My colleagues have done a great job responding to our readings for this week – Stephen A. Greyser and Stephanie Woerner's 1996 case study on the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the 1999 agreement between the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Atwater Kent Museum. But HSP's problems continue today.
Technology
Throughout my time at the Society, I overheard many staff members’ lamentations about the current state of the website, specifically its somewhat outdated aesthetics and lack of a user-friendly interface. While the Information Technology (IT) Department aspires to perform a complete overhaul on the website, it is not currently a priority because staff and funding are stretched thin. Indeed, IT and Digital Services (the department in which I worked) are often lumped together because, as the Digital Services staff members with whom I used to work (but who are no longer at HSP) complained, “They don’t know what we do here, so they don’t see the value in it.” To that end, the Society’s administration has not as yet channeled any resources towards investigating the long-term value of digital technologies for preservation, accessibility, user-friendliness, and dissemination. All in all, one might say the Historical Society’s website “gets the job done,” but it is far from perfect and symbolizes a lot of the contention and politics surrounding the value of IT and digital technologies in the archival space.
Administration
Most notably, Page Talbott, the Historical Society’s President and CEO since 2013, left in 2016 – unsettling the staff while fomenting interdepartmental gossip and blame games. HSP is hierarchical and pyramid-like. In addition to Charles T. Cullen, the Interim President and CEO, there are nine board members – many of whom have no experience with historic institutions or archives (demonstrating the common disconnect between administrators and archivists). Library & Collections is the largest department at the Society (with about fifteen staff members), while Programs & Services and Development have about six staff members each. The “IT/Digital Services” Department(s) have a total of four full-time staff members.
Finances
FY15 Income: $7,256,213 FY15 Expense: $5,807,428 Net: $1,448,785
Staff costs: 1,695,689 (CEO $159,851; other staff $1,535,828)FY14 Income: $4,300,581 FY14 Expense: $3,833,732 Net: $466,819
Staff costs: $1,678,143 (CEO $152,807; other staff $1,525,336)FY13 Income: $3,444,543 FY13 Expense: $4,031,993 Net: -$587,450
Staff costs: $1,741,824 (CEO $131,182; other staff $1,610,642)
In addition to employee staff costs, in FY13 and FY14 one independent contractor (a general contractor) received 1.78 million dollars per year; this went down to $479,000 in FY15. Other independent contractor costs varied by year and project. After a deficit was incurred in FY13, the organization was able to recoup the loss and have positive net balances in FY14 and FY15. Overall staff costs declined by 2.6% over those 3 years, but the CEO salary rose by 21.9% in the same period. Current assets are just over 34 million dollars, with 9.9 million in the building, 9.5 million in other material holdings, and the remainder in investments, cash accounts, and pledged grants. The Society hopes to maintain its current levels income and expense, including staff funding. However, there have been rumors that the Society will have to “go dark” for a period of time (closing its doors to the public) in order to recover from recent administrative changes and, thus, have to lay off some staff members.
What kind of leadership should HSP be seeking? Is the current business model really the way to go? How do large organizations with buildings and collections to maintain achieve sustainability in the twenty-first century?
100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative 