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Museums
Pergamon www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 613±631, 1999 # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/99/$20.00+0.00
PII: S0160-7383(99)00024-9
MUSEUMS
A Supply-Side Perspective Steven Tufts York University, Canada Simon Milne Victoria University, New Zealand Abstract: The educational and cultural mandates of museums are being transformed as institutions play an increasingly important part in urban economic development and tourism promotion strategies. In contrast to more common demand-side studies, this paper emphasizes the supply-side by focussing on everyday museum operations. It outlines the competitive responses being adopted by museums in Montreal, Canada, including shifts in sources of revenue, new technologies, labor practices and the development of networks. Study ®ndings show that the restructuring of museum operations raises important questions concerning not only the traditional public mandate of museums, but also on its ability to enhance consumption experiences and to contribute to a diversi®ed tourism product. Keywords: museums, funding, cultural attractions, organization. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Âsume Â: Les museÂes: une perspective de l'offre. Les mandats Âeducatifs et culturels des Re museÂes se transforment, jouant un roÃle de plus en plus important dans des strateÂgies de deÂveloppement Âeconomique urbain et de promotion de tourisme. Par contraste aux Âetudes plus nombreuses de la demande, cet article souligne le coÃte de l'offre en examinant le fonctionnement quotidien des museÂes. L'article preÂsente des reÂponses compeÂtitives adopteÂes par des museÂes aÁ MontreÂal, au Canada: des changements de sources de revenu, de nouvelles technologies, de nouvelles politiques de travail et le deÂveloppement de reÂseaux. Cette restructuration du fonctionnement des museÂes souleÁve des questions importantes concernant non seulement le mandat public traditionnel des museÂes mais aussi leur capacite pour ameÂliorer les expeÂriences du consommateur et contribuer aÁ un produit diversi®e du tourÂs: museÂes, ®nancement, attractions culturelles, organisation. # 1999 Elsevier isme. Mots-cle Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION For much of the 20th century the generally accepted de®nition of the museum has been an institution which serves to collect, conserve, research, interpret and exhibit society's material culture (ICOM 1986; Weil 1990:57±58). Museums have traditionally been
Steven Tufts (Department of Geography at York University, 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. Email < [email protected] >) is conducting research on the impact of organized labor on urban tourism development. Simon Milne is Professor of Tourism, School of Business and Public Management, Victoria University, New Zealand. His research interests include sustainable tourism development and the economic restructuring of tourism industries.
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spaces where a society can celebrate its past and form a sense of its cultural identity (Urry 1996). Over the last decade, however, there has been increasing attention to a ``cultural revival'' of heritage experiences as popular leisure and urban tourism activities (Hewison 1987). Politicians and planners have taken the opportunity to integrate museums into economic development initiatives in both large and small urban centers (Vaughan and Booth 1989; Zukin 1995). In simple terms, the role of the museum is evolving, with cultural institutions expected to perform a broader range of economic functions, often as part of complex urban redevelopment strategies (Bassett 1993; Bianchini 1990, 1993; Urry 1995; Watson 1991). While the Canadian government asserts that the ``true value'' of the museum is ``measured in terms of our culture and heritage'', it still stresses that museums ``generate almost a billion dollars in revenue each year'' (Communications Canada 1990:21). The expanding role of cultural institutions in advanced capitalist economies has forced researchers to focus more on the links between the cultural and the economic. Sayer (1997) characterizes the ``cultural turn'' in much economic geographic research not so much as a result of a ``culturalized economy'' but rather as the ``economization of culture''. Although Sayer concedes that the relationship between culture and economy is ``highly complex'', he maintains ``economic forces continue to dominate contemporary life'' (1997:16). The purpose of museums re¯ects various cultural agendas (such as nation building and education); but the ability of institutions to adhere to public mandates and play a central role in the overall tourism product often is determined by the operating environment (including access to sources of funding). For the purposes of this paper, the Montreal museum sector is treated as a set of cultural institutions operating under increasingly complex and, at times, contradictory economic constraints. The treatment is, in Table 1. 1993/94 Montreal Museum SurveyÐsample by Theme (N=26) Type of Museum
Populationa Sampleb Coverage %
Historic Sites and Interpretation/Info Centres 21 Exhibition Centers and Galleries 12 Science and Nature 8 Art 7 Ecomuseums 3 Maisons de la Culturec 8 Other 2 Total 61 a
9 4 5 5 1 8 2 26
43 33 63 71 33 100 100 43
Based on La SocieÂte des MuseÂes QueÂbeÂcois 1993 membership listings. Discussions were held with museum directors and or other representatives. c Les Maisons de la Culture (MdlC) are centers administered by the municipality of Montreal with the mandate of bringing cultural events to communities outside of the downtown city core. Interviews were held with the head of the department responsible for the MdlC and directors of two of the eight centers. b
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part, a response to the recent call for tourism research to adopt more rigorous approaches to studying restructuring in tourism-related sectors (Ioannides and Debbage, 1998). The focus on the ``economic forces'' currently affecting museums in the city is not meant to reduce these institutions to a purely economic function. The growing importance of museums as cultural attractions has drawn the attention of tourism researchers for some time, but most of the work to date emphasizes demand side issues (Harrison 1997; Urry 1990). Following a brief review of how researchers have attempted to understand the importance of museums in urban settings, an outline is given of the ``supply-side'' operational context in Montreal in the 90s. Focus is on the search for new funding opportunities, the use of new information technologies, labor management, alliance formation, and museum agglomeration. The ®ndings show that these institutions are being forced to adopt a range of strategies in an increasingly challenging environment in order to secure stable funding year to year and ful®l their public mandates. The data are drawn from in-depth open interviews held with professionals (directors and curators) from 26 Montreal museums (Table 1). This sample was drawn from the 61 institutions in the Greater Montreal Area that are listed as members of La SocieÂte des MuseÂes QueÂbeÂcois. The museums contacted during the, 1993±94 study period were predominantly the larger ones located in Montreal's major tourism areas (Figure 1). Smaller museums in suburban communities are deliberately under represented.
Figure 1. Museum ``Districts'' of Montreal
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Discussions were also held with representatives from the Canadian and Quebec museum associations and recent issues of their respective journals, Muse and MuseÂes were reviewed. MUSEUMS IN THE URBAN ECONOMY Museums have been used as the main attractions drawing tourists into the city. For example, the recent Renoir exhibit in Canada's National Gallery in Ottawa reportedly increased local hotel revenues by $4.8 million dollars (Calgary Herald 1997). However, the economic importance of museums in the local economy is much more complex than their ability to attract visitors with popular traveling exhibitions. Museums re¯ect an essential sense of a particular time and place unavailable elsewhere, and help to de®ne the overall tourism product. Their unique architectural styles and permanent exhibits give tourists ``something distinctive to gaze upon'' (Urry 1990:128). Recent research has demonstrated that they expect ``to learn something'' when visiting museums (JansenVerbeke and van Rekom 1996) and to see an honest representation of a ``good local place'' (Harrison 1997). Regardless of the speci®c nature of the ``pull factor'' attracting visitors, planners have included museums in the overall promotion of urban destinations, leading researchers to classify these cultural institutions as primary elements of the tourism product (Jansen-Verbeke 1986). Museums enable cities to ``market'' themselves, as cultural centers which both delight residents and tourists and appeal to professionals and investors (Kotler, Haider and Rein 1993; Kearns and Philo 1993). Harvey (1987), building on the work of Bourdieu (1984), argues that cultural consumption is often a means for capital to pro®t from upper and middle class attempts to reject mass culture. Elite classes differentiate themselves through the consumption of ``cultural capital'', high art, and antiquities which are often relatively inaccessible to lower classes (Fyfe and Ross 1996). Cultural institutions also provide a place for elites, who administer and frequent these non-pro®t institutions, to network and re-af®rm their social position (Zukin 1995). In depressed urban economies, such as Montreal's, cultural amenities provide high-skilled professionals with an incentive to remain in a ``liveable'' city. In the process of attracting tourists and nearby residents of different backgrounds to the city, museums become potential instruments for combining consumption activities with personal, lived experiences. To some extent the different components of the city (cultural attractions, shopping centers, and the like) converge, each offering the services and experiences of the other (Featherstone 1991). A tourist may enter a museum for a negligible admission fee, but during the visit include lunch, buy a souvenir, and take a taxi back to a nearby hotel. Thus, Ashworth and Tunbridge (1990) view the National Gallery and Canadian Museum of Civilization as the Ottawa±Hull region's effort to develop the Ottawa River waterfront's boutiques and restaurants. Similarly, on West Sherbrooke
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Street in Montreal (Figure 1), gallery owners, antique dealers, highend clothing retailers and museum professionals have formed an informal association to develop and promote the area as a place for the consumption of up-market consumer goods and a re®ned cultural aesthetic. The synergy between cultural and consumption experiences creates spaces for both the tourist and resident groups to consume (Cohen 1995; Schurmer-Smith and Hannam 1994). Places of consumer activity are appropriated to exhibit culture while the aesthetic of culture is used simultaneously to promote consumption and inscribe products with various meanings. Zukin sees the processes of economic production and cultural consumption as increasingly inseparable: In fact, culture supplies the basic informationÐincluding symbols, patterns and meaningÐfor nearly all service industries. In our debased contemporary vocabulary, the word culture has become an abstraction for any economic activity that does not create material products like steel, cars or computers (Zukin 1995:11±12; emphasis in original).
