level of public trust at a time when most American institutions are actively mistrusted. The sector produces over 700,000 jobs, adding over $50 billion to the…
Research Report
July 10, 2019
Organizing the Work of the Art Museum
The career trajectory of art museum directors typically gives them deep exposure to, at most, a handful of institutional settings. While museum directors connect through leadership meetings such as those we host at the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), and thereby learn from one another, few have the opportunity to assemble a system-wide perspective on how changes in strategy might, or perhaps should, affect their institutional leadership. Given the strategic transformations that many art museums are undertaking or considering,…
Blog Post
March 26, 2019
A New Survey of Art Museum Directors
Art museums are in the midst of substantial transformations while trying to stay true to their values. They are buffeted by changes in technology, demographics, and how individuals and families choose to spend their leisure time or seek opportunities for cultural enrichment. How are leaders in this sector addressing these challenges? And, what future directions are they pursuing to stay relevant and achieve greater impact? With support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Ithaka S+R is launching a…
Blog Post
January 28, 2019
Museums Grow More Diverse, But Change is Uneven
Today we are pleased to announce the publication of the Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey 2018. In partnership with the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ithaka S+R has conducted a study of the demographics of the art museum field. This report builds on findings from the Art Museum Demographic Survey we conducted in 2015, showing that, while some meaningful progress has been made towards…