Career Profile: Museums

Museums - What you need to know ?

History Museums
Living History, Farms and Agriculture Museums
Zoos and Aquaria
College and University Museums
Small Museums

Despite this variety of careers, the AAM Code of Ethics for Museums states that the common factor between these professions is their “unique contribution to the public by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the things of this world.”

Who They Serve:
Over 865 million visitors come to America’s museums per year, with approximately 2.3 million visits per day. 4 It is the responsibility of museum professionals to serve this public, whether behind the scenes through archival, conservation, or administration work, or upfront through such things as museum education careers.

Museum professionals serve many different institutions such as both governmental and private museums of anthropology, art history and natural history, aquariums, arboreta, art centers, botanical gardens, children’s museums, historic sites, nature centers, planetariums, science and technology centers, and zoos.

What They Do:
Museum professionals work in a variety of disciplines in order to best collect, preserve, interpret, and educate about a particular collection. Below are more detailed descriptions of the work required in some of the most prominent museum careers.

Museum Director: According to the AAMD Salary Survey, a museum director is the person who “provides conceptual leadership through specialized knowledge of the discipline of the museum;