Activities	Oversee health and medical science museum collections and historical sites; acquire items through purchases, gifts, field exploration, and intermuseum exchanges; conduct research, and design and prepare exhibits.
Outlook	Average job growth
Median Income	$48,450 per year in 2010
Work Context & Conditions	The working conditions of archivists and curators vary. Some spend most of their time working with the public, providing reference assistance and educational services. Others perform research or process records, which often means working alone or in offices with only a few people.
Minimum Education Requirements	Master's Degree
Skills	Social Perceptiveness, Learning Strategies, Monitoring, Management of Personnel Resources, Critical Thinking, Instructing, Active Listening, Writing, Time Management, Active Learning, Judgment and Decision Making, Coordination, Reading Comprehension, Speaking
Abilities	Category Flexibility, Speech Recognition, Deductive Reasoning, Near Vision, Speech Clarity, Information Ordering, Inductive Reasoning, Written Expression, Oral Comprehension
Interviews	Manon Parry

Job Category		Education, Training, & Library
Job Description		Oversee health and medical science museum collections and historical sites. They acquire items through purchases, gifts, field exploration, and intermuseum exchanges. They also plan and prepare exhibits.
Working Conditions		Working conditions vary. May spend time working with the public, providing reference assistance, and providing educational services. May perform research or process records, which often means working alone or in offices with only a few people. Those who restore and install exhibits or work with bulky, heavy record containers may climb, stretch, or lift. Curators who work in large institutions may travel extensively to evaluate potential additions to the collection, organize exhibitions, and conduct research in their area of expertise. However, travel is rare for curators employed in small institutions. They often work indoors in environmentally controlled conditions, coordinate or lead others in accomplishing job-related activities, and work with external customers and the public.
Salary Range		The median annual wage of curators was $48,450 in May 2010. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $27,640, and the top 10 percent earned more than $86,450. In May 2010, the median annual wage of curators in the federal government was $75,600. Earnings of curators vary considerably by type and size of employer and often by specialty. Salaries of curators in large, well-funded museums can be several times higher than those in small ones.

Education Required		Employment as a curator usually requires graduate education and related work experience. Many curators work in archives or museums while completing their formal education, to gain the hands-on experience that many employers seek when hiring. For employment as a curator, most museums require a master's degree in an appropriate discipline of the museum's specialty, e.g., art, history, archaeology, or museum studies. Many employers prefer a doctoral degree, particularly for curators in natural history or science museums. Earning two graduate degrees in museum studies (musemology) and a specialized subject gives a candidate a distinct advantage in this competitive job market. In small museums, curatorial positions may be available to individuals with a bachelor's degree. For some positions, an internship of full-time museum work supplemented by courses in museum practices is needed. Curatorial positions often require knowledge in a number of fields. For historic and artistic conservation, courses in chemistry, physics, and art are desirable. Since curators - particularly those in small museums - may have administrative and managerial responsibilities, courses in business administration, public relations, marketing, and fund-raising also are recommended. Curators need computer skills and the ability to work with electronic databases. Curators also need to be familiar with digital imaging, scanning technology, and copyright infringement, since many are responsible for posting information on the Internet. Curators must be flexible because of their wide variety of duties. They need to design and present exhibits and, in small museums, manual dexterity to build exhibits or restore objects. Leadership ability and business skills are important for museum directors, while marketing skills are valuable for increasing museum attendance and fund-raising. In large museums, curators may advance through several levels of responsibility, eventually to museum director. Curators in smaller museums often advance to larger ones. Individual research and publications are important for advancement in larger institutions.
Recommended High School Courses		Biology, English, History
Postsecondary Instructional Programs		Administration and Management, History and Archeology, Education and Training, Biology
Certification and Licensing

Interest Area		Artistic Involves a degree of self-expression and working with forms, designs, and patterns and without a clear set of rules. Investigative Involves working with ideas and requires an extensive amount of thinking.
Work Values		Creativity Try out your own ideas. Working Conditions Good working conditions. Authority Give directions and instructions to others. Responsibility Make decisions on your own.
Skills		Social Perceptiveness Be aware of others' reactions and understand why they react the way they do. Learning Strategies Use multiple approaches when learning or teaching new things. Monitoring Assess how well someone is doing when learning or doing something. Management of Personnel Resources Motivate, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job Critical Thinking Use logic and analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. Instructing Teach others how to do something. Active Listening Listen to what other people are saying and ask questions as appropriate. Writing Communicate effectively with others in writing as indicated by the needs of the audience. Time Management Manage one's own time and the time of others. Active Learning Work with new material or information to grasp its implications. Judgment and Decision Making Be able to weigh the relative costs and benefits of a potential action. Coordination Adjust actions in relation to others' actions. Reading Comprehension Understand written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents. Speaking Talk to others to effectively convey information.
Abilities		Category Flexibility Generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways. Speech Recognition Identify and understand the speech of another person Deductive Reasoning Able to apply general rules to specific problems to come up with logical answers, including deciding whether an answer makes sense. Near Vision Able to see details of objects at a close range (within a few feet of the observer). Speech Clarity Able to speak clearly so listeners understand. Information Ordering Able to correctly follow rules for arranging things or actions in a certain order, including numbers, words, pictures, procedures, and logical operations. Inductive Reasoning Able to combine separate pieces of information, or specific answers to problems, to form general rules or conclusions. This includes coming up with a logical explanation for why seemingly unrelated events occur together. Written Expression Able to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand. Oral Comprehension Able to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

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Job Outlook		Competition for jobs as curators is expected to be keen as qualified applicants outnumber job openings. A curator job is attractive to many people, and many applicants have the necessary training and subject knowledge, but there are only a few openings. Consequently, candidates may have to work part-time, as an intern, or even as a volunteer assistant curator or research associate after completing their formal education. Substantial work experience in collection management, exhibit design, or restoration, as well as database management skills, will be necessary for permanent status. Job opportunities for curators should be best in art and history museums, since these are the largest employers in the museum industry. Overall employment of curators, museum technicians, and conservators is projected to grow 16 percent from 2010 to 2020, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Employment growth will vary by specialty. Jobs are expected to grow as public and private organizations emphasize establishing archives and organizing records and information, and as public interest in science, art, history, and technology increases. Although overall museum attendance is increasing, public interest in smaller, specialized museums with unique collections is expected to increase faster. However, museums and other cultural institutions are often subject to funding cuts during recessions or periods of budget tightening, reducing demand for archivists and curators. Although the rate of turnover among curators is relatively low, the need to replace workers who leave the occupation or stop working will create some additional job openings. Curators held about 23,800 jobs in 2010. About 41 percent were employed in museums, botanical gardens, and zoos, and 14 percent worked in educational services, mainly in college and university libraries. Around 30 percent of archivists, curators, and museum technicians worked in Federal, State, and local government, excluding educational institutions. Nearly one-third worked in federal, state, and local government. Most federal government curators work at the Smithsonian Institution, in the military museums of the Department of Defense, and in archaeological and other museums managed by the U.S. Department of Interior. Religious and fraternal organizations, professional associations, conservation organizations, major private collectors, and research firms also employ curators.
More Information		American Association of Museums, Society of American Archivists, American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
References		Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Curators, Museum Technicians, and Conservators, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/curators-and-museum-technicians.htm O*NET OnLine, on the Internet at http://online.onetcenter.org/link/summary/25-4012.00