The bulk of research into museums and urban development continues to focus on the attraction of tourists, the characteristics and behavior of museum visitors, and the consumption of cultural experiences. This focus on demand side issues has tended to neglect the evolving structure of the museum itself and the impacts of these changes on the surrounding urban setting. It is argued that by looking at the operating environment challenging museums, and the way they are responding to these issues, one can begin to understand better the evolving role that museums in particular, and the cultural sector in general, will play in the future urban economy. Challenges in the 90s For 30 years, Montreal has felt the impact of de-industrialization as economic activity has shifted westward to other Canadian cities, and core industries have slipped into decline (LeveilleÂe and Whelan 1990; Whelan 1991). Montreal had experienced periods of infrastructural investment leading up to Expo '67 and again in preparation for the, 1976 Olympics, but fell behind other Canadian cities such as Toronto and Vancouver which developed rapidly in the 80s. The city has been actively exploiting its unique cultural heritage as a means of (re)developing its tourism market and fostering economic growth. Through agencies such as the Greater Montreal Tourism and Convention Bureau, the city has been attempting to reinforce an image of the city as a major cultural destination. Museums have been a vital part of the agency's efforts to create a unique tourism product in its promotional campaigns. Montreal's Place des Arts, a complex of adjoining theatres, auditoriums and the MuseÂe d'Art Contemporain is an example of a project aimed at tourists and elites, as well as developing the cities downtown central business
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district (Figure 1). Museums have also been placed at the center of attempts to use heritage tourism as a way to merge this and business development with the celebration of local architectural history and diverse cultural composition (see Chang, Milne, Fallon and Pohlman 1996). Part of the redevelopment of the urban heritage district in Old Montreal included the construction of a new archaeology museum and renovations to other museums in the area. The federal government played an important role in the development of several of Montreal's new museums in the early 90s. In, 1986, Communications Canada funded research on the state of Canadian museums. In the wake of the studies a report and working paper were released which contained several recommendations for a revamped federal museum policy (Communications Canada 1986, 1988, 1990). After the 1988 federal election, some of the working paper's recommendations were adopted and the government began to invest money heavily into the ®nancially troubled museum sectorÐ assisting established institutions and ®nancing the construction of new projects (Godfrey 1991). The result was an explosion in the number of museums throughout the country. The number of museums in Canada grew by nearly 25% between 1983 and 1994 (1,005 to 1,236), while visitation grew from just over 21 million to almost 25 million (Statistics Canada 1995). Montreal alone received $300 million in funding for nine new cultural attractions. Many of the new museum openings were planned to coincide with the celebration of the city's 350th birthday in the spring and summer of 1992 (Montreal Gazette 1992:February 29, E1). The visible investment in cultural institutions was perhaps also a means of the federal government to win favor with the majority of Quebec residents during the constitutional crisis of the early 90s. Although the federal government may have been encouraged to make such a visibly patrimonial investment in Montreal, it can be argued that the city's economy was genuinely in need of development assistance and was due for signi®cant investment in new cultural attractions (Chang et al 1996). Unfortunately, the museum building boom of the early 90s was not matched by a concomitant increase in government funding of annual operating budgets (Lacroix 1992). Federal expenditures on museums decreased by 4.1% between 1990±91 and 1994±95 to less than $225 million. Although provincial government expenditures on museums reached $293 million in 1992±93, levels of funding have also not been sustained as support declined to $277 million in 1994± 95. Municipal governments only contribute approximately 5% to overall public expenditures on museums, but their contribution also decreased by 3.7% during this period as local funding focused on heritage sites. Across Canada, museums have had to sustain annual budgets with greater earned revenues (including corporate sponsorships, donations, foundations, as well as admission revenues). Nationally, earned revenues increased by 17.9% between 1990±91 and 1993±94 (Statistics Canada 1997).
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The annual operating budgets of the 26 institutions in the survey totaled over $100 million in 1993±94. Although most museums received funding from a variety of sources, 9 museums were funded primarily by private sources (such as foundations) with the remainder depending largely on support from different levels of government (Table 2). Of the 26 institutions, 19 reported that the level of public funding had decreased from 1992±93. The museums supported primarily by private foundations reported that their endowments were stable, but their overall annual budgets were vulnerable to decreases in public funding as well. The budgetary constraints place museums in a dif®cult situation. Responses such as reducing personnel, limiting hours of operation, and sacri®cing the quality of exhibits simply lead to reduced service, lower revenues from admission fees, and the ultimate failure to ful®l the museum's public mandate (interviews). There was consensus among those interviewed that funding annual operating budgets remains the most signi®cant challenge to maintaining the quality of the museum experience. While the Canadian museum sector has been able to attract the largest portion of corporate donations to the arts within the country (CBAC 1992), several of the professionals interviewed noted that corporate dollars are increasingly dif®cult to secure. For example, the city's premier art gallery, MuseÂe des Beaux Arts, received over $1 million in corporate sponsorships for exhibits in 1987 but had no sponsorships in 1993. The director explained that the competitive environment facing several private sector corporations has limited their budgets for philanthropic projects. At the same time, the number of new museums established in Montreal in the 90s means more institutions are competing for these limited funds. While most of the directors and curators surveyed felt that these establishments were diverse enough to limit competition for visitors, it was noted that there is signi®cant competition for corporate sponsors. Similarly, the managers surveyed reported that individual donations were also increasingly dif®cult to secure. The largest museums actively solicited contributions from individuals in the form of membership programs. Those with annual budgets less than $500,000 did not have the resources to institute elaborate membership programs and as a result were not as able to pursue inTable 2. Funding Sources and Budgets of Surveyed Museumsa (N=26) Largest Funding Source
No.
Annual Operating Budget in Can$ (1993)
No.
Public (Federal) Public (Provincial) Public (Municipal) University Private
1 6 8 2 9
$0±$250K $250K±$1m $1m±$10m $10±$20m over $20m
9 5 7 2 3
a
Source: 1993/1994 survey data.
STEVEN TUFTS AND SIMON MILNE
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dividual donations aggressively through telemarketing membership drives or other approaches. However, few of the smaller museums did have less formal ``friends or supporters'' associations which assisted with volunteers and fundraising efforts. As government, corporate and individual support becomes increasingly dif®cult to ®nd, museums are forced to look to visitors for revenue. The most obvious method of securing operating revenues is from admission fees. But this strategy is far from a panacea for museum administrators. Most view the establishment or increase of admission fees as being counterproductive (Table 3). Admission fees accounted for less than 5% of the overall operating budgets for 18 (most with annual budgets less than $10 million) of the 26 museums in the survey. The general feeling was that increasing fees would decrease visitorship (making current exhibits inaccessible or undesirable to a large part of the public). Only two of the museum administrators stated that they had plans to raise fees in the short term. The resistance of administrators in Montreal to increase fees, however, does not mean that earned revenues have not become more important. Although Canadian museums in general may be less dependent on the ``market'' than their American counterparts, they are likely more dependent on earned revenues than those in most of Europe (Weil 1990). While private funding of various types can keep institutions alive in a period of public sector cuts, such a reliance is argued by many commentators to carry a considerable cost (Schurmer-Smith and Hannam 1994; Weil 1990). Corporate sponsors may be relatively conservative about the types of exhibits they will back and may also look to support mainstream material which will attract large audiences and maximize marketing spinoffs (Alexander 1996; Turgeon and Colbert 1992). A greater reliance on the market place may also tempt organizations to seek out the type of af¯uent audience that can afford higher admission charges. It can also be argued that corporate sponsorship will reduce the ability of museums to ful®l their educational role as mandated by the public. As Trigger, an anthropologist with strong connections to Montreal's McCord Museum of Canadian History, notes: Table 3. The Role of Admission Fees and Other Revenuesa (N=26) Admission Rate No Fees $1±$5 $6±$10 $11> a
Fees as % of Budget 8 11 5 2
0% 1%±5% 6%±20% 21%±50% >50%
Source: 1993/1994 survey data.
Future Admission Rate 8 10 0 8 0
No fee Future fee Stable fee Reduce fee Raise fee
7 1 14 3 1
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Nor do I believe that museums can accept money from corporate sponsors and pretend to maintain their academic freedom. How many exhibitions do we see that portray corporate sponsors in a critical light (Trigger 1988:8)?
