The thrill of a field trip was amazing as a little kid. Missing school and going to visit a museum like the Ronald Reagan Library or the Natural History Museum was awesome. The statues and paintings were fun new experiences,different from sitting in desks all day. However, in recent years, museums have faced many challenges.
Will museums be able to survive and thrive or will they become a relic of the past?
One of the first challenges museums faced was the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey from the American Alliance of Museums states that two-thirds of museums still experience reduced attendance compared to their pre-pandemic attendance; averaging about 71% of their pre-pandemic attendance. Twenty-six percent of the responding museums have not recovered to the level of pre-pandemic staff, meaning some museums are short-staffed. Of museums that are hiring, 60% are having trouble filling open positions.
The positions having the hardest time being filled are guest services, admissions, frontline, retail, facilities, maintenance and security. All of these positions are necessary for a museum to function, and without people in those positions, museums are having a hard time staying open. This happened with the Paterson Museum in New Jersey, which was forced into a months-long closure due to a staffing shortage.
Additionally, due to COVID-19 pandemic, museums could only stay open by offering a digital and virtual experience. However, this allowed people to virtually visit museums without needing to visit in person, leading to an overall decreased profit.
Another challenge museums face is financial issues. Museums have become more expensive to operate, from shipping to food services like cafes. Declining visitor rates put museums under financial stress and result in costly tickets.
An example is the Guggenheim Museum in New York City where membership has decreased by 16% since 2019. As a result, they raised the admission fees for an adult ticket from $25 to $30. If their membership decreases even more, ticket prices could skyrocket. Some museums run on government funding, which decreased due to economic downturns like the Great Recession in December 2007. 
Another challenge museums face is collection damage. Pests are a big problem since they are small, highly mobile and can thrive in museum environmental conditions, which can cause an infestation. Another aspect of collection damage is physical force. Accidents do happen, like dropping objects, mishandling, bumping into artifacts, rolling carts and much more. If an accident causes the destruction of a prized possession of the museum, people might lose interest in the museum altogether.
In 2006, a man tripped over his shoelaces in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and knocked over three expensive 17th century vases worth around $180,000. Other factors museums need to worry about to protect their collections are light, temperature, humidity, water, theft and vandalism, and pollutants like gasses and particulates, which can cause deterioration. In addition, natural forces like earthquakes and fires can break priceless artifacts. An earthquake in January 2010 in Haiti destroyed around 50,000 items of paintings, pottery, manuscripts and mosaics in less than one minute.
Even as museums continue to decline, they are not dead. The rise of interactive media is leading to a new type of museum, a virtual one. Still, physical museums are an important part of our communities. They help educate people on the history and cultures of our diverse world and are an integral part of society. Hopefully, students will still be able to visit them on field trips in the coming years.
