The Great Crisis Wash-up
What if museum and heritage organisations treated the whole of history as one giant lessons learned report?
As organisations that naturally spend at least part of their time dealing in the past, museums and heritage sites are skilled in lending context and understanding to contemporary issues; from Brexit to Black Lives Matter. Now, as the sector faces a potentially existential crisis, it’s worth turning that skill inwards. Reviewing how organisations have managed crisis in the past may well provide valuable lessons for the present.
In researching how museums and heritage sites have responded to the Covid-19 crisis, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at historic crises that have faced the sector. My findings have been eye-opening, and challenge the notion contained in one of the most ubiquitous phrases (out of many) of the current global pandemic; that we are living in ‘unprecedented times.’
I’ve pulled out four of the most important lessons I’ve learned through my research, and I hope they will be useful to museum and heritage professionals still working their way through crisis.
Lesson One: Just Because You Haven’t Experienced a Pandemic Before, it Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Know What You’re Doing
Throughout history, previous experience of one crisis has been used to inform planning for the next. In the lead up to 1939, measures that had been put into place in a reactive way during the First World War were part of the planning process, including moving the national collections out of London[i]. When the USA entered the conflict, they in turn looked to the UK so they could be informed by prior experience of heritage protection[ii]. In more recent times, there are also examples of case studies where organisations have learnt from previous experience. For example, at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum in 2003, a new large-scale event the museum was putting on required organisation-wide restructuring and redeployment. Staff learnt how to quickly reorganise themselves and their work, all of which came in very handy when the roof collapsed shortly afterwards[iii].
This last example shows that crisis skills can be learned through lots of different activities. Few of us have lived through a pandemic before; but lots of us have picked up useful experiences elsewhere. One Visitor Services Manager I interviewed already had a procedure in place for setting up the phone system at their site during temporary closures: the bad weather earlier this year had prompted her to set it up. A CEO of a museum had invested a lot of resource in improving organisational communication; this laid the groundwork for good crisis communication. Finally, an Operations Director already had a system in place for checking on the building when it was empty; because a few years ago, there had been a pipe leak over the Christmas break. All of these incidents, many of them part of the warp and weft of daily heritage life, play their part in preparing us for crisis; just as they have done throughout history.
Lesson Two: Crises Have an Emotional as Well as a Physical Cost
Crises of all types take their toll, and managing the impact of this on staff is a large part of crisis management. Even the best trained can feel the pressure: after the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, support lines had to be hurriedly installed to help NASA staff deal with the disaster[iv]. Even in the museum and heritage world, where crises are usually (though not always) less high stakes, the idea that dealing with the unexpected has an emotional impact is well documented.
Take the 2000 fire at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. The case study noted the severe emotional toll the crisis had on museum staff. It wasn’t just the shock of the fire; it was the upending of organisational norms:
“Those who were used to a certain degree of authority over their area or their collections felt protective and expressed obvious symptoms of personal loss.”[v]
In another case study of the destruction of 23 Louisiana public libraries by Hurricane Katrina, Katherine Wilkins describes the emotional experience of closing up the Robert E. Smith library for the last time:
“The staff kept shelving books; it was too awful to act as though it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t… We said good-bye a little more solemnly, wishing each other luck, worried a too-emotional display might jinx us all”[vi].
These emotions will sound all too familiar to staff who shut down their collections and sites in March 2020.
During Covid-19, many people have spoken about riding the ‘Corona-coaster’; experiencing dramatic shifts in emotion. The current crisis reaches into all aspects of our lives, many of them, to be honest, more important than our museum work; our health, care, education and the wellbeing of those we love. But it may be of comfort to know that any sadness or loss we do feel about losing access to our site, or the halting of work we love, has been felt by generations of museum and heritage professionals before us.
Lesson Three: Take the Opportunity to Learn New Skills
It’s not all bad news. Patrick Lagadec, one of the fathers of modern crisis management, takes care to remind his readers of the benefits of crisis, explaining that in China, the word crisis is represented with an ideogram which has two meanings: danger and opportunity[vii].
One of the most obvious opportunities crisis affords is the development of new skills.
These skills can be practical in nature. It is hard not to compare the story of Dr. Harden, Assistant Keeper, whose war secondment in 1942 occasioned him to use a telephone for the first time in his life[viii], with contemporary museum and heritage staff who now have a newly acquired familiarity with video conferencing technology.
But other types of skills can be developed too. Many conservators who worked through conflict in Eastern Europe and Asia in the later part of the 20th century described becoming conversant with the art of political liaison[ix]. For example, in 1970, the Head of Conservation at the Angkor World Heritage Site in Cambodia was able to negotiate time to put preventative measures in place with the invading Khymer Rouge forces[x]. Negotiation skills are also often developed and utilised when dealing with insurance companies after disasters, as is referenced in many case studies including that of the 1998 tornado at the Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson[xi].
As sites begin to open and lockdown ends, assessing what you have managed to tick off your to-do list in this turbulent time may feel unnecessarily self-punishing. Instead, a more useful exercise might be thinking about what skills we have practised or developed; often without even knowing it.
