>From: Eugene Dillenburg <[log in to unmask]>

>Dear Dr. C:
>
>As has been pointed out twice already, the first post did no such
>thing.

<snip>

>On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:52:00 GMT, "Dr. Christian Müller-Straten"
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
<snip>
>  The first mail in this thread was referring to
>two museums in the US leaving object descriptions up to visitors. I
>also stored it.

I was hoping someone else would respond to this paricular point from that
very first post, but I guess not, so I will quote it:

"I was just reading my latest issue of the Curator
Journal (p. 122) about the Brooklyn Museum of Art and
the National Museum of the American Indian having
"community curators", that is, "ordinary" museumgoers,
write the object labels in exhibits."

I am not sure what that _Curator_ article actually said (someone should
quote it), but that original poster's reading of what "community curators"
are, at least as concerns the NMAI, is *incorrect.*

As I posted in another message in this thread, NMAI's "community curators",
as were NMNH's in the late 1980s, not "*'ordinary'* museum goers," (note
emphasis: not just anybody off the street) but were *knowledgable* members
of the community, *recognized* as such by the community.

Those "community curators" *were* experts, albeit *non-degreed* in the
western academic sense.

So what's the problem? Why are we arguing about an *incorrect*
interpretation of a perfectly reasonable reference process?

Thomas Kavanagh, PhD
Seton Hall University
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