0.10 Chapter eight: facing tough choices today  (Page 10/11)

Consider the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY). The museum and decorative arts collections of the Society and the collections of the MCNY com­plement each other quite well. Thus one key issue, the compatibility of the col­lections, offers encouragement. Second, a combined entity could lead to cost savings through economies of scale and decreased administrative staff. In addi­tion, the MCNY is already a member of the CIG, so a merged institution could hope to receive significant regular appropriations from the city. If the city is will­ing to increase appropriations beyond current levels to reflect the increased needs of the combined entity, these factors represent at least a step toward improved financial prospects for the combined collections.

Unfortunately, a merger between the two institutions would not directly solve space problems. To achieve the desired cost benefits and economies of scale, the combined entity must conduct operations from only one of the properties. As has been mentioned, the Society already owns significantly more materials than it can store in-house. The MCNY operates from a building significantly smaller than that of the Society. Although it is likely that some items could be deaccessioned because of redundancies, the number of items would not be sufficient to resolve this question. Even if space were not an issue, the decision over which facility to use would be controversial and painful. The location of an institution goes to the heart of its identity, its traditions, and its history.

Deciding where a combined institution would be located is not the only prob­lem blocking a merger. Designing a new governance structure for the combined entity also involves extremely sensitive negotiations. How many board members from each institution would be on the new board? Would it be balanced? Who would have control? Compromises on such issues are not easily reached; in fact, disagreements in these areas contributed significantly to the breakdown of the merger discussions in 1990.

To effect a merger, whether it is with the Museum of the City of New York, the New York Public Library, or any other institution, will require an outside catalyst. It is hard to imagine two independent institutions resolving such con­tentious issues without outside help. For these discussions, the key outside entity is the public sector. The New York State and City governments would actively have to support the merger by appropriating sufficient capital to effect a transfer of the collections and by committing to providing continuing annual operating support for the new entity.

Option 4: save the society, but transfer part of the collections

A similar but somewhat less extreme option might be to scale back the Society by transferring a major part of its collections. By transferring either its library or mu­seum collections to another institution, the Society could focus its limited resources. Reducing the Society's scale in this way would improve its chances for achieving financial stability. A key question that would have to be addressed clearly and objectively before this option could be pursued is, How much value is there in keeping the library and museum collections together?