Money talk at conventions

Money talk at conventions
When roughly 5,000 museum professionals from across the country descend on Philadelphia this week for two conventions, they will represent institutions that exhibit everything from Old Masters to old rocks.

But despite the multiplicity of interests and the range of institutional sizes and locations, there will be one thing on everyone's mind.

Money.

"That is topic A, B, C, and D," said Dewey Blanton, spokesman for the American Association of Museums, which holds its annual meeting at the Convention Center from Thursday through next Monday.

The same could be said for members of the Association of Children's Museums, which meets at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center tomorrow through Thursday.

While museum attendance is largely steady - or even up - and tickets have not taken a heavy hit, contributed income is down almost everywhere. Corporations are just not in a giving mood these days. Public funding from states and municipalities is down across the country. And endowment investments have been uniformly walloped.

So museums, like other nonprofit groups, are in pain. Budgets have been frozen, staffs cut, and costs reduced wherever possible. At the same time, fiscal angst has forced a relentless rethinking of operations and programming. The isolated, high, and mighty temple of culture is out; the networking community partner is in.

Nancy Kolb, head of the Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall, host of the children's museum convention, said that despite building recessionary pressures, the number of U.S. museums for young people continues to grow. Her museum's move into Memorial Hall in West Fairmount Park, she said, has produced attendance numbers well ahead of projections.