Dear Editor,

The proposed cutback to the museum staff appears to be a gut response. Yet, such a reaction is more like cutting off a nose despite the face, rather than creating a true tax savings.

After many years of neglect, the museum has at last become a showpiece, a selling point, and a tourist attraction. The museum now has the respect of local and regional business interests, which actively support its exhibitions and programming. Why? Because business and tourism industries value cultural assets and they like to show them off to visitors and potential clients and prospective investors considering locating here. To confirm this, check out the impressive list of museum sponsors and note how it has grown in just a few years.

While support for the museum has enlarged, the building itself has also expanded. It is now triple the square footage it was back in the day and yet staff size, if this single cut is made, will revert to pre-expansion levels.

Plainly the future of the Museum Shop is at stake. Its revenue, it is rumored, does not payback the county sufficiently. But consider this one point alone, for there are too many others to note in this space. The shop is an outlet for over 100 artists working in the area. It is true, the shop does not make the high commissions galleries do—but that means more money goes back into an artist’s pocket and, knowing the economics of being an artist, such money won’t stay in that pocket long.

Watchdog groups are not necessarily privy to the cost of doing business, or more to the point, to the cost of not doing business. Let’s hope County Council is.

Pat Edmunds

(Edmunds was the manager of the Museum Shop when it opened in 1989)