Responding to the Changing Environment The tightening of public and private sector ®nancial support has forced museums to re-evaluate several traditional practices. Perhaps most signi®cantly, exhibits are being popularized in order to attract larger numbers of visitors as the museum is transformed from ``temple to big top'' (Lind 1992:32; Urry 1990). New information technologies are being used to make exhibits more accessible to the public. Budget cuts have forced the re-evaluation of staf®ng levels. The importance of increasing visitorship has also encouraged museums to enter into formal and informal cooperative relationships. New Sources of Revenues. Montreal museums are attempting to appeal to the mass audiences needed to attract corporate sponsors, please foundations and government funding bodies, and guarantee larger admission revenues. Nearly one quarter of the administrators identi®ed tour groups as their primary target audience (a re¯ection of the importance of the tourism market). Surveyed museums reported that tourists account for 40% to 60% of visitorship. But in order to attract larger numbers of visitors, institutions are increasingly focusing on popular entertainment and neglect educational aspects of the museum experience. In 1995, the MuseÂe des Beaux Arts sponsored Moving Beauty, an exhibit of rare automobiles which was dismissed by critics because of its inappropriateness in a ®ne arts museum. Nevertheless, the museum's board deemed the exhibit a necessary step in the attempt to lift it out of debt (Duncan 1995). The McCord Museum produced That's Hockey in 1996±97 aimed at the large number of Montrealers interested in the historical role the sport has played in shaping the city. The cultural attractions in the survey had various themes (including science, heritage and art) but all used the word museum to denote even what some may consider pure spectacle. The best example in Montreal of this is the MuseÂe Juste Pour Rire which opened in 1993. Its initial admission fee was an unsustainable $18 per visit, and near death experiences, re-openings, and scaled down admission fees have followed as the museum failed to attract the interest of residents and tourists. Clearly some have more commercial appeal than others. For example, the BioÃdome, a ``nature'' museum with four indoor simulated natural environments (including the St Lawrence estuary), has been able to sustain admission fees which are signi®cantly higher than all of the heritage ones in the survey. Indeed, the wide variety of Montreal attractions identifying themselves as ``museums'' in the 90s appears to mesh with Urry's conclusion that ``museums cannot be created about anything
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anywhere. But a museum on almost any topic can be created somewhere'' (1990:134). This popularization process even calls into question the very de®nition of the more traditional museum (Weil 1990). Although several of the administrators were well aware of the popularization issue, they did not see it as a future problem in their ``digni®ed'' museum. But they were willing to point the ®nger at other institutions with ``less integrity''. The commercialization of culture does not, however, always result in the debasement of cultural experiences or less educational value (Sayer 1997). Montreal museums are attempting to increase visitorship by attracting seniors and school children, with the latter often putting pressure on parents for return visits. Professionals and academics have also been trying to come to terms with questions of representation in museum exhibitions and have explored ways of including voices from marginalized communities (Karp and Lavine 1991, Karp, Kreamer and Lavine 1992). Thus, museums elsewhere have been established to represent and attract ethnic groups, and gender issues have also been more closely scrutinized (Glaser and Zenetou 1994). One curator stated that her historical museum had recently attempted to appeal to and include native groups which have been marginalized through neglect and misrepresentation in past exhibits. Several of the museums were actively seeking to increase sales of cultural products related to their exhibits. All of the 18 institutions in the survey which had boutiques cited the growing importance of gift sales, especially ``high mark-up'' items and several had aggressive plans to expand this part of their operation. Some of the larger ones (annual budgets greater than $10 million) report sales of up to $3 million per year. One science and nature participant in the survey reported gift store revenues of $1 million, compared to admission revenues of $5.5 million. Museums have also cooperated with institutions from across Canada to sell mail order products. These alternative revenue sources are not equally accessible to large and small operations. The former are likely to be at an advantage as they have the necessary visitor numbers to run successful retail business. Smaller museums have, however, also been innovative. One historical institution raised signi®cant revenues by charging a small fee to couples wishing to use the indoor displays as backdrops for wedding photos. New Technologies. Alternative advances are being used to make the museum experience more accessible to the general public. Several of them use videos or computers to enhance exhibits. But there are factors limiting the immediate integration of new technology. Some administrators noted that the costs of adding new technologies can be prohibitive. For example, the $50,000 rental fee for an infra-red audio guide to complement tours can only be justi®ed if attendance is substantial. In one case, a museum that evaluated the potential of an infra-red audio guide decided against its use and hired seven summer student guides for the same cost. Some com-
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623
mentators also argue that such technologies can reduce visitor interaction with the artifacts and other attendees (Goodes 1991, Alexander 1996). The fastest growing area of applied technology in museums, however, lies in the display and dissemination of images. The World Wide Web is now an important way for museums to advertise exhibitions and provide visitors with information (Dumais 1996). The large Montreal institutions are using the Internet to attract residents and visitors from Canada and abroad. The Greater Montral Tourism and Convention Bureau lists most of the surveyed institutions on its website and 12 of them have also developed their own sites. Smaller establishments, with fewer resources, are less likely to develop their own sites. Some professionals feel that technological developments such as CD ROM and the Internet increase accessibility to museum holdings and will encourage visitation (Lambert 1995; Wertheim 1995). At the same time, such technology may also threaten visitorship levels if they are forced to compete with their own ``virtual'' exhibits. The impacts information technologies will have on the frequency of museum visits and visitor expectations of the ``real'' exhibit created by digital images have yet to be explored fully. Labor Issues. The largest component of a museum's budget is often labor costs and this no doubt explains the rash of recent layoffs of staff by cash-strapped institutions throughout Canada (Bula 1994; Crew 1995). Attempts to manage government expenditures will continue to put pressure on a largely feminized workforce which is underpaid relative to other cultural industry workers (Frank 1996). In the Montreal survey, a total of 1,486 staff were employed by the 26 institutions, 62% on a full time basis (Table 4). Table 4. Labor and Montreal Museumsa (N=26) Employees per Museum
No.
Type of Employment
1±4 5±15 16±50 51±100 >100
3 11 5 2 2
Full-time Part-time Part-time (all year) Part-time (seasonal)
921 565 58 501
Subcontracting Labour
No.
Subcontracting Trend
No.
No Subcontracting Security only Other Subcontracting
11 5 10
Increasing No Change Decrease
12 14 0
a
Source: 1993/1994 survey data.
No. Employed
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STEVEN TUFTS AND SIMON MILNE
The majority of institutions have experienced declining or frozen employment levels as dictated by recent budget cuts. Compared to the Canadian laborforce as a whole, the museum workers employed in the institutions surveyed had above average rates of unionization. The 11 establishments with unionized employees (accounting for 60% of the total sample) were mostly the larger publicly administered and funded museums. None of the primarily privately funded ones were unionized. A few administrators stated that unionization can create increased wage costs, barriers to subcontracting, and delays in implementing layoffs. For example, strike activity at Montreal's BioÃdome throughout the 90s has closed the institution during peek visitor periods (Derfel 1995). One director stated that Montreal's city government has attempted to create paragovernmental administrative agencies for its municipal museums in order to avoid organization by strong city workers' unions. The museums surveyed are moving towards more ¯exible labor relationships in order to cut wage bills. One large exhibition center has all but 20 of its 180 employees working on contract. While the use of sub-contracted labor for security, cleaning and other tasks is an established practice, there is also a trend toward outsourcing to specialized ®rms (operations such as marketing, research, and exhibit design). Over one-third of those interviewed plan to increase the use of sub-contracted labor further over the next ®ve years, with the rest expecting little change. Managers are no longer merely overseers of collections but salespeople, accountants, market researchers, and educators (Mayer 1991). The director of a small art museum stated that ®nding permanent, full-time quali®ed professionals is dif®cult for ®nancially troubled institutions which still need highly skilled people. There is also the practice of larger museums ``poaching'', professionals from smaller ones after they have gained the necessary experience. The paid laborforce is supplemented by volunteer workers in 11 of the institutions surveyed. They are especially important to museums adjusting to ®nancial pressures, but they are viewed as a complement to, not a substitute for, paid labor. For example, volunteers may assist with fundraising efforts or serve as informational instructors, but they are not often used to create exhibits or perform cleaning duties. One director emphasized that managing volunteers was a specialized skill given they are not easily recruited and must be used in tasks that make them feel productive and appreciated. Although the number of museums in Montreal grew substantially in the 90s, there is no evidence to suggest that there will be an equally impressive increase in employment opportunities. Reduced budgets, new communication technologies, and the existence of an extensive volunteer system limits the possibilities for dynamic full-time job growth. Networks and Alliances. Economic geographers have become increasingly aware of how strategic ®rm alliances and network formation have become an essential feature of corporate power in
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advanced economies (Allen 1997; Axelsson and Easton 1992; Yeung 1994). Cooperation among museums has always been a part of everyday operations (such as exchange of artifacts and traveling exhibits). There is a signi®cant amount of cooperation and networking among museums which at ®rst appears to mimic inter-®rm network relations such as joint marketing and externalized operations. Montreal institutions are part of national (Canadian Museums Association), provincial (La SocieÂte des MuseÂes QueÂbeÂcois), and local (La SocieÂte des Directeurs des MuseÂes MontreÂalais) organizations which jointly promote the richness and diversity of the museum sector through information networks and publicity campaigns. National and provincial organizations are the more established and formal networks servicing the sector's collective lobbying, literary, and research and development needs. The local museum society is less formal than the larger groups but is viewed by the administrators interviewed as the most effective marketing and publicity tool through promotions such as Montreal's annual Museum Day (free admission in all of them). Some of those interviewed did, however, suggest that associations tend to exclude or marginalize small museums, and pay greater attention to the needs of the larger institutions which contribute the most in terms of ®nancing. Cooperation between museums and various governmental tourism agencies is at times just as important as networking among the former. For many, marketing initiatives beyond print media are only ®nancially feasible with the assistance of joint publicity programs or subsidized tourism packages. Some of them were almost solely dependent upon the tourism maps, promotional packages, and web access provided by Montreal's tourism promotion bureau. Most work closely with the agency, but a signi®cant minority complained that some museums were neglected in favor of more popular cultural attractions or other elements of the tourism product (such as accommodation and festivals). Agglomeration and Museum Parks. Some commentators argue that a successful cultural tourism product depends on the complementarity of spatially clustered institutions even though these large attractions tend to be ``bad neighbors'' for residents, such as large crowds and traf®c congestion (Ashworth 1995). Clusters of cultural institutions also tend to centralize in the inner city and often limit cultural resources in suburban areas. The municipal government in Montreal has attempted to develop several small museums/cultural institutions, Les Maisons de la Culture outside of the downtown core, in efforts to make culture and heritage accessible to suburban residents. Clustering of cultural institutions, however, allows visitors easy access from one museum to another, but more importantly allows several of them form a ``synergy'' which adds to a neighborhood architectural and artistic aesthetic (Jansen-Verbeke 1997).
