Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The U.S. Air Force is a continuing entity in the fight for freedom across the world. It does its job the best way it knows how, and in the process, claims to celebrate heritage. The celebration of heritage does occur in some instances, but not to the extent or necessity that it should. Air Force-run museums lack the funding and organization that publicly-run museums utilize to thrive in society. In this study, surveys submitted to both military-run and publicly-run museums were gathered with the goal of identifying best practices for improving museum operations. Topics within the questionnaire included funding and artifact care as well as staffing. These questions directly relate to AFI 84-103, the regulations for the U.S. Air Force museum system. The surveys returned from the military-run museums indicated an extreme deficit with funding. The museums are understaffed and often the employees are not trained in museum sciences. This causes issues with the caring for artifacts, because a lack of training in the care of artifacts may lead to artifacts being mistreated, not purposely, but mistreated nonetheless. This paper discusses the necessary steps for the Air Force-run museums to take in order to better themselves by learning from publicly-run museums.