Lesson Four: You Don’t Have to Rebuild the Same as Before
Covid-19 has had two major impacts on museum and heritage sites, both of which can be interpreted as threats, but also as opportunities. The first is of course forced short-term closure, followed by a longer-term decimation of the tourism economy. There is no denying this could be devastating for the sector. The second is the highlighting of a society with deeply engrained inequalities, thrown into even sharper focus by the killing of George Floyd and the associated Black Lives Matter protests. Both impacts have forced a period of reflection for heritage organisations. There appears to be a recognition that things have to change; that being a museum for museum people is no longer enough.
But how long will this realisation last?
I take heart from the examples from history; from those moments when the role and purpose of heritage was challenged, and something did change.
Some of them seem small compared to the challenges that face us now. For example, when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum roof collapsed in 2003, disastrous as it no doubt was in the short term, it nevertheless gave staff the opportunity to rebuild the museum in a more accessible way[xii].
Others are bigger. In her excellent article on the history of museums and pandemics, Marjorie Schwarzer explains that in the TB outbreaks of the early 20th century, museums were keen to work with health boards to put on public exhibitions giving health advice:
“Curators and educators were eager to show trustees and other civic leaders that museums were more than dusty storehouses for collections and social clubs for the elite: they could provide direct services to a wide public”[xiii].
Another watershed moment for museums came in the Second World War. Against a backdrop of intermittent closures and requisitions, a more serious reckoning on the future of museums was taking place. Prior to the war, two reports on museums, Miers (1928) and Markham (1938) recommended a stronger focus on the educational service provided by museums.[xiv] The wartime closure of other educational facilities was the perfect opportunity to put these plans into action, as Markham (then Director of the Museums Association) stated to members: “If the work of conserving the Nation’s treasures can be supplemented by ever extending educational and inspirational activities, the position of museums after this war will be far stronger than it was in 1918.”[xv]
Although history provides us with many good examples of when crisis has led to a moment of profound opportunity for museums and heritage organisations, it also provides us with a cautionary tale. During the Second World War, with the national treasures hidden away, museums that remained open found an appreciative public for the more social exhibitions they were forced to put on with their remaining collections. These objects, deemed ‘low culture’ and not worth saving, were recognisable to people from their everyday lives. Audiences related. They understood. They engaged[xvi].
And yet, after the war, museums retreated. With the national treasures returned, the social history objects went back into the collections stores. Any investment went towards war repairs and rebuilding the status quo. It would be several decades before this new type of democratising social engagement found itself in vogue again[xvii].
Change is not, therefore, an inevitable outcome of crisis. It is something we have to interpret and create. And often, the beginnings of that creation lie in how we manage the crisis before us. Will todays’ museums and heritage organisations create change? Or will they retreat? It remains to be seen. To quote Frank Markham again:
“There is in effect a great opportunity before us.”[xviii]
Sources:
[i] Pearson, Catherine (2017) Museums in the Second World War: Curators, Culture and Change, Routledge, Oxon, p.63
[ii] Aiken, Jane (2007) ‘Preparing for a National Emergency: The Committee on Conservation of Cultural Resources 1939-1944’, The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 77, No. 3, p. 275
[iii] Christianson, Marlys K; Farkas, Maria T.; Sutcliffe, Kathleen M. and Weick, Karl E. (2009) Learning Through Rare Events: Significant Interruptions at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum, Organisation Science, Vol. 20, No. 5, p. 854
[iv] Mitroff, Ian I.; Shrivastava, Paul and Udwadia, Firdaus E. (1987) Effective Crisis Management, The Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 1, No. 4, p.291
[v] Spafford-Ricci, Sarah and Graham, Fiona (2000) The Fire at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum Part 1: Salvage, Initial Response and the Implications for Disaster Planning, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 39, No. 1, p. 21
[vi] Clareson, Tom and Long, Jane S.(2006) Libraries in the Eye of the Storm: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina, American Libraries, Vol. 37, No. 7, p. 40
[vii] Lagadec, Patrick (1993) Preventing Chaos in a Crisis: Strategies for Prevention, Control and Damage Limitation, McGraw-Hill, Maidenhead, p.30
[viii] Pearson, 2017, p.183
[ix] Roberts, Barbara O. (1997) War Emergencies: Coordination and Preparedness do Pay Off – An International Perspective, Museum Management and Curatorship, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 161
[x] Dauge, Véronique (1997) Post-war Recovery in Cambodia, Museum Management and Curatorship, Vol. 16, No.2, p.64
[xi] Vaughan, James M. (1999) On Recovery: The Hermitage, The Home of President Andrew Jackson and It’s Tornado, History News, Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 12-15
[xii] Christianson et. al., 2009, p.849
[xiii] Schwarzer, Marjorie (2020) Lessons from History: Museums and Pandemics available at aam-us.org/2020/03/10/lessons-from-history-museums-and-pandemics accessed on 26.03.2020
[xiv] Pearson, 2017, p.68
[xv] Pearson, 2017, quoted p.68
[xvi] Pearson, 2017
[xvii] Pearson, 2017
[xviii] Pearson, 2017, quoted p.68
