Introduction

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Notes

1. My thanks for the thorough work of Patrick Boylan in his draft manuscript, The Professional Training of Museum Personnel. A Review of the Activities and Policies of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Second Edition: 1946–2006, p. 2. The UNESCO‐ICOM Documentation Centre prepared a working document Historical Outline of Main Principles and Activities of ICOM Concerning Professional Training, dated 20th May, 1974 and this was expanded and extended into the publication: The Professional Training of Museum Personnel: A Review of the Activities and Policies of ICOM, 1947–1980. by Patrick Boylan (Leicester, UK: Leicestershire Museums for the International Committee on Museum Training of the International Council of Museums (ICTOP)). ICTOP hopes to publish this crucial history in 2017. My introduction article, here, in no way represents all the writing that might be included but rather introduced some history and thoughts to situate these writers.

2. For a history of the field of museum studies and professionalisation going back to the first associations, see my article in Schapiro (1990). Many resources exist from work leading up to ICTOP's Curriculum guidelines from the 2000s. See, in particular, the Smithsonian Institution's web site which lists a useful bibliography, now a bit dated. Available at: http://museumstudies.si.edu/ICOM-ICTOP/sources.htm. See also the web pages related to the curriculum production of 2000 at: http://museumstudies.si.edu/ICOM-ICTOP/index.htm.

3. Following work by the Canadian Museums Association Canadian Museums Human Resource Planning Committee. People, Survival, Change and Success: A Human Resource Action Strategy for the Canadian Museum Community. Ottawa: Canadian Museums Association, 1995. and The Workforce of the Future: Competencies for the Canadian Museum Community. Ottawa: Canadian Museums Association, 1997.

4. Note that curriculum was suggested in 2000 and refined in 2006 and 2008 until ICTOP moved on to other priorities. See <http://icom.museum/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/professions/curricula_eng.pdf>

5. For online work, see the Connecting to Collections web site at http://www.connectingtocollections.org/all-aboard-engineering-collections-care-training-for-small-museums/. At Westfield Heritage Village, outside of Hamilton, Ontario, Lisa Hunter has created a set of training videos available online for staff and volunteers using the video capability of her cell phone.

6. Here I reference Christina Kreps’ notion of ‘appropriate museology’, (Kreps 2003) and what Jesus‐Pedro Lorente has taken up as ‘critical museology’ (Lorente 2012). My own preference now is ‘progressive museology’, though I have used ‘critical’ and ‘transformational’ at various times, proving the endless fluidity and invention of our concepts and terms for museology and museum, cultural and heritage studies.

7. For more on these ideas please see L. Teather, ‘Museum Studies Borderlands: Negotiating Curriculum and Competencies’, ICTOP and the multiple writings of Peter van Mensch <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_van_Mensch>, as well as the issues of ICOFOM and ICTOP.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lynne Teather

After four decades working in the museum field, Lynne Teather is a retired professor of the Master's of Museum Studies, University of Toronto, outgoing Chair of the ICOM International Committee for the Training of Personnel (ICTOP) (2010–2016) and a Fellow of the Canadian Museums Association. She holds the first D.Phil. in Museum Studies from Leicester University (1984). Through her career, she kept one foot in academia, and one in the profession, providing advisory services, curriculum consultation, presentations and workshops in different locations in the world. She has produced histories of museums, but is also keen to follow emerging developments in the field from professional development to digital work. She now works as a consultant and is publishing several works on the history of museums and reflections on her experiences.