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There are three identi®able museum ``districts'' in Montreal: Vieux MontreÂal, Parc Maisonneuve, and Centre-Ville (Sherbrooke Street West) (Figure 1). Administrators of museums located within these areas are generally happy with their location. Over half of those operating outside the three districts stated that they would prefer to be in one of the agglomerations. The desire to enter these areas stems from the need to tap into areas of high tourist density (Law 1993). The initial formation of these agglomerations re¯ects different periods of infrastructural development. For example, the Parc Maisoneuve museum complex was developed in the wake of the, 1976 Olympics, while the Old Port re-emerged as an urban heritage site in the 90s (Chang et al 1996). Spatial proximity fosters informal alliances among museums looking to economize their everyday operations. For example, a small Montreal art museum and a neighboring historical center share signage and visitors. Similarly, one museum in the survey was collaborating with two other nearby institutions to organize a large joint exhibit. Some dif®culties arise concerning the division of responsibilities and costs, and as a result alliances are often based on long term relationships of trust and reciprocity established within the cultural sector community. CONCLUSION The evolving nature of Montreal's museum sector has several implications for the urban economy and the development of cultural institutions. The decline of both public and private support for museum operations during the 90s has made it increasingly dif®cult for Montreal museums to meet their traditional mandate of preserving culture and educating society. They are being pressured to produce a product which maximizes admission revenues and appeals to the marketing objectives of corporate sponsorship. Pressures to increase sales of culturally inscribed goods in museum boutiques tend to necessitate exhibits which appeal to broad-based tastes. Questions arise concerning the ability of a ``popularized'' museum experience to cater to the demands of cultural tourists. A popularized museum experience will not necessarily appeal to the tourist searching for an intense sense of local time and space (Harrison 1997) or ``food for thought'' (Jansen-Verbeke and van Rekom 1996). An oversupply of mediocre attractions or spectacles masquerading as museums will only increase the competition for corporate, individual, and state sources of revenue while debasing the overall cultural product. The key issue remainsÐhow museums in this environment can deliver a cultural experience which sustains appeal to tourists and residents alike. This research shows that small museums face a dif®cult future. While new communication technologies have provided some large museums with access to new media such as the Internet, these technologies are often beyond the reach of smaller museums. Museums with limited access to emerging technologies such as Internet and
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reduced ®nancial resources will ®nd it dif®cult to broaden their appeal to a wider audience. There are also problems for smaller museums in attracting multi-skilled professionals. While networking and alliances are evident in the sector and provide small establishments with a range of competitive options, larger counterparts dominate the agendas of the well-established formal bodies that represent museums. Of the nine participants in the survey with annual budgets below $250,000, ®ve were primarily privately funded by endowments. The greater stability of their primary funding source may allow them to survive but expansion of exhibits and marketing programs will prove dif®cult. The problems that face smaller museums are important on a number of fronts. They play an important role in supplying the tourism product with diversity and local ¯avor. Many small institutions in Montreal diversify their (and broader tourism) products with specialized themes that also embrace space and time speci®c experiences. Beyond the tourism focus, however, Weil (1990:40) also notes that the particular strengths of small museumsЯexibility and freedom from the weight of large collectionsÐmake them very important in any attempts to move this community towards a more socially relevant role. Larger museums, however, will also continue to face challenges in the present environment. Pressures to increase earned revenues and limit costs will potentially change the very nature of the museum experience itself. The development of Montreal's Marche BonseÂcours into a place where traveling exhibitions are presented in a ``warehouse'' space staffed by contracted workers is perhaps the best example of a ``¯exible'' museum. But this alternative setting does not re¯ect any well-developed sense of time and place. As large establishments, the core of the museum product, increasingly adjust to decreasing budgets by appealing to broader markets or adopting more ``¯exible'' operations, the overall experience will be affected. By examining Montreal museums from a supply-side perspective, this paper sheds light on the changing role of cultural institutions in urban economic development. The questions the paper begins to answer relate to the evolving nature of cultural institutions as places for leisure, education, and the celebration of local heritage versus a transition to an alternative consumption experience. It is necessary to examine how cities may restructure cultural institutions in order to boost consumption experiences and tourism activities, while still appealing to a sense of culture and place. While the predominantly demand-side approaches discussed here go someway toward explaining why cultural infrastructure has played an increasingly important role in urban tourism development, they are limited in their ability to explain how institutions such as museums are adjusting to the new role. To gain a better insight into cultural sectors as tourism products and broader urban socioeconomic structures, more empirical research is necessary on the supply-side. Furthermore, only a rigorous linking of supply- and demand-side
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perspectives can bring about a better sense of the changing nature of cultural sectors, and their importance for urban development.& Acknowledgments ÐSpecial thanks for the help of all museum professionals who took part in this survey. The research project was funded by Quebec's research funding agency (FCAR).
REFERENCES Alexander, V. 1996 Pictures at an Exhibition: Con¯icting Pressures in Museums and the Display of Art American. Journal of Sociology 10:797±839. Allen, J. 1997 Economies of Power and Space. In Geographies of Economies, R. Lee and J. Wills, eds., pp. 59±70. London: Arnold. Ashworth, G. J 1995 Managing the Cultural Tourist. In Tourism and Spatial Transformations: Implications for Policy and Planning, G. Ashworth and A. Dietvorst, eds., pp. 265±283. Wallingford: CAB International. Ashworth, G. J., and J. E. Tunbridge 1990 The Tourist±Historic City. London: Belhaven. Axelsson, B. and G. Easton, eds. 1992 Industrial Networks: A New View of Reality. London: Routledge. Bassett, K. 1993 Urban Cultural Strategies and Urban Regeneration: A Case Study and Critique. Environment and Planning A 25:1773±1788. Bianchini, F. 1990 Urban Renaissance? The Arts and the Urban Regeneration Process. In Tackling the Inner Cities, S. MacGregor and B. Pimlott, eds., pp. 215±250. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993 Remaking European Cities: The Role of Cultural Politics. In Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration: The West European Experience, F. Bianchini and M. Parkinson, eds., pp. 1±20. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bula F. 1994 Jobs Sacri®ced in Museum's Back-to-Work Agreement. Vancouver Sun (November 16):B1. CBAC 1992 Annual CBAC Survey of Corporate Donations, 1992 Council for Business and Arts in Canada. Toronto: CBAC. Calgary Herald 1997 Renoir Show Pumped up Local Economies. Calgary Harald (November 29):C4. Chang, T. S. Milne, D. Fallon, and C. Pohlman 1996 Urban Heritage Tourism, the Global±Local Nexus. Annals of Tourism Research 23:284±305. Cohen, E. 1995 Contemporary Tourism: Trends and Challenges, Sustainable Authenticity or Contrived Post-Modernity. In Change in Tourism: People Places Processes, R. Butler and D. Pearce, eds., pp. 12±29. London: Routledge. Communications Canada 1986 Report and Recommendations of the Task Force Charged with Examining Federal Policy Concerning Museums. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services.
