Musarians: Libraries, Museums, and Archives

The Centre for the Future of Museums blog featured an interesting guest post by  AAM staffer Lauren Silberman, entitled  “Musarians: The bastard children of museums and libraries.”

Silberman paints an interesting portrait of a combined Librarian/Museum professional and highlights some of the overlapping interests of both professions.  Silberman’s post also sparked my thoughts about the overlap between libraries, archives, and museums.

One of the first cultural heritage organizations I worked in contained a museum, archive, and a local history library.  However, despite containing all three types of institutions the organization was dominated by museum practices — the archive was more of a paper museum than an archival institution.  Librarians, archivists, and museum professionals all have different skill sets and strengths, there are overlaps but I can see value in each distinct profession.  The idea of a Musarian is interesting but I think would be more of a compromise between professions than an ideal sharing of resources.

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