MUSEUM TOL: Librarians in The Metropolitan Museum of ArtAuthor(s): Joan Sepessy and William B. WalkerSource: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 5,No. 3 (Fall 1986), p. 125Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27947625 .

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Art Documentation, Fali, 1986 125

This paper clearly indicates that there is a need for more empirical studies and research in this area. If anyone is aware of work currently taking place in this field please contact me, or one of our co-moderators, Nadene Byrne or Jim Findlay. Our TOL will keep abreast of work in progress, and apply the findings to our goals.

I 1 MUSEUM TOL edited by Joan Sepessy

Librarians in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As the largest art museum in the Western hemisphere, The Metropolitan Museum of Art administers its collections (more than three million works of art) through eighteen curatorial departments, and employs approximately 1,450 full-time people, and over 500 part-time staff. Administration of the Museum is managed by two full-time, salaried officers, a director and a presi dent, who are equal in rank, work as partners in the operation of the Museum, and report to a board of forty elective and seven ex officio trustees.

The Director and the President each oversees a number of large operating units of the Museum. The Director is responsible for the curatorial departments, related catalog and loans depart ments, four conservation laboratories, education services, two major libraries, a program of concerts and lectures, and an office for film and television. The remaining units of the Museum are generally the responsibility of the President, including, among others, membership, personnel, finance, public information, legal counsel, archives, registrar, development, publishing and retail sales, exhibition design, office services, photograph studio, pur chasing, and very large departments of security and buildings.

The two major libraries noted above are the "book" library (the Thomas J. Watson Library) and the Photograph and Slide Library. In addition to these two central libraries there are a number of departmental libraries. Most departmental libraries receive central acquisitions and cataloging services from the

Watson Library, but there are four curatorial departmental librar ies and one education library that are staffed by their own librarians and administered separately, under the respective cura tors or chiefs of those departments.

Heads of most curatorial departments have the rank of Chair man, Curator, or Curator-in-Charge (depending upon the size of the department and/or the longevity of the department's senior staff). The heads of the two major libraries generally have the rank of Chief Librarian, which is equal to Chairman in the cura torial departments. In all cases the curatorial department heads and the chief librarians report through a Deputy Director to the Director of the Museum.

For an overview of the full array of positions in the Museum, one should consult the last section of any recent annual report of the Metropolitan. Grouped by department, members of the pro fessional staff of the Museum are listed in order or rank, with job titles that indicate rank rather than functional title. (For example, the Acquisitions Librarian in the Watson Library is designated as "Associate Museum Librarian" without reference to her specific work assignment in the Library. Another "Associate Museum Librarian," elsewhere in the Museum, is responsible for the entire operation of a departmental library.) Within the entire complex system of museum job classifica

tions, I will discuss here only three career series: curators, librarians, and educators. The employment of individuals within these series, including ranks, titles, elections, appointments and promotions, is governed by the Museum's "Regulations for Cura torial, Educational and Library Employees," which were adopted by the Board of Trustees in November 1972 (with subsequent amendments). The minimum salary for each rank within these

15 Associate Curator Associate Museum Librarian

14 Assistant Curator Assistant Museum Librarian

series is contained in the Museum's grade and salary range pro gram, with professional titles starting at Grade 13 and going up to Grade 17. There is no salary maximum for each grade, and salary increases are based on a combination of cost of living increases

and merit.

According to the Museum Regulations, the equivalent cura torial, librarian, and educational titles are (in descending order): Salary Curatorial Titles Librarian Titles Educational Titles Grade

17 Chairman Chief Librarian Chairman 16 Curator Museum Librarian Museum Educator

Associate Museum Educator Assistant Museum Educator

13 Curatorial Assistant Librarian Education Assistant

The Museum is now in the process of reviewing criteria for promotion and performance evaluation, but the basic struc ture provides parity across these lines.

Promotion from one rank to the next does not follow a fixed schedule, although there is a schedule of maximum years within each rank after which there must be some personnel action: promotion, termination, or, in some cases, extension on a contractual basis. There may of course be promotion sooner than the maximum number of years when perfor mance and/or circumstances warrant.

The schedule that follows represents an oversimplification, but it indicates the general framework within which appoint ments and promotions are made to the professional titles:

Grade 13 (e.g., Librarian)?Appointed by the Director for a term of up to three years, then promotion or termination of employment;

Grade 14 (e.g., Assistant Museum Librarian)?Appointed by the Director for a term of up to five years, followed by possible extension of up to four years, then promotion or termination of employment;

Grade 15 (e.g., Associate Museum Librarian)?Appointed by the Director for a term of up to seven years, followed by possi ble contractual extension of indefinite duration, promotion, or termination of employment;

Grades 16 and 17 (e.g., Museum Librarian and Chief Librarian)?Elected by the Board of Trustees on recommenda tion of the Director; a non-tenured person in these titles serves at the pleasure of the Board.

Although some senior members of the Museum staff are ten ured, the granting of tenure has been suspended pending review. Some job series in the Museum are unionized, but none of the curatorial, librarian, or educational positions dis cussed here have union titles.

For a staff as large as the Museum's it is desirable to have several Museum organizations that address the concerns of specific groups of employees. Two of these, the Curatorial Forum and the Assembly of Educators and Librarians, provide parallel fora that foster interdepartmental communication and represent and protect the aims and interests of these groups of professionals.

Membership in the Curatorial Forum includes staff in the career series for both curators and conservators. Since Librarians do not attend the Forum meetings, I cannot speak from experience about their programs. For the Assembly, however, there are from four to eight meetings per year, with programs such as talks by librarians and/or educators about special collections or programs within their departments, dis cussion of issues such as tenure, or talks by curators about upcoming exhibitions or programs. The Assembly provides an important channel for communication among peers, across departmental lines.

William B.Walker Chief Librarian

Thomas J. Watson Library The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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