The Curator as a Profession

A curator will typically work for the government, a museum, colleges or universities and practically anywhere else that needs this particular service. The job of the curator is to protect and preserve important items that are of historical value, artistic value, and any other type of item that is considered to be valuable, such as collections.

Responsibilities of a Curator

Curator jobs involve overseeing, cataloguing and exhibiting anything that is deemed worthy of being in a museum or other facility that cherishes the item as something of value. The following can be part of the items that are considered valuable or holding enough of an interest for preserving for future generations.

• Photographs
• Coins
• Stamps
• Preserved animals and plants
• Books
• Records
• Sculptures
• Paintings
• Film
  

These are just a few of the items that may be sitting on a shelf in a building that are considered valuable for what they contain or because of the origin of the item. The job of the curator would be to oversee all these items. In addition they catalogue them so that an accurate record is kept of what is being preserved. They also exhibit them so that the public may enjoy viewing these items. The maintenance of the collection is part of their responsibility. The shipping and receiving of these items are their job.

When tours, lectures, and classes are coordinated for educational purposes, the curator will be a part of this. They may make themselves available for tours and lectures on the items. It is part of their job to educate themselves on the history of the items so they are able to educate others.

Sometimes archivists and curators may be confused by the public. This is normal as their jobs are somewhat similar. The curators however, normally are responsible for objects that have cultural, historical, and biological backgrounds. The archivists mainly are the ones who take care of records and documents for preserving for future importance and value.

When there is a head curator of a museum, they are called the museum director. This is the person who is in charge of storage, acquiring new pieces, and exhibiting the various collections. This includes approving the buying, selling, loaning, and exchanging of any of the collections. The curator jobs today also require participation in fundraising and promotion. This may or may not include writing grant proposals, journal items, and the materials used for generating publicity to the museum. The regular attendance of meeting related to the museum and events that are connected is also required.

What Education is required for Curator Jobs?

Normally in preparation for employment a curator needs to have a graduate education and the related experience. This is why many prospective curators start working with a bachelor’s degree and try for positions in museums where they can get some experience on what the curator typically does.

The normal graduate degree for curator jobs is either history or library science with courses in archival science. There are many schools that have courses available in archival techniques for the history or library science courses. To qualify as a curator at a museum the requirements are normally a master’s degree in one of the museum’s specialties - such as art, archaeology, or history. This can also be in museum studies. There are some museums that want the curator to have a doctoral degree. This is especially true of museums that specialize in natural history and science.

There is a voluntary certification program for archivists. This is offered by the Academy of Certified Archivists and the examination can be taken if they have a master’s degree and a year of experience in the appropriate field. This is contingent upon passing the exam and it must be renewed at regular intervals.

What Does This Job Market Look Like?

The prospects for this type of position look very good as faster than average employment is being expected through 2016. There will be competition though, as the number of people qualified for curator jobs is higher than the number of openings.

According to statistics from Occupational Employment say that the curator jobs along with archivists and technicians is expected to rise 18 percent over the next ten years. Many museums have started to hire curators on a contract basis so this has added to the number of curators who are self-employed. The real demand is going to be for those who specialize in the newer record keeping which is mainly electronic.

Because many people have gotten the training required to become a curator, there are not many jobs. The person wishing to become a curator may have to take a part time position or even volunteer upon finishing their education. Although this may not be what they had in mind, the experience will help when it comes to finding a job as a curator.

Although the museum industry can expect cuts when there is a recession or if the budgets have to be adjusted, there is not a large turnover in this field. The promise of more jobs will be based on the fact that over next several years there will be some employees who will be retiring. Between archivists, curators, and museum technicians in 2006, about 27,000 jobs were held by these three professions. Around 38% were the employees of museums, while 18% worked in either private institutions or state institutions. Many of these were university libraries and many were state parks, libraries, museums, and zoos.

The Pay of the Curator

The middle point in May of 2006 for curators when it came to salary was $46,300. With earnings between $34,410 and $61,740, with the lowest point being $26,320 and the highest being $80,030. The average for curators in 2007 was $80,780, so as you can see the salaries are going up and the future for curators may be rosy for those who have gotten the required education and spent time getting the experience they need.