HomeMy WebLinkAboutattachmentJune 5, 2020
To the Board,
This is a short memo but contains important information.
The Museum will not open next week as planned. The number of people locally who have contracted
the virus has increased and so it is not prudent to reopen at this time. City Hall is not reopening next
week and now plans to do so after Independence Day. The Museum will follow the lead of City Hall and
open on July 7, if conditions allow.
Split Rock Studios presented Design Development 1 and the preliminary budget for the Sporting &
Recreation exhibition on Tuesday afternoon. The design needs refinement and input from staff before
Split Rock can move to Design Development 2, which is normally the final version. Overall, staff are
happy with it. The estimated implementation cost came in at $299,267. Given that figure, staff will have
to work through each segment, as it is over what we budgeted. We do that by a combination of looking
at what we might eliminate, what we might be able to do in-house, and what could be simplified.
Alternatively, when we have financial resources to draw on, whether it is advantageous to add to the
budget. I anticipate that the plan will be presented to you in August, if we hold a board meeting.
In the miscellaneous paragraph, two contractors attended the pre-bid walk-through on Thursday. Given
the steady in-flow of water, staff are eager to have the work begin. Our elevator upgrade work is
scheduled for July.
I am delighted to report that as a result of ongoing efforts to catalog our historic photograph collection,
Past Perfect Online now has 18,588 photographs available for the public to search and order. This total
represents a significant and consistent effort on the part of Archivist Scott Cross, as photographs are not
just scanned but more importantly are dated, identified, and described. Of note, the online collection
can be searched using common or everyday words. This accomplishment ties strongly to one of the
Museum’s key performance indicators.
I thought I’d share just a bit on how the corona virus impacted museums. This information was just
released. Worldwide, 85,000 museum closed temporarily because of Covid 19. Of those, 13% will be not
recover financially and will close permanently. The future of another 20% of the 85,000 museums is in
doubt. Each of Europe’s big and famous museums (like the Louvre) lost an average of $2.75 million per
month. In the United States, about 30% of all our nation’s museums are expected to close permanently
and their collections sold or dispersed. That means those collections and the knowledge they contain
are lost to every generation following. The best estimate is that America’s museums lost a combined
income of $4.5 billion in income and philanthropic donations. (I am unsure if that figure includes the loss
of income from investments.) The ramifications of the virus on museum staff and general operations will
be felt for many years.
That ends the week and I hope you have a pleasant weekend.
Brad Larson