3.6 Conclusion: Implications for the 21st-century museum worker

Paul Marty has articulated the increasing need for museum professionals to process and manage information in our information age. He observes that, "in some sense (...) nearly all museum professionals can be considered information professionals, as most deal with some aspect of museum information resources on a daily basis".^{Footnote 1} He argues that museums are currently undergoing change and that, consequently, "the role of the museum information professional is one that is expected to grow in importance in the future. Museum professionals are increasingly concerned with the ability of museums to function in the information society to meet user needs, and to ensure that the right information resources are available at the right time and place, inside or outside the museum".^{Footnote 2}

Assuming that the latter assessment includes both the physical and the digital, though neither is described explicitly, then it seems appropriate to revisit the definition of the museum knowledge worker first articulated in section 3.1.2, and used as our framework for the study. Drawn largely from the ICOM Curriculum Guidelines for Professional Museum Development, the definition describes, "... an individual who works in a museum and who has developed both the requisite "shared and functional competencies required by members of the museum field to understand and perform their jobs".^{Footnote 3} This profile reflects back on the nature of the position or job itself, suggesting that the museum worker of the 21^st century must have those competencies requisite to "understand and perform their job" – inserting "IT" before "competencies" if information technology skills are indeed requisite to understanding and performing the job.

If the current state of museums is such that, for the most part, basic software skills constitute the competencies requisite to understanding and performing a majority of jobs – as the content analysis of 190 postings would seem to suggest – then it is likely that graduates of museum studies programs currently come appropriately skilled for those positions. If, however, the present state of museums is more closely aligned with images offered in the literature, and by many of those interviewed for an earlier phase of this study, then there is work to be done to ensure that museum studies programs are equipping graduates with a set of IT competencies more closely aligned with at least some of those listed in section V-iv, above.

Designing responsive curricula will require that both professionals/practitioners and academics determine a triage of skills, ensuring that all students be trained on software applications essential to a core of museum functions, with a subset of graduates provided with specialized training appropriate to a particular functional area, such as digital curation, or creating metadata-enabled digital object repositories, or overseeing website design for public relations and marketing. Curriculum design, done in consultation with museum professionals in the field, would also identify areas where requisite skills might be obtained more readily and with better results drawing from programs outside of museum studies. For example, determining hardware specifications for public programming involving mobile devices would require an expertise beyond the scope of what a museum studies curriculum might be expected to support.

Such "triage" will require a systematic, and strategic approach – a plan for ensuring that the museum worker of the 21^st century receives appropriate training on all requisite competencies, whether so-called traditional skills, or continuously evolving technology skills. The 21^st century museum worker may differ from his or her 20^th century (or earlier) counterpart, only by the addition of a digital "toolkit" to complement and assist in the work of functions that remain the backbone of museum operations.