Association of Manitoba Museums

Certificate Program

The purpose of the Certificate Program in Museum Practice is to provide entry-level training in the core subject areas of museum practice. Courses are based on professional museum standards as established by the Association of Manitoba Museums. The program introduces museum workers (board members, volunteers and/or staff) to the basic skills, knowledge, understandings and standards involved in operating a successful public museum.

The Certificate Program consists of eight, basic-level courses designed for museum board, staff or volunteers who are new to the museum world or those who wish to obtain a better understanding of museums. Courses are one or two days in length, and are offered in person or on-line. Courses include lectures, demonstrations, discussions and group work.

Participants who attend courses and successfully complete a take-home assignment receive full credit towards the AMM’s Certificate Program in Museum Practice. Assignments are designed to help participants apply what they have learned in the course to their own museums. Participants who complete the program by attending and completing the assignments for seven courses will receive a certificate.

Although you are encouraged to attend the courses in the order listed below, as the curriculum develops progressively through the courses, AMM understands that is often not a realistic expectation. The courses are independent of one another, so that you may attend courses in the order deemed most efficient for your own resources.

Course Descriptions

Organizing and Managing Museums (1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

Develop the knowledge and understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a non-profit board based on the foundations of public trust and learn how to manage your museum in the areas of:

  • Roles and responsibilities of the governing authority – board and individual members, board renewal, committees
  • Definition and impact of public trust on museum activities
  • Risk Management
  • Board decision-making – role, barriers, decision-making process
  • Policy development – purpose, types of policy, evaluation
  • Planning – short and long-term planning, who is involved, responding to the environment, planning cycle
  • Financial management – relationship to planning, budget cycle, fundraising

Museums and the Community (2 days or 6 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

It has been an age-old and ongoing challenge for museums to evolve and compete for the attention of visitors and residents alike. Now, perhaps more than ever before, museums must find a way to be relevant in a society focused on technology and entertainment. Museums large and small, urban and rural must actively seek out and work with a broad network of community partners in order to appeal to new audiences and to ensure the long-term sustainability of the collections and stories they preserve. Museums & the Community will help you define your museum’s role in the community and give you ideas for finding new partnerships that can make your museum an invaluable community service provider.

  • History and philosophy of museums
  • Changes in society and the changing role of museums
  • Concepts of a museum
  • Examining the statement of purpose
  • How interaction with the community impacts the mission and functions of the museum
  • Definition of community
  • Types of partnerships
  • Understanding and building community collaboration

Collections Management (1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

This course provides participants with the tools to properly manage a heritage collection. The course also outlines the legal and professional responsibilities with regards to records management for a museum collection. Having your artifacts properly catalogued and accounted for reduces time spent looking for things that may no longer exist and reduces the amount of handling delicate artifacts and possible exposure to harmful chemicals. By the end of the course participants will have a proper collections management policy and an understanding of the ethics involved in deaccessioning.

  • Definition and activities of collections management
  • Relationship of collections management to public trust
  • Ethical behaviour
  • Writing a collections management policy and procedures
  • Laws, regulations and conventions governing collections
  • Appraisals
  • Risk management
  • Planning for collections development
  • Collections documentation process and records
  • Artifact numbering and standards of record-keeping

Collections Management is a required course for museums that wish to use Musetoba as their collection management software.

Collections Care and Preventive Conservation for Museums (2 days or 6 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

This introductory course will provide a basic understanding of general approaches to the handling and storing of museum objects. It will also help participants to identify problem areas in their own museums and how to address these areas.

  • Role of the museum in the preservation of collections
  • Cultural sensitivities
  • Writing a collections care policy
  • Causes of deterioration and responding with preventive conservation measures
  • Condition reporting
  • Safe handling, storage and exhibition

Research: Policies, plans…action! (1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

Any good exhibit deserves to be properly researched in order to be factual, interesting and insightful. But where to go? What sources provide accurate information? Which sources are less reliable? Take this course and learn how to:

  • Identify research sources
  • Develop research policies and plans
  • Conduct research
  • Build community relationships

Exhibit Design (1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

This one-day workshop will help participants develop knowledge and understanding of how museum exhibitions serve as a means of communication. They will explore the essential elements of an exhibitions policy, and the relevant standards on which the policy should be based. Lighting, labels, and directing visitor traffic will also be discussed.

  • Purpose of museum exhibits and their role in the community
  • Writing an exhibitions policy
  • Exhibit planning process and elements
  • Exhibit design – visitor characteristics, designing the exhibitions gallery, conservation considerations, exhibit production and installation

Museums and Education (1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

This course has been developed to help museum workers (be they staff, volunteer or board members) to develop knowledge of the role of museums as learning institutions. Elements of a museum education policy and the role of evaluation in museum education programs will be discussed.

Participants will develop understanding of how to use objects in learning, how museum education serves the public trust, the relationship with the public in program planning, and the inter-relationship between educational approaches and visitors characteristics, needs and expectations. They will also develop skills in planning and developing a curriculum-based school program and planning and developing a public education program.

  • Role of education within the museum and its relationship to public trust
  • Object literacy
  • Writing an education policy
  • Visitor expectations, needs, characteristics and learning styles
  • Linking audience and program strategies
  • Program planning process
  • Curriculum-based programs
  • Public programming
  • Evaluation

The Museum Facility (2 days or 6 one hour or 90 minute online sessions)

If you have a museum you have a facility that needs to be taken care of the same as your collections do. Your museum needs regular maintenance and attention, just like your house, in order for it to continue to do its job housing your collections and welcoming visitors.

  • Care and management of historic buildings as museums; “historic building as artifact”
  • Conservation considerations in the planning, renovation and maintenance of museum buildings/space
  • Museum as public space for interaction/exchange with the community
  • Standards, ethics, best practices and legislation related to the museum as a public facility

(Download this page in PDF format)

We are currently working toward getting our courses online.
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Quote from Dr. Jeremy Maron, Certificate graduate:

“The AMM’s Certificate in Museum Practice Program – which I completed in 2015 - was an excellent professional development opportunity that I strongly encourage other museum professionals to take advantage of. Through its wide array of courses, the program gives participants from both large and small museums a well-rounded and efficiently delivered overview of many practical issues related to museum practice, from organizational structure to collections preservation and conservation (and many more). Participants come from all over the province, from many different types and sizes of museums, which also offers an excellent opportunity to strengthen the network and sense of community of museum professionals in Manitoba.”

 

For more information about this program and other educational opportunities, please contact the

Association of Manitoba Museums

training (at) museumsmanitoba (dot) com

The Association of Manitoba Museums acknowledges that we are on Treaty 1 territory and the land on which we gather is the traditional territory of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Metis

We respect the Treaties that were made on these territories, we acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we dedicate ourselves to move forward in partnership with Indigenous communities in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.