The Museum of Health Care at Kingston has hired a curator! Huzzah!
But some of you may be wondering: what does that actually mean? What on earth is a curator and what do they do? It’s both simple and surprisingly hard to answer. You’re probably at least vaguely aware that a curator is someone who works in a museum. You might have seen a curator in a movie, usually in the form of a pretentious, stodgy academic peevishly insisting that the hero stop touching the exhibits and with pretty even odds on getting murdered by a supernatural force trapped in some ancient artifact (as far as movie professions go, curators tend to have lifespans approximately equal to cops the day before retirement). You may have heard of someone curating a social media feed or a Pinterest board or read a thinkpiece on why calling everyone who collects content a curator will be the downfall of society. All of which can make it hard to figure out what exactly a museum curator does.
… More So You’ve Got a Curator. Now What?