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1988 Challenges and Choices: Federal Policy and Program Proposals for Canadian Museums. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada. 1990 Canadian Museum Policy: Temples of the Human Spirit. Ottawa: Minister of Supply Services Canada. Crew R. 1995 Jeopardizing Canada's Past and Future. Toronto Star (April 15):H15. Derfel A. 1995 Blue-Collars' Overtime Strike Closes BioÃdome. Montreal Gazette (March 30):A3. Dumais, M. 1996 L'internet: alors, on se branche? MuseÂes 18(1):40. Duncan A. 1995 Running on Empty. Montreal Gazette (October 21):H1. Featherstone, M. 1991 Consumer Culture an Postmodernism. London: Sage. Frank J. 1996 Canada's Cultural Labour Force. Canadian Social Trends (41):22±26. Fyfe, G., and M. Ross 1996 Decoding the Visitor's Gaze: Rethinking Museum Visiting. In Theorizing Museums, Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe, eds., pp. 127±152. Oxford: Blackwell. Glaser, J. and A. Zenetou, eds. 1994 Gender Perspectives: Essays on Women in Museums. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press. Godfrey S. 1991 Money for Museums a Priority, Masse Says. Montreal Gazette (June 9):C9. Goodes, D. 1991 Quali®ed Democratization: The Museum Audioguide. Journal of Canadian Art History 142:51±73. Harrison, J. 1997 Museums and Touristic Expectations. Annals of Tourism Research 24:23± 40. Harvey, D. 1987 Flexible Accumulation through Urbanisation: Re¯ections on the American City. Antipode 193:260±286. Hewison, R. 1987 The Heritage Industry. London: Methuen. ICOM 1986 Dictionary of Museology. Budapest: International Council of Museums. Ioannides, D., and K. Debbage 1998 Introduction: Exploring the Economic Geography and Tourism Nexus. In The Economic Geography of the Tourist Industry, D. Ioannides and K. Debbage, eds., pp. 1±13. London: Routledge. Jansen-Verbeke, M. C. 1986 Inner-City Tourism: Resources, Tourists Promoters. Annals of Tourism Research 13:79±100. 1997 Developing Cultural Tourism in Historical Cities: The Local Challenge in a Global Market. Discussion paper presented at the International Academy for The Study of Tourism conference, Malaysia, June. Jansen-Verbeke, M. C., and J. van Rekom 1996 Scanning the Museum Visitor: Urban Tourism Marketing. Annals of Tourism Research 23:364±375. Karp, I., C. Kreamer and S. Lavine, eds. 1992 Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Karp, I. and S. Lavine, eds. 1991 Exhibiting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kearns, G. and C. Philo, eds. 1993 Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past Present and Future. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
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Kotler, P., D. Haider and I. Rein, eds. 1993 Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry and Tourism to Cities, States and Nations. New York: Free Press. Lacroix, L. 1992 Museums in Quebec: Twenty Years of ExpansionÐTwenty Years of Hardship? MUSE 10:116±119. Lambert, J. B. 1995 Virtual Galleries. Omni 174:25. Law, C. 1993 Urban Tourism: Attracting Visitors to Large Cities. London: Mansell. LeveilleÂe, J., and R. Whelan 1990 Montreal: The Struggle to Become a ``World City''. In Leadership and Urban Regeneration: Cities in North America and Europe, pp. 152±170. Newbury Park CA: Sage. Lind, M. 1992 Reinventing the Museum. The Public Interest 109:22±39. Mayer, C. 1991 The Contemporary Curator: Endangered Species or Brave New Profession? MUSE 92:34±38. Montreal Gazette 1992 Nine Cultural Attractions Worth $300 Million Set to Open. Montreal Gazette (February 29):E1, E10. Sayer, A. 1997 The Dialectic of Culture and Economy. In Geographies of Economies, R. Lee and J. Wills, eds., pp. 16±26. London: Arnold. Schurmer-Smith, P., and K. Hannam 1994 Worlds of Desire, Realms of Power: A Cultural Geography. London: Arnold. Statistics Canada 1995 Government Expenditures on Culture Catalogue 87-206. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services. 1997 Canada's Culture, Heritage and Identity: A Statistical Perspective Catalogue 87-211-XPB. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services. Trigger, B. 1988 Reply to Julia Harrison's ``The Spirit Sings'' and the Future of Anthropology. Anthropology Today 4(6):6±10. Turgeon, N., and F. Colbert 1992 The Decision Process Involved in Corporate Sponsorship for the Arts. Journal of Cultural Economics 161:41±51. Urry, J. 1990 The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage. 1995 Consuming Places. London: Routledge. 1996 How Societies Remember the Past. In Theorizing Museums, Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe, eds., pp. 145±167. Oxford: Blackwell. Vaughan, D. R., and P. Booth 1989 The Economic Importance of Tourism and the Arts in Merseyside. Journal of Cultural Economics 132:21±34. Watson, S. 1991 Gilding the Smokestacks: The New Symbolic Representations of De-industrialized Regions. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9:59±70. Weil, S. E. 1990 Rethinking the Museum and other Meditations. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press. Wertheim, M. 1995 Interactive Museums. Omni 142:150±154. Whelan, R. 1991 The Politics or Urban Redevelopment in Montreal: Regime Change from Drapeau to DoreÂ. Quebec Studies 12:154±169. Yeung, H. 1994 Critical Reviews of Geographical Perspectives on Business Organizations
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and the Organization of Production: Towards a Network Approach. Progress in Human Geography 184:460±490. Zukin, S. 1995 The Cultures of Cities. New York: Blackwell. Submitted 28 August 1997. Resubmitted 21 June 1998. Resubmitted 2 October 1998. Accepted 21 October 1998. Final version 18 November 1998. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Myriam Jansen-Verbeke.
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 613±631, 1999 # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/99/$20.00+0.00
PII: S0160-7383(99)00024-9
MUSEUMS
A Supply-Side Perspective Steven Tufts York University, Canada Simon Milne Victoria University, New Zealand Abstract: The educational and cultural mandates of museums are being transformed as institutions play an increasingly important part in urban economic development and tourism promotion strategies. In contrast to more common demand-side studies, this paper emphasizes the supply-side by focussing on everyday museum operations. It outlines the competitive responses being adopted by museums in Montreal, Canada, including shifts in sources of revenue, new technologies, labor practices and the development of networks. Study ®ndings show that the restructuring of museum operations raises important questions concerning not only the traditional public mandate of museums, but also on its ability to enhance consumption experiences and to contribute to a diversi®ed tourism product. Keywords: museums, funding, cultural attractions, organization. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Âsume Â: Les museÂes: une perspective de l'offre. Les mandats Âeducatifs et culturels des Re museÂes se transforment, jouant un roÃle de plus en plus important dans des strateÂgies de deÂveloppement Âeconomique urbain et de promotion de tourisme. Par contraste aux Âetudes plus nombreuses de la demande, cet article souligne le coÃte de l'offre en examinant le fonctionnement quotidien des museÂes. L'article preÂsente des reÂponses compeÂtitives adopteÂes par des museÂes aÁ MontreÂal, au Canada: des changements de sources de revenu, de nouvelles technologies, de nouvelles politiques de travail et le deÂveloppement de reÂseaux. Cette restructuration du fonctionnement des museÂes souleÁve des questions importantes concernant non seulement le mandat public traditionnel des museÂes mais aussi leur capacite pour ameÂliorer les expeÂriences du consommateur et contribuer aÁ un produit diversi®e du tourÂs: museÂes, ®nancement, attractions culturelles, organisation. # 1999 Elsevier isme. Mots-cle Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION For much of the 20th century the generally accepted de®nition of the museum has been an institution which serves to collect, conserve, research, interpret and exhibit society's material culture (ICOM 1986; Weil 1990:57±58). Museums have traditionally been
Steven Tufts (Department of Geography at York University, 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. Email < [email protected] >) is conducting research on the impact of organized labor on urban tourism development. Simon Milne is Professor of Tourism, School of Business and Public Management, Victoria University, New Zealand. His research interests include sustainable tourism development and the economic restructuring of tourism industries.
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spaces where a society can celebrate its past and form a sense of its cultural identity (Urry 1996). Over the last decade, however, there has been increasing attention to a ``cultural revival'' of heritage experiences as popular leisure and urban tourism activities (Hewison 1987). Politicians and planners have taken the opportunity to integrate museums into economic development initiatives in both large and small urban centers (Vaughan and Booth 1989; Zukin 1995). In simple terms, the role of the museum is evolving, with cultural institutions expected to perform a broader range of economic functions, often as part of complex urban redevelopment strategies (Bassett 1993; Bianchini 1990, 1993; Urry 1995; Watson 1991). While the Canadian government asserts that the ``true value'' of the museum is ``measured in terms of our culture and heritage'', it still stresses that museums ``generate almost a billion dollars in revenue each year'' (Communications Canada 1990:21). The expanding role of cultural institutions in advanced capitalist economies has forced researchers to focus more on the links between the cultural and the economic. Sayer (1997) characterizes the ``cultural turn'' in much economic geographic research not so much as a result of a ``culturalized economy'' but rather as the ``economization of culture''. Although Sayer concedes that the relationship between culture and economy is ``highly complex'', he maintains ``economic forces continue to dominate contemporary life'' (1997:16). The purpose of museums re¯ects various cultural agendas (such as nation building and education); but the ability of institutions to adhere to public mandates and play a central role in the overall tourism product often is determined by the operating environment (including access to sources of funding). For the purposes of this paper, the Montreal museum sector is treated as a set of cultural institutions operating under increasingly complex and, at times, contradictory economic constraints. The treatment is, in Table 1. 1993/94 Montreal Museum SurveyÐsample by Theme (N=26) Type of Museum
Populationa Sampleb Coverage %
Historic Sites and Interpretation/Info Centres 21 Exhibition Centers and Galleries 12 Science and Nature 8 Art 7 Ecomuseums 3 Maisons de la Culturec 8 Other 2 Total 61 a
9 4 5 5 1 8 2 26
43 33 63 71 33 100 100 43
Based on La SocieÂte des MuseÂes QueÂbeÂcois 1993 membership listings. Discussions were held with museum directors and or other representatives. c Les Maisons de la Culture (MdlC) are centers administered by the municipality of Montreal with the mandate of bringing cultural events to communities outside of the downtown city core. Interviews were held with the head of the department responsible for the MdlC and directors of two of the eight centers. b
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part, a response to the recent call for tourism research to adopt more rigorous approaches to studying restructuring in tourism-related sectors (Ioannides and Debbage, 1998). The focus on the ``economic forces'' currently affecting museums in the city is not meant to reduce these institutions to a purely economic function. The growing importance of museums as cultural attractions has drawn the attention of tourism researchers for some time, but most of the work to date emphasizes demand side issues (Harrison 1997; Urry 1990). Following a brief review of how researchers have attempted to understand the importance of museums in urban settings, an outline is given of the ``supply-side'' operational context in Montreal in the 90s. Focus is on the search for new funding opportunities, the use of new information technologies, labor management, alliance formation, and museum agglomeration. The ®ndings show that these institutions are being forced to adopt a range of strategies in an increasingly challenging environment in order to secure stable funding year to year and ful®l their public mandates. The data are drawn from in-depth open interviews held with professionals (directors and curators) from 26 Montreal museums (Table 1). This sample was drawn from the 61 institutions in the Greater Montreal Area that are listed as members of La SocieÂte des MuseÂes QueÂbeÂcois. The museums contacted during the, 1993±94 study period were predominantly the larger ones located in Montreal's major tourism areas (Figure 1). Smaller museums in suburban communities are deliberately under represented.
