Employment Opportunity: Petersburg Museums

 Full information available at http://www.petersburgva.gov/Jobs.aspx?UniqueId=98&From=All&CommunityJobs=False&JobID=CURATOR-OF-COLLECTIONS-14

CURATOR OF COLLECTIONS

SALARY: DOQ
LOCATION: Museums & Visitor Services
STATUS: Classified/Full-Time
CLOSING DATE: November 22, 2013

The City of Petersburg seeks a curator with strong collections management skills to oversee a diverse collection of artifacts and historic structures related to the history of the City. Museums include historic sites focusing on the 19th century history of the region. In addition to registration and cataloging, other duties include: research, environmental monitoring, planning and implementation of furnishing plans, development of changing exhibitions, reinterpretation of permanent exhibitions with site staff, long range planning, and site coordination for Centre Hill Museum.

QUALIFICATIONS: Any combination of education and experience equivalent to graduation from an accredited college or university with a Master’s degree in museum studies or a closely related field.

The successful candidate will demonstrate a broad knowledge of professional museum standards and practices, with specific knowledge of artifact and archival handling, collections management, registration, and recordkeeping practices. The successful candidate must have strong organizational skills, attention to detail, team management skills, and computer skills in addition to good written and oral communication skills.

Preferred candidate will have experience with PastPerfect software; experience with exhibit development and installation; working knowledge of 19th century life and material culture in Virginia; experience supervising staff; and the ability to provide excellent visitor services.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENT: Possession of a valid appropriate driver’s license issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

SPECIAL NOTICES: Final applicants will be required to submit an updated DMV driving record, submit to a criminal history investigation and submit to urinalysis screening for illegal drug use. Employees in this position are subject to random drug testing.

Also this Week: Step by Step Collections Acquisition

Also happening this week on Wednesday at 2pm will be a webinar by AAM entitled Step by Step Collections Acquisition. You can learn more about it here.

Mystery at the Babe Ruth Museum (and Solution!)

Did you hear that the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore has had quite the mystery on their hands? They recently discovered that their 1914 baseball card of icon Babe Ruth was worth considerably more than they had expected... $500,000! The museum wants to make the card a centerpiece of a new display but needed to track down the owner of the card, who lent the card to the museum over 12 years ago. Donor forms, Facebook and Google searches, even the Yellow Pages resulted in nothing. Would a newspaper article help find the mystery man?

Find out more in part one here!

And the mystery man is uncovered here!

Do you have a great story about a small museum? Email it smallmuseumassociation@gmail.com.