ITP Diary 15th August 2014: Constantinos Vasiliadis
15 August 2014
Today I had a really interesting day, I went to the British Museum galleries before the opening hour of the Museum. I visited the Parthenon gallery with CelestFerge and the assistance personnel of the Greek and Roman department to choose a new object for my presentation on the 1st of September. There I realize the similarities we do have between the British museum and the museum I work in such as; to work early before the visitors get in, to deal with the same objects from the same monuments and to face the same problems and challenges in their research.
Then we had an interesting lectures about fundraising and retail at the British Museum. It is really important for the Museums nowadays to become self-funded and generate income from other sources other than the government, in order to support their plans. Some ideas, as the specific categories of the shop-customers, or sponsorships, could be addressed in my institution.
Finally, we discussed about the skills that future museum professionals will need, to deal with the new challenges, and how the ITP will be like in 10 years! For sure we need “Heroes” that will combine knowledge from different fields of studies and a great network of ITP participants around the world to collaborate!
Constantinos Vasiliadis / Greece