Finnish employees are frequent attendees of personnel training programmes.
The majority of adult education relates to the participant’s work or occupation.
In 2017, 1.2 million Finns – half of the Finnish workforce – participated in this type of education. Statistics Finland states that more than half of adult education and training programmes were organised with employers’ support. Approxi- mately one million people – 53% of wage earners – participated in this type of continuing professional education. In 2017, women were more involved than men by 9% (Official Statistics of Finland: Participation in adult education 2017).
The Finnish Museums Association is the leading in-service trainer in the Finnish museum sector and approximately 1 500 museum employees attend FMA training sessions annually. Statistics Finland shows that 3 100 people were employed by the museum sector in 2016 (Statistics Finland’s FOLK data, 2011–2016).
Next, I describe how the FMA’s continuing professional education operations have reflected changes in museum work. Established in 1923, the FMA is a national interest organisation for professionally-run museums. The association has always provided instruction and development facilitation to museum pro- fessionals. Historically, association representatives travelled to regional muse- ums to show the staff how to run a museum and design or update exhibitions (Vilkuna 1998, p. 38, pp. 53–55). Unless otherwise mentioned, a reference is from an FMA training archive.
The FMA has a tradition of organising museum events that involve lectures, debates and practical advice on running a museum. The first practical and the- oretical courses for museum workers were organised in the late 1920s. During the following decades the FMA arranged annual museum meetings, as well as practical and theoretical courses for museum workers.
In the 1970s the number of courses increased steadily, from one event to several events per year. The contents largely focused on the practical skills required
of a museum staff, but they also featured the research and professional skills needed to develop expertise in the field. As an example of training topics in 1975, the FMA organised educational opportunities: a course in museology in Turku, a conference on museology in Kajaani, a course in serigraphy, a seminar on museum lighting and a five-day ethnographic seminar on the popularisation of cultural styles and fashions. An excursion to Rome exemplified how the trends of museum work, e.g., exhibition design, could be observed at the international level.
Other themes in the 1970s involved museum safety, including burglary and fire protection and safety planning. The association also organised the first long, five-day course in exhibition design and technology, with practice in manuscript writing and miniature construction for exhibitions. Other training sessions in- volved the care and maintenance of artworks and textiles.
Several museum seminars involved discussions about collaboration between museums. Another topic of discussion was the regional museum experiment for cultural history museums. The reason for these topics was that in the 1970s a national regional museum administrative plan was discussed, and a report of the Regional Committee of the Museum Field was published in 1973 (see also Vilkuna, this volume). An extensive seminar on copyrights was launched in the late 1970s; the relevant lectures were compiled into a printed publication Tekijänoikeus ja kuvapalvelukysymyksiä (1979).
In the early 1980s, the FMA began to play a more important role, as an organiser of continuing professional education. To that end, the association hired a training officer, whose tasks included the planning and implementation of continuing professional education for museum employees with a university degree. Other continuing professional education programmes were organised for trustees, politicians and other decision-makers. The number of participants in the con- tinuing professional education programmes remained steady at a few hundred per year, until it rose in the mid-1990s, exceeding one thousand.
The first signs of information technology emerged in the 1980s. In 1981, the Hanaholmen Cultural Centre was the seat of the first pan-Nordic photography seminar. Notwithstanding its title, the seminar discussed automatic data pro- cessing and retrieval systems for photographic material at museums. At the 1981 art museum seminar, Pori Art Museum presented its project on a computerised registry of artworks; the seminar also discussed automatic data processing in museums (Kinanen 2010, p. 75; Hakamies 2019).
The FMA even organised an excursion to Stockholm’s Nordiska Museet, where participants learned about the museum’s automatic data processing system. The excursion was also an opportunity to discuss the status of information technology at Finnish museums and to engage in the nationwide planning of a joint data register. Art museums have contributed actively to the introduction of informa- tion technology in the museum sector, and art museum seminars featured such themes as a pan-Nordic microfilming project and data registers of art collections.
Also in the 1980s, data system suppliers were invited to introduce data processing systems at designated seminars. The art museum seminar in Jyväskylä discussed the role of a central art museum and the art museums’ minimum files, based on the report of the art museums’ Automatic Data Processing committee. In 1987, the FMA’s training programme included the first basic five-day course in automatic data processing for museum employees. In addition to basic knowledge about automatic data processing, the course provided instruction in computerised cataloguing, as well as an introduction to two collection data processing systems.
Two additional courses were organised in 1987 to provide museum professionals with knowledge about information technology and related decision-making.
Basic courses in data processing were organised for several years. In 1988, FMA engaged in a joint discussion about automatic data processing with its Nordic colleagues; one of the topics was the situation regarding image storage. In the late 1980s, a training programme in audio-visual technology and videos was organised for museum amanuenses. Later in the decade, museum profession- als developed their professional skills through extensive courses in exhibition design and technology.
In the 1990s, information technology training continued. The main topics in- cluded the most common brands of software for word processing, databases and desktop publishing. A 1993 course in audio-visual technology included a variety of topics: multimedia, hypermedia, image storage and processing, data transfer and various storage media. Additionally, the contents involved such future possibilities as the virtual museum and three-dimensional images. In 1994, the first Internet-focused continuing professional education event, titled What is the Internet and how will it affect your work?, took place.
In 1996, the FMA launched a training programme related to the development of the information society. The programme was part of The Finnish Information Society, a nationwide development programme organised by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The project to develop museum personnel’s information regarding society-related competencies and museum services based on digital materials, later titled An Information Strategy Training Programme, received a designated allowance from the Ministry of Education and Culture until 2015. The programme involved basic training in automatic data processing at museums and the use and development of collection management systems. In 2014, one of the courses organised by the association involved 3D printing.
The FMA’s first online learning environment for continuing professional educa- tion programmes was a 2003 online course in museum safety. Two years later, the association offered a study programme in museology worth 10 European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits. In 2006, the FMA piloted the Tietoy- hteiskunnan työntekijä (Information Society Professional) qualification for the museum branch (worth 10 ECTS credits) by the Finnish Information Society Development Centre.
In 2007, more online courses became available; the museology study programme was extended to cover 25 ECTS credits, the equivalent of the basic studies in mu- seology offered by Finnish universities. The same year, the association launched an online course, worth 2 ECTS credits, in the basics of museum work; this course was intended for new museum employees who lacked formal qualification.
Other study programmes organised by the association include courses in the production of online learning services at museums, collection cataloguing and the marketing of museums. Parts of the study programmes were implemented in collaboration with, for example, the University of Helsinki’s Palmenia Centre for Continuing Education. Presentation of recent dissertations is one way to improve museum workers’ skills and knowledge; it is a method that has been assessed as part of the FMA’s continuing education programme, in co-operation with the University of Helsinki’s museology studies and the Open University.