Volunteers and Collections as Viewed from the Museum Mission Statement

Abstract

Museum mission statements typically mandate provisions for collections care and public outreach. As museums continue to transition into more fully participatory and audience-centered institutions, the role that volunteers and interns play with collections extends beyond simple hands-on experiential tasks. Rather, these individuals increasingly play roles in the creation and voicing of museum exhibits and programs. The relationship between the museum as a public institution and volunteers becomes more reciprocal and symbiotic. Through this process, the volunteer position moves from passive to active, as they increasingly take on a stakeholder's role in the museum operation. This paper uses Simon's scheme of contributory, collaborative, and co-creative projects coupled with Worts’ Critical Assessment Framework to consider these relationships. Their approaches are applied to the volunteer program at the C. H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa, an institution that interprets the Native American and traditional cultures of the Memphis, Tennessee region. Case studies based on collections curated at the Museum showed that the schemes of Simon and Worts proved useful in evaluating the mission mandates of the Museum's volunteer programs.