Ethics

We wish to appoint a new, full-time curator at our museum. We have drawn up a job description and a person specification and devised questions that cover the experience, training and expertise required.

But on the interview panel we differ as to what importance should be given to the understanding that candidates have of museum ethics.

Some of us feel we should investigate familiarity with the ethical principles behind our policies and the Museums Association's (MA) Code of Ethics. Others feel we should ask questions that relate only to practical competences and experience. What is your view?


The success of a museum is determined by the values that underpin it. Staff first encounter those values, or lack of them, at interview and take their cue accordingly. So interviewers must clarify what the museum's values are and determine the extent to which new recruits share them.

Not to do so could encourage an organisational culture that undermines the museum's purpose. What if curators were recruited only for their expert knowledge of collections, with little regard for their commitment to the ethical imperative of widening access?

The exhibitions they produced would satisfy those initiated in the topic, but alienate many of the people the museum exists for. This might later have bottom-line implications, with museum services cut because they are dismissed as an irrelevant, elitist luxury for which funding cannot be justified.

Understanding ethical issues underpins practical competence. Doctors need to be competent in pharmacology, but to register as professionals they also need to demonstrate understanding of the ethics of prescribing drugs.

In other words, part of what it means to be a professional, in museums or elsewhere, is to understand, uphold and promote a code of professional ethics. This is why the MA insists that those undertaking its professional development schemes use its Code of Ethics to initiate discussion of the principles that underlie their practice.

This happens at professional review for the award of Associateship of the MA (AMA), and at appraisal for the award of Fellowship of the MA (FMA).

Perhaps it will not be possible to persuade your colleagues to devote time at interview to exploring candidates' grasp of the ethical basis of museum work. If so, cover the ethical angle by discussing with candidates not already in the schemes, their commitment to register for the AMA or the FMA.