This may or may not be what you are looking for, but the University of
Chicago has a course that has been running for a few years called "The
Anthropology of Museums". Within this course, graduate and undergraduate
students are grouped off and each group is assigned a different museum in
Chicago. Each group's final project is to produce an ethnography of their
assigned museum, with individual group members focusing on ethnographic
topics of their choice. Generally, the ethnographies written for this
course incorporate field work at the assigned museum, background
research, and interviews/discussions with the museum's professionals. I
took the course before I graduated and may be able to answer more of your
questions off-list but for more direct information you may want to contact
University of Chicago's Anthropology Department. The professor of the
course is Raymond Fogelson (an extremely nice guy), who may be able
to provide you with a few samples of museum ethnographies written for his
course. Hope that helps.

Oona Burke

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Kathy Mancuso wrote:

> Has anyone ever done an ethnographic study of a museum community, or have
> any thoughts about doing such?  That's right, of the museum itself--I'm not
> looking for ethnographic museums.
>
> Thanks,
> Kathy Mancuso
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).