--- "David E. Haberstich" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Deb, I have to disagree with that statement.  It's ironic that after I read
> your post, the announcement about the massacre at the Museum of Northern
> Arizona came hot on its heels.

What happened?!?! I missed this story.

> In my own museum many curatorial positions have disappeared over the years,
> and entire collecting fields are struggling along without qualified staff to
> oversee them.  We cannot assume that subject experts "will always be around."

Wow. I didn't know that. It's truly a shame as you're right, museums cannot
survive without experts.

>  In many museums around the world they are increasingly considered irrelevant
> and museum scholars are becoming an endangered species.  Museum education at
> the lower levels is important, but not, I think, at the expense of higher
> education and scholarship--and the qualified subject expertise needed to
> maintain high standards of collecting, collection care, and interpretation.

I agree with you. While education and scholarship go hand in hand, you cannot
have education without first understanding what your museum has in the first
place. Not saying that experts are any more or less important than educators
but you can't educate if you don't understand your collection. And if you don't
educate, no one else will understand your collection either.

Thanks for bringing up this point. I find it truly disturbing that experts are
being cut from museums. I hope this trend doesn't continue.

Deb

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