Can one become a volunteer for their local museum? How?
Posted by admin | Filed under History
cul8r_32 asked:
I don’t mean sweeping or doing errands. I want to do real work on excavation sites, and that sort of thing.
I don’t mean sweeping or doing errands. I want to do real work on excavation sites, and that sort of thing.
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:20 am
Call the museum where you’re interested in volunteering. You will probably have to start out small – helping with mailings, cleaning up, doing some “grunt” work, but if you do a good job, you’re professional and work hard and prove that you can handle additional responsibility, then you can work your way up. Excavations are painstaking, deliberate processes, and the education and historical value of the site will be irretreviably lost if an inexperienced person does the wrong thing – even with the best of intentions. It’s imperative that a museum can trust the people who are doing the excavation work for them, and that trust can only be earned with time and effort on your part.
Otherwise, you will need to get into an archaeology program at a college or university, and get into a museum’s research that way.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I would call and see if they have a docent program. It really depends on your area and the need of the museum in regard to what you are going to have to do.
Anyway, I know a railway museum that lets you do about anything but to drive the trains–you got to put your time in.