I came in late to this discussion and may have missed something, but I think
the best decision would be to preserve it in context as part of an eventual
on-site memorial rather than removing it to a contextless preservation site
(such as a museum).  Museum professionals and artists working together
should be able to come up with the ideal balance of meaning and object
conservation, with emphasis on meaning. If it decays in 200 rather than 2000
years, so be it, but we owe it to our own history to think about preserving
it as a tangible representation of the event that forever changed our view
of ourselves.

Julia Moore
Indianapolis Art Center

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Marybeth Tomka
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 5:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: WTC fkag


I would like to comment not on whether the flag should be preserved (since
it is already Saturday, the 20th) but rather on the thoughts of some that it
shouldn't be kept.  I am an archaeological collections manager and we are
faced with making retention decisions all the time.  Some archaeologists
very dedicated to the preservation of certain types of artifacts and do not
think other categories need to take up our valuable and dwindling curation
space.  I personally believe that we can not make decisions for future
researchers  without considering the whole picture.  So back to the flag.
It might not be as meaningful in a musuem for some people, but I think that
one look at the flag and acknowledgement of where it came from would bring
tears to the eyes of another visitor.

Just my opinion.

Marybeth Tomka
Laboratory Supervisor and Collections Manager
Center for Archaeological Research
University of Texas, San Antonio

and native New Yorker

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