Figure 1. Museum ``Districts'' of Montreal
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Discussions were also held with representatives from the Canadian and Quebec museum associations and recent issues of their respective journals, Muse and MuseÂes were reviewed. MUSEUMS IN THE URBAN ECONOMY Museums have been used as the main attractions drawing tourists into the city. For example, the recent Renoir exhibit in Canada's National Gallery in Ottawa reportedly increased local hotel revenues by $4.8 million dollars (Calgary Herald 1997). However, the economic importance of museums in the local economy is much more complex than their ability to attract visitors with popular traveling exhibitions. Museums re¯ect an essential sense of a particular time and place unavailable elsewhere, and help to de®ne the overall tourism product. Their unique architectural styles and permanent exhibits give tourists ``something distinctive to gaze upon'' (Urry 1990:128). Recent research has demonstrated that they expect ``to learn something'' when visiting museums (JansenVerbeke and van Rekom 1996) and to see an honest representation of a ``good local place'' (Harrison 1997). Regardless of the speci®c nature of the ``pull factor'' attracting visitors, planners have included museums in the overall promotion of urban destinations, leading researchers to classify these cultural institutions as primary elements of the tourism product (Jansen-Verbeke 1986). Museums enable cities to ``market'' themselves, as cultural centers which both delight residents and tourists and appeal to professionals and investors (Kotler, Haider and Rein 1993; Kearns and Philo 1993). Harvey (1987), building on the work of Bourdieu (1984), argues that cultural consumption is often a means for capital to pro®t from upper and middle class attempts to reject mass culture. Elite classes differentiate themselves through the consumption of ``cultural capital'', high art, and antiquities which are often relatively inaccessible to lower classes (Fyfe and Ross 1996). Cultural institutions also provide a place for elites, who administer and frequent these non-pro®t institutions, to network and re-af®rm their social position (Zukin 1995). In depressed urban economies, such as Montreal's, cultural amenities provide high-skilled professionals with an incentive to remain in a ``liveable'' city. In the process of attracting tourists and nearby residents of different backgrounds to the city, museums become potential instruments for combining consumption activities with personal, lived experiences. To some extent the different components of the city (cultural attractions, shopping centers, and the like) converge, each offering the services and experiences of the other (Featherstone 1991). A tourist may enter a museum for a negligible admission fee, but during the visit include lunch, buy a souvenir, and take a taxi back to a nearby hotel. Thus, Ashworth and Tunbridge (1990) view the National Gallery and Canadian Museum of Civilization as the Ottawa±Hull region's effort to develop the Ottawa River waterfront's boutiques and restaurants. Similarly, on West Sherbrooke
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Street in Montreal (Figure 1), gallery owners, antique dealers, highend clothing retailers and museum professionals have formed an informal association to develop and promote the area as a place for the consumption of up-market consumer goods and a re®ned cultural aesthetic. The synergy between cultural and consumption experiences creates spaces for both the tourist and resident groups to consume (Cohen 1995; Schurmer-Smith and Hannam 1994). Places of consumer activity are appropriated to exhibit culture while the aesthetic of culture is used simultaneously to promote consumption and inscribe products with various meanings. Zukin sees the processes of economic production and cultural consumption as increasingly inseparable: In fact, culture supplies the basic informationÐincluding symbols, patterns and meaningÐfor nearly all service industries. In our debased contemporary vocabulary, the word culture has become an abstraction for any economic activity that does not create material products like steel, cars or computers (Zukin 1995:11±12; emphasis in original).
The bulk of research into museums and urban development continues to focus on the attraction of tourists, the characteristics and behavior of museum visitors, and the consumption of cultural experiences. This focus on demand side issues has tended to neglect the evolving structure of the museum itself and the impacts of these changes on the surrounding urban setting. It is argued that by looking at the operating environment challenging museums, and the way they are responding to these issues, one can begin to understand better the evolving role that museums in particular, and the cultural sector in general, will play in the future urban economy. Challenges in the 90s For 30 years, Montreal has felt the impact of de-industrialization as economic activity has shifted westward to other Canadian cities, and core industries have slipped into decline (LeveilleÂe and Whelan 1990; Whelan 1991). Montreal had experienced periods of infrastructural investment leading up to Expo '67 and again in preparation for the, 1976 Olympics, but fell behind other Canadian cities such as Toronto and Vancouver which developed rapidly in the 80s. The city has been actively exploiting its unique cultural heritage as a means of (re)developing its tourism market and fostering economic growth. Through agencies such as the Greater Montreal Tourism and Convention Bureau, the city has been attempting to reinforce an image of the city as a major cultural destination. Museums have been a vital part of the agency's efforts to create a unique tourism product in its promotional campaigns. Montreal's Place des Arts, a complex of adjoining theatres, auditoriums and the MuseÂe d'Art Contemporain is an example of a project aimed at tourists and elites, as well as developing the cities downtown central business
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district (Figure 1). Museums have also been placed at the center of attempts to use heritage tourism as a way to merge this and business development with the celebration of local architectural history and diverse cultural composition (see Chang, Milne, Fallon and Pohlman 1996). Part of the redevelopment of the urban heritage district in Old Montreal included the construction of a new archaeology museum and renovations to other museums in the area. The federal government played an important role in the development of several of Montreal's new museums in the early 90s. In, 1986, Communications Canada funded research on the state of Canadian museums. In the wake of the studies a report and working paper were released which contained several recommendations for a revamped federal museum policy (Communications Canada 1986, 1988, 1990). After the 1988 federal election, some of the working paper's recommendations were adopted and the government began to invest money heavily into the ®nancially troubled museum sectorÐ assisting established institutions and ®nancing the construction of new projects (Godfrey 1991). The result was an explosion in the number of museums throughout the country. The number of museums in Canada grew by nearly 25% between 1983 and 1994 (1,005 to 1,236), while visitation grew from just over 21 million to almost 25 million (Statistics Canada 1995). Montreal alone received $300 million in funding for nine new cultural attractions. Many of the new museum openings were planned to coincide with the celebration of the city's 350th birthday in the spring and summer of 1992 (Montreal Gazette 1992:February 29, E1). The visible investment in cultural institutions was perhaps also a means of the federal government to win favor with the majority of Quebec residents during the constitutional crisis of the early 90s. Although the federal government may have been encouraged to make such a visibly patrimonial investment in Montreal, it can be argued that the city's economy was genuinely in need of development assistance and was due for signi®cant investment in new cultural attractions (Chang et al 1996). Unfortunately, the museum building boom of the early 90s was not matched by a concomitant increase in government funding of annual operating budgets (Lacroix 1992). Federal expenditures on museums decreased by 4.1% between 1990±91 and 1994±95 to less than $225 million. Although provincial government expenditures on museums reached $293 million in 1992±93, levels of funding have also not been sustained as support declined to $277 million in 1994± 95. Municipal governments only contribute approximately 5% to overall public expenditures on museums, but their contribution also decreased by 3.7% during this period as local funding focused on heritage sites. Across Canada, museums have had to sustain annual budgets with greater earned revenues (including corporate sponsorships, donations, foundations, as well as admission revenues). Nationally, earned revenues increased by 17.9% between 1990±91 and 1993±94 (Statistics Canada 1997).
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The annual operating budgets of the 26 institutions in the survey totaled over $100 million in 1993±94. Although most museums received funding from a variety of sources, 9 museums were funded primarily by private sources (such as foundations) with the remainder depending largely on support from different levels of government (Table 2). Of the 26 institutions, 19 reported that the level of public funding had decreased from 1992±93. The museums supported primarily by private foundations reported that their endowments were stable, but their overall annual budgets were vulnerable to decreases in public funding as well. The budgetary constraints place museums in a dif®cult situation. Responses such as reducing personnel, limiting hours of operation, and sacri®cing the quality of exhibits simply lead to reduced service, lower revenues from admission fees, and the ultimate failure to ful®l the museum's public mandate (interviews). There was consensus among those interviewed that funding annual operating budgets remains the most signi®cant challenge to maintaining the quality of the museum experience. While the Canadian museum sector has been able to attract the largest portion of corporate donations to the arts within the country (CBAC 1992), several of the professionals interviewed noted that corporate dollars are increasingly dif®cult to secure. For example, the city's premier art gallery, MuseÂe des Beaux Arts, received over $1 million in corporate sponsorships for exhibits in 1987 but had no sponsorships in 1993. The director explained that the competitive environment facing several private sector corporations has limited their budgets for philanthropic projects. At the same time, the number of new museums established in Montreal in the 90s means more institutions are competing for these limited funds. While most of the directors and curators surveyed felt that these establishments were diverse enough to limit competition for visitors, it was noted that there is signi®cant competition for corporate sponsors. Similarly, the managers surveyed reported that individual donations were also increasingly dif®cult to secure. The largest museums actively solicited contributions from individuals in the form of membership programs. Those with annual budgets less than $500,000 did not have the resources to institute elaborate membership programs and as a result were not as able to pursue inTable 2. Funding Sources and Budgets of Surveyed Museumsa (N=26) Largest Funding Source
No.
