A recent staff reorganization at the Las Cruces Museum System has raised concerns about how it’s affecting the museums programs and services. Museum staff met with the Las Cruces City Council for an update.
The recent museum system reorganization reorganized staff by function, such as education or operations, instead of by each museum. City Councilor Greg Smith says he heard concerns this could be affecting programs.
“My concern is if we’re doing it simply because it’s based on budget,” Smith said. “Or because we want to make sure that we are saying that everything is equal between these different departments, maybe we’re not ending up providing the best service to our community, as far as what the museums can offer. I can’t tell you categorically that that yes or no is happening, but I do think we have to look at it very carefully, and if it is a budgeting question, then we need to be as good as our word. We need to say you know what, this is important to us, or conversely maybe this isn’t that important to us.”
Museum System Administrator Rebecca Slaughter says the reorganization has helped to streamline the museum’s programs and services and make the most of limited resources.
“It also helped us with personnel to think about what’s best to serve the public,” Slaughter said. “Adding an extra layer of person in the education department both from an education point of view with the studio programs has really helped us expand the other types of programs that really should be going on at the museum of art, and we were missing. But also adding a dedicated person to booking tours really does help the situation.”
The limited resources also contributes to the museum’s lack of evening and Sunday hours, which people have asked for, but Slaughter says they are working to expand the availability of evening programs.
“The education department is very helpful in that because they do plan evening programs, Slaughter said. “Especially with the 500 years of Latino American History grant we have. We’ve been looking at evening programs, whether their documentaries, but we also have fun adult only programs, so we’ve been trying to get started, where there is an education component, but it’s not necessarily something to go to with your family.”
STANDUP: Slaughter says many times the public is unaware of the services offered by the museum.
“That is the biggest criticism that we get,” Slaughter says. “We have greatly expanded our advertising budget, but we also look at ways to advertise for free. One of the things that we do is we advertise on KRWG, but we also have started to use social media a lot more, so we do Facebook advertising, and we plaster the town sometimes with posters. But word of mouth is probably still the best way to get people into a museum or into a program.”
City Councilor Greg Smith says he still has some concerns, and wants to look at ways to improve museum services going into budget discussions because of the benefits they bring to the city.
“We’ve identified these things in our strategic plan,” Smith said. “We said we need to be doing these things, and we don’t have a lot of opportunities to educate, in our parks and recreation department we have some, certainly with afterschool and summer programs, but museums really provide that, and not just for students, but for adult lifelong learners.”
Museum System Administrator Rebecca Slaughter says they are looking to create a new strategic plan in the coming year to better plan the future of the city’s museums.
