List members, this is yet another long, and I hope final, installment in my
attempt to explain my concept of museums, for which I again apologize in
advance.  Please feel free to disagree or comment, but let's all hope I won't
be provoked into further essays on this topic!  In the words of Oscar
Hammerstein, I think I've gone about as fur as I can go.

In a message dated 00-12-09 13:03:16 EST, Nesdon Booth wrote:

<< I think it is enlightening that in David's rebuttal to John Martinson, he
 uses the standard of educational value to justify collecting. Clearly he
 understands that education is the rationale for collections, as he has
 stated, but somehow wants to stop short of including it in his definition of
 a museum's essence.>>

I don't know that I "stop short" of including "education" in the definition
of a museum's essence, I merely tried to suggest that "education" is
inadequate in a definition: it doesn't "define" or separate a museum from
other educational institutions.  I prefer to say that historical artifacts in
a museum collection embody information or knowledge.  One's strategy for
making the knowledge available is the educational component, and public
display isn't the only way to accomplish it.

 <<To parallel the adroit question he quoted recently, If the essence of a
 museum is in its collecting and preservation, then what is the difference
 between [a] museum and a junkyard? ...

 <<A junkyard seeks out and collects objects of designated usefulness, and
then
 organizes and preserves them.>>

I don't want to debate the definition of junkyard, but the ones I know don't
preserve anything--they try to resell it for a profit.  Some junkyards may
look like museums, just as some commercial art galleries look like museums
(and the latter may produce highly educational exhibitions, indistinguishable
from museum-quality exhibitions, by the way).  This is another example of why
I say exhibition is not the key.  Junkyards do exhibits as well.  The
differences are in (a) preservation and (b) permanent collection.  I think
"preservation" has two criteria: (a) keeping (b) in good condition.
Junkyards and other dealers don't keep artifacts; they try to get rid of
them--for a profit.  I trust no one disagrees with this distinction!

 <<If we decide to define a museum's essence in [its] collections, we do risk
biasing our  resources toward preservation for its own sake.>>

I see a greater risk of the opposite occurring.  What bothers me about an
overemphasis on "education" through exhibitions in museums is the risk of
biasing our resources toward EXHIBITION "for its own sake".  Everything a
museum collects is material for a potential exhibition (I've already said
that exhibition-driven collecting is a reasonable strategy), so here I have
no quarrel with an exhibits orientation, except that each object collected
should be considered broadly in its educational implications.  I should think
museums would want to collect items which have either research or exhibit
potential, as the object in storage and considered "useless" today may have
enormous research and exhibit potential tomorrow--or decades later.  On the
other hand, objects which have not yet found their way into public
exhibitions should be available for research, both scholarly and
not-so-scholarly.  Many collection objects in storage, through study by staff
and/or outside researchers, yield information and take on "added value"
through new identification and reinterpretation which may enhance their
display quotient.  Example: Years ago I was the first to work with a messy
collection of glass photographic plates related to the pioneering work on
motion analysis by Eadweard Muybridge.  Aided by later in-house preservation
work and research by an outside scholar, a colleague recently curated a
superb "educational" exhibition which sheds new light on the techniques and
philosophy of this forerunner of motion pictures.

I don't understand the disdain by some members of this list for research on
collection objects in storage.  If a scholar studies an unexhibited artifact
and learns from it, that too is education.  Whether the study leads to
displaying the object publicly or merely results in publishing information
and analysis in a scholarly journal, that's education.  These are not
mutually exclusive activities.  Indeed, I'd say the classic path of a museum
artifact is (a) identification as an historic object of interest, (b)
acquisition of the object; (c) research, study, analysis, and interpretation
of it, (d) publication of research results, and/or (e) public display.  That
c, d, and e may not always occur immediately should not obviate retaining the
object in the collection.

I'm not sure where the idea that some people have a "bias" toward
preservation "for its own sake" comes from.  Objects are preserved by museums
for the sake of history.  You collect and preserve objects for the
information they contain, and assume that the information will be of value in
the future.  What difference does it make if the exhibition or research use
of that object occurs, not today or tomorrow, but 100 years hence?
Collecting on the basis of assumed lasting value is tricky, but if you
collect objects which are later deemed inappropriate, that's what
deaccessioning is for.

 <<My allusion to the irony of Mathematica now being classed as an historical
 artifact, and therefore worthy of inclusion in a museum, when in its
 original form was a collectionless exhibit (and therefore judged by David's
 argument as un museumly), was directed at illustrating that such exhibits
 never really are collectionless. They are in fact a collection of objects
 with no specific historic merit, but great educational value.>>

The fact that "objects with no specific historic merit' in an exhibition have
"great educational value" is precisely the point.  Many things have great
educational value, including objects displayed in science centers, science
fairs, theme parks, junkyards, art galleries, wax museums, department stores,
rodeos, and airshows. (So can movies, plays, documentary videos, etc.--and
let's not forget books, hmm?)  The definition of "collection" seems to be at
issue as well as "museum".  Any group of objects can be called a collection
in one sense, but a "museum collection" is more specific.  A "collectionless
museum" assembles objects in a different sense, whether by borrowing historic
artifacts from other institutions or by creating or fabricating objects.  The
words "permanent collection" in dictionary definitions of museum clearly
refer to objects selected and acquired from outside the museum, not objects
created by the institution.  Fashion designers talk about their
"collections", although I think the notion of fashion designers "collecting"
their own creations, or artists having collections of their own work (the
stuff that hasn't yet been sold, i.e., collected by someone else), a wax
museum having a "collection" of figures and exhibits created for itself, or a
Museum of Jurassic Technology having a "collection" of "bogus artifacts"
which it has created, is not the same thing as a collection acquired from
outside sources.  The sense of "collection" as any group or aggregate, not
necessarily gathered from disparate external sources, is the second
definition in my Webster's, the first referring to the result of an act of
collecting.  The first definition dates to the 14th century, the dictionary
says, and the second is tied explicitly to the fashion industry, so I'd bet
(without having consulted the OED) that this is another example of a fairly
specific word being extended through either sloppy or metaphoric usage into a
more general, hence confusing, sense.  My little campaign to limit "museum"
to its current dictionary definition is a critical attempt at clarity to
designate a specific type of institution. To "collect" still means to select
and/or gather material from outside sources, but "collection" has acquired
the secondary meaning of ANY group of objects, thereby causing semantic
confusion.  It seems to me that Nesdon's quote above mixes these two
definitions.

<< Once again I am suggesting that we to use the etymology of Home of the
Muses as our guiding essence, and evaluate our practices based on their
ability to
 inspire and elucidate. >>

I am eagerly waiting for some museum visitor to ask if any of the Muses are
home.  I plan to reply that they're attending a retreat on TQM--or perhaps
vacationing in a junkyard.

David Haberstich






</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0f0f0f" BACK="#fffffe" SIZE=2>

</PRE></HTML>

=========================================================
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).