Annual Operating Budget in Can$ (1993)
No.
Public (Federal) Public (Provincial) Public (Municipal) University Private
1 6 8 2 9
$0±$250K $250K±$1m $1m±$10m $10±$20m over $20m
9 5 7 2 3
a
Source: 1993/1994 survey data.
STEVEN TUFTS AND SIMON MILNE
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dividual donations aggressively through telemarketing membership drives or other approaches. However, few of the smaller museums did have less formal ``friends or supporters'' associations which assisted with volunteers and fundraising efforts. As government, corporate and individual support becomes increasingly dif®cult to ®nd, museums are forced to look to visitors for revenue. The most obvious method of securing operating revenues is from admission fees. But this strategy is far from a panacea for museum administrators. Most view the establishment or increase of admission fees as being counterproductive (Table 3). Admission fees accounted for less than 5% of the overall operating budgets for 18 (most with annual budgets less than $10 million) of the 26 museums in the survey. The general feeling was that increasing fees would decrease visitorship (making current exhibits inaccessible or undesirable to a large part of the public). Only two of the museum administrators stated that they had plans to raise fees in the short term. The resistance of administrators in Montreal to increase fees, however, does not mean that earned revenues have not become more important. Although Canadian museums in general may be less dependent on the ``market'' than their American counterparts, they are likely more dependent on earned revenues than those in most of Europe (Weil 1990). While private funding of various types can keep institutions alive in a period of public sector cuts, such a reliance is argued by many commentators to carry a considerable cost (Schurmer-Smith and Hannam 1994; Weil 1990). Corporate sponsors may be relatively conservative about the types of exhibits they will back and may also look to support mainstream material which will attract large audiences and maximize marketing spinoffs (Alexander 1996; Turgeon and Colbert 1992). A greater reliance on the market place may also tempt organizations to seek out the type of af¯uent audience that can afford higher admission charges. It can also be argued that corporate sponsorship will reduce the ability of museums to ful®l their educational role as mandated by the public. As Trigger, an anthropologist with strong connections to Montreal's McCord Museum of Canadian History, notes: Table 3. The Role of Admission Fees and Other Revenuesa (N=26) Admission Rate No Fees $1±$5 $6±$10 $11> a
Fees as % of Budget 8 11 5 2
0% 1%±5% 6%±20% 21%±50% >50%
Source: 1993/1994 survey data.
Future Admission Rate 8 10 0 8 0
No fee Future fee Stable fee Reduce fee Raise fee
7 1 14 3 1
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Nor do I believe that museums can accept money from corporate sponsors and pretend to maintain their academic freedom. How many exhibitions do we see that portray corporate sponsors in a critical light (Trigger 1988:8)?
Responding to the Changing Environment The tightening of public and private sector ®nancial support has forced museums to re-evaluate several traditional practices. Perhaps most signi®cantly, exhibits are being popularized in order to attract larger numbers of visitors as the museum is transformed from ``temple to big top'' (Lind 1992:32; Urry 1990). New information technologies are being used to make exhibits more accessible to the public. Budget cuts have forced the re-evaluation of staf®ng levels. The importance of increasing visitorship has also encouraged museums to enter into formal and informal cooperative relationships. New Sources of Revenues. Montreal museums are attempting to appeal to the mass audiences needed to attract corporate sponsors, please foundations and government funding bodies, and guarantee larger admission revenues. Nearly one quarter of the administrators identi®ed tour groups as their primary target audience (a re¯ection of the importance of the tourism market). Surveyed museums reported that tourists account for 40% to 60% of visitorship. But in order to attract larger numbers of visitors, institutions are increasingly focusing on popular entertainment and neglect educational aspects of the museum experience. In 1995, the MuseÂe des Beaux Arts sponsored Moving Beauty, an exhibit of rare automobiles which was dismissed by critics because of its inappropriateness in a ®ne arts museum. Nevertheless, the museum's board deemed the exhibit a necessary step in the attempt to lift it out of debt (Duncan 1995). The McCord Museum produced That's Hockey in 1996±97 aimed at the large number of Montrealers interested in the historical role the sport has played in shaping the city. The cultural attractions in the survey had various themes (including science, heritage and art) but all used the word museum to denote even what some may consider pure spectacle. The best example in Montreal of this is the MuseÂe Juste Pour Rire which opened in 1993. Its initial admission fee was an unsustainable $18 per visit, and near death experiences, re-openings, and scaled down admission fees have followed as the museum failed to attract the interest of residents and tourists. Clearly some have more commercial appeal than others. For example, the BioÃdome, a ``nature'' museum with four indoor simulated natural environments (including the St Lawrence estuary), has been able to sustain admission fees which are signi®cantly higher than all of the heritage ones in the survey. Indeed, the wide variety of Montreal attractions identifying themselves as ``museums'' in the 90s appears to mesh with Urry's conclusion that ``museums cannot be created about anything
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anywhere. But a museum on almost any topic can be created somewhere'' (1990:134). This popularization process even calls into question the very de®nition of the more traditional museum (Weil 1990). Although several of the administrators were well aware of the popularization issue, they did not see it as a future problem in their ``digni®ed'' museum. But they were willing to point the ®nger at other institutions with ``less integrity''. The commercialization of culture does not, however, always result in the debasement of cultural experiences or less educational value (Sayer 1997). Montreal museums are attempting to increase visitorship by attracting seniors and school children, with the latter often putting pressure on parents for return visits. Professionals and academics have also been trying to come to terms with questions of representation in museum exhibitions and have explored ways of including voices from marginalized communities (Karp and Lavine 1991, Karp, Kreamer and Lavine 1992). Thus, museums elsewhere have been established to represent and attract ethnic groups, and gender issues have also been more closely scrutinized (Glaser and Zenetou 1994). One curator stated that her historical museum had recently attempted to appeal to and include native groups which have been marginalized through neglect and misrepresentation in past exhibits. Several of the museums were actively seeking to increase sales of cultural products related to their exhibits. All of the 18 institutions in the survey which had boutiques cited the growing importance of gift sales, especially ``high mark-up'' items and several had aggressive plans to expand this part of their operation. Some of the larger ones (annual budgets greater than $10 million) report sales of up to $3 million per year. One science and nature participant in the survey reported gift store revenues of $1 million, compared to admission revenues of $5.5 million. Museums have also cooperated with institutions from across Canada to sell mail order products. These alternative revenue sources are not equally accessible to large and small operations. The former are likely to be at an advantage as they have the necessary visitor numbers to run successful retail business. Smaller museums have, however, also been innovative. One historical institution raised signi®cant revenues by charging a small fee to couples wishing to use the indoor displays as backdrops for wedding photos. New Technologies. Alternative advances are being used to make the museum experience more accessible to the general public. Several of them use videos or computers to enhance exhibits. But there are factors limiting the immediate integration of new technology. Some administrators noted that the costs of adding new technologies can be prohibitive. For example, the $50,000 rental fee for an infra-red audio guide to complement tours can only be justi®ed if attendance is substantial. In one case, a museum that evaluated the potential of an infra-red audio guide decided against its use and hired seven summer student guides for the same cost. Some com-
MUSEUMS
623
mentators also argue that such technologies can reduce visitor interaction with the artifacts and other attendees (Goodes 1991, Alexander 1996). The fastest growing area of applied technology in museums, however, lies in the display and dissemination of images. The World Wide Web is now an important way for museums to advertise exhibitions and provide visitors with information (Dumais 1996). The large Montreal institutions are using the Internet to attract residents and visitors from Canada and abroad. The Greater Montral Tourism and Convention Bureau lists most of the surveyed institutions on its website and 12 of them have also developed their own sites. Smaller establishments, with fewer resources, are less likely to develop their own sites. Some professionals feel that technological developments such as CD ROM and the Internet increase accessibility to museum holdings and will encourage visitation (Lambert 1995; Wertheim 1995). At the same time, such technology may also threaten visitorship levels if they are forced to compete with their own ``virtual'' exhibits. The impacts information technologies will have on the frequency of museum visits and visitor expectations of the ``real'' exhibit created by digital images have yet to be explored fully. Labor Issues. The largest component of a museum's budget is often labor costs and this no doubt explains the rash of recent layoffs of staff by cash-strapped institutions throughout Canada (Bula 1994; Crew 1995). Attempts to manage government expenditures will continue to put pressure on a largely feminized workforce which is underpaid relative to other cultural industry workers (Frank 1996). In the Montreal survey, a total of 1,486 staff were employed by the 26 institutions, 62% on a full time basis (Table 4). Table 4. Labor and Montreal Museumsa (N=26) Employees per Museum
No.
Type of Employment
1±4 5±15 16±50 51±100 >100
3 11 5 2 2
Full-time Part-time Part-time (all year) Part-time (seasonal)
921 565 58 501
Subcontracting Labour
No.
Subcontracting Trend
No.
No Subcontracting Security only Other Subcontracting
11 5 10
Increasing No Change Decrease
12 14 0
a
Source: 1993/1994 survey data.
No. Employed
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The majority of institutions have experienced declining or frozen employment levels as dictated by recent budget cuts. Compared to the Canadian laborforce as a whole, the museum workers employed in the institutions surveyed had above average rates of unionization. The 11 establishments with unionized employees (accounting for 60% of the total sample) were mostly the larger publicly administered and funded museums. None of the primarily privately funded ones were unionized. A few administrators stated that unionization can create increased wage costs, barriers to subcontracting, and delays in implementing layoffs. For example, strike activity at Montreal's BioÃdome throughout the 90s has closed the institution during peek visitor periods (Derfel 1995). One director stated that Montreal's city government has attempted to create paragovernmental administrative agencies for its municipal museums in order to avoid organization by strong city workers' unions. The museums surveyed are moving towards more ¯exible labor relationships in order to cut wage bills. One large exhibition center has all but 20 of its 180 employees working on contract. While the use of sub-contracted labor for security, cleaning and other tasks is an established practice, there is also a trend toward outsourcing to specialized ®rms (operations such as marketing, research, and exhibit design). Over one-third of those interviewed plan to increase the use of sub-contracted labor further over the next ®ve years, with the rest expecting little change. Managers are no longer merely overseers of collections but salespeople, accountants, market researchers, and educators (Mayer 1991). The director of a small art museum stated that ®nding permanent, full-time quali®ed professionals is dif®cult for ®nancially troubled institutions which still need highly skilled people. There is also the practice of larger museums ``poaching'', professionals from smaller ones after they have gained the necessary experience. The paid laborforce is supplemented by volunteer workers in 11 of the institutions surveyed. They are especially important to museums adjusting to ®nancial pressures, but they are viewed as a complement to, not a substitute for, paid labor. For example, volunteers may assist with fundraising efforts or serve as informational instructors, but they are not often used to create exhibits or perform cleaning duties. One director emphasized that managing volunteers was a specialized skill given they are not easily recruited and must be used in tasks that make them feel productive and appreciated. Although the number of museums in Montreal grew substantially in the 90s, there is no evidence to suggest that there will be an equally impressive increase in employment opportunities. Reduced budgets, new communication technologies, and the existence of an extensive volunteer system limits the possibilities for dynamic full-time job growth. Networks and Alliances. Economic geographers have become increasingly aware of how strategic ®rm alliances and network formation have become an essential feature of corporate power in
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625
advanced economies (Allen 1997; Axelsson and Easton 1992; Yeung 1994). Cooperation among museums has always been a part of everyday operations (such as exchange of artifacts and traveling exhibits). There is a signi®cant amount of cooperation and networking among museums which at ®rst appears to mimic inter-®rm network relations such as joint marketing and externalized operations. Montreal institutions are part of national (Canadian Museums Association), provincial (La SocieÂte des MuseÂes QueÂbeÂcois), and local (La SocieÂte des Directeurs des MuseÂes MontreÂalais) organizations which jointly promote the richness and diversity of the museum sector through information networks and publicity campaigns. National and provincial organizations are the more established and formal networks servicing the sector's collective lobbying, literary, and research and development needs. The local museum society is less formal than the larger groups but is viewed by the administrators interviewed as the most effective marketing and publicity tool through promotions such as Montreal's annual Museum Day (free admission in all of them). Some of those interviewed did, however, suggest that associations tend to exclude or marginalize small museums, and pay greater attention to the needs of the larger institutions which contribute the most in terms of ®nancing. Cooperation between museums and various governmental tourism agencies is at times just as important as networking among the former. For many, marketing initiatives beyond print media are only ®nancially feasible with the assistance of joint publicity programs or subsidized tourism packages. Some of them were almost solely dependent upon the tourism maps, promotional packages, and web access provided by Montreal's tourism promotion bureau. Most work closely with the agency, but a signi®cant minority complained that some museums were neglected in favor of more popular cultural attractions or other elements of the tourism product (such as accommodation and festivals). Agglomeration and Museum Parks. Some commentators argue that a successful cultural tourism product depends on the complementarity of spatially clustered institutions even though these large attractions tend to be ``bad neighbors'' for residents, such as large crowds and traf®c congestion (Ashworth 1995). Clusters of cultural institutions also tend to centralize in the inner city and often limit cultural resources in suburban areas. The municipal government in Montreal has attempted to develop several small museums/cultural institutions, Les Maisons de la Culture outside of the downtown core, in efforts to make culture and heritage accessible to suburban residents. Clustering of cultural institutions, however, allows visitors easy access from one museum to another, but more importantly allows several of them form a ``synergy'' which adds to a neighborhood architectural and artistic aesthetic (Jansen-Verbeke 1997).
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There are three identi®able museum ``districts'' in Montreal: Vieux MontreÂal, Parc Maisonneuve, and Centre-Ville (Sherbrooke Street West) (Figure 1). Administrators of museums located within these areas are generally happy with their location. Over half of those operating outside the three districts stated that they would prefer to be in one of the agglomerations. The desire to enter these areas stems from the need to tap into areas of high tourist density (Law 1993). The initial formation of these agglomerations re¯ects different periods of infrastructural development. For example, the Parc Maisoneuve museum complex was developed in the wake of the, 1976 Olympics, while the Old Port re-emerged as an urban heritage site in the 90s (Chang et al 1996). Spatial proximity fosters informal alliances among museums looking to economize their everyday operations. For example, a small Montreal art museum and a neighboring historical center share signage and visitors. Similarly, one museum in the survey was collaborating with two other nearby institutions to organize a large joint exhibit. Some dif®culties arise concerning the division of responsibilities and costs, and as a result alliances are often based on long term relationships of trust and reciprocity established within the cultural sector community. CONCLUSION The evolving nature of Montreal's museum sector has several implications for the urban economy and the development of cultural institutions. The decline of both public and private support for museum operations during the 90s has made it increasingly dif®cult for Montreal museums to meet their traditional mandate of preserving culture and educating society. They are being pressured to produce a product which maximizes admission revenues and appeals to the marketing objectives of corporate sponsorship. Pressures to increase sales of culturally inscribed goods in museum boutiques tend to necessitate exhibits which appeal to broad-based tastes. Questions arise concerning the ability of a ``popularized'' museum experience to cater to the demands of cultural tourists. A popularized museum experience will not necessarily appeal to the tourist searching for an intense sense of local time and space (Harrison 1997) or ``food for thought'' (Jansen-Verbeke and van Rekom 1996). An oversupply of mediocre attractions or spectacles masquerading as museums will only increase the competition for corporate, individual, and state sources of revenue while debasing the overall cultural product. The key issue remainsÐhow museums in this environment can deliver a cultural experience which sustains appeal to tourists and residents alike. This research shows that small museums face a dif®cult future. While new communication technologies have provided some large museums with access to new media such as the Internet, these technologies are often beyond the reach of smaller museums. Museums with limited access to emerging technologies such as Internet and
MUSEUMS
627
reduced ®nancial resources will ®nd it dif®cult to broaden their appeal to a wider audience. There are also problems for smaller museums in attracting multi-skilled professionals. While networking and alliances are evident in the sector and provide small establishments with a range of competitive options, larger counterparts dominate the agendas of the well-established formal bodies that represent museums. Of the nine participants in the survey with annual budgets below $250,000, ®ve were primarily privately funded by endowments. The greater stability of their primary funding source may allow them to survive but expansion of exhibits and marketing programs will prove dif®cult. The problems that face smaller museums are important on a number of fronts. They play an important role in supplying the tourism product with diversity and local ¯avor. Many small institutions in Montreal diversify their (and broader tourism) products with specialized themes that also embrace space and time speci®c experiences. Beyond the tourism focus, however, Weil (1990:40) also notes that the particular strengths of small museumsЯexibility and freedom from the weight of large collectionsÐmake them very important in any attempts to move this community towards a more socially relevant role. Larger museums, however, will also continue to face challenges in the present environment. Pressures to increase earned revenues and limit costs will potentially change the very nature of the museum experience itself. The development of Montreal's Marche BonseÂcours into a place where traveling exhibitions are presented in a ``warehouse'' space staffed by contracted workers is perhaps the best example of a ``¯exible'' museum. But this alternative setting does not re¯ect any well-developed sense of time and place. As large establishments, the core of the museum product, increasingly adjust to decreasing budgets by appealing to broader markets or adopting more ``¯exible'' operations, the overall experience will be affected. By examining Montreal museums from a supply-side perspective, this paper sheds light on the changing role of cultural institutions in urban economic development. The questions the paper begins to answer relate to the evolving nature of cultural institutions as places for leisure, education, and the celebration of local heritage versus a transition to an alternative consumption experience. It is necessary to examine how cities may restructure cultural institutions in order to boost consumption experiences and tourism activities, while still appealing to a sense of culture and place. While the predominantly demand-side approaches discussed here go someway toward explaining why cultural infrastructure has played an increasingly important role in urban tourism development, they are limited in their ability to explain how institutions such as museums are adjusting to the new role. To gain a better insight into cultural sectors as tourism products and broader urban socioeconomic structures, more empirical research is necessary on the supply-side. Furthermore, only a rigorous linking of supply- and demand-side
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perspectives can bring about a better sense of the changing nature of cultural sectors, and their importance for urban development.& Acknowledgments ÐSpecial thanks for the help of all museum professionals who took part in this survey. The research project was funded by Quebec's research funding agency (FCAR).
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