Dear Leicesterians,
First of all I should like to congratulate you on the choice of your topic
as well as on the abundance of stimulating questions, a few of which I am
adding just some off-the-cuff remarks to.

>Is the psychology and even practice of museum collecting any different from
>popular collecting?
It should be at any rate if museums understand their raison d'etre as
serving their community. Therefore they must never collect for private,
individual reasons but only following an intersubjectively acknowledged
policy. In order to keep the frustration rate of curators as low as possible
it is wise to adjust their personal goals to those of their museum's
collection policy.

>How far do you agree that museums should be less concerned with directly
>collecting, and instead do more to reflect collecting as a popular social
>phenomenon?
I disagree because museums are the only institutions dealing with material
evidence in a specific manner (i. e. selecting, acquiring, documenting,
preserving, studying, interpreting AND communicating authentic objects qua
exhibition, all of this as part of a system, and omitting not a single one
of its elements). Of course, reflection on collecting as a popular social
phenomenon should also be done by museums but there are other disciplines as
well which can do this (e. g. psychology, sociology, history).

>How far do you agree that the collections in museums tell us more of the
>collecting habits of curators than convey a coherent view of the past?
Unfortunately this applies to a good deal of collections I have seen,
reasons see above (museum vs. popular collecting). The collecting habits of
private collectors however - provided they are of any interest as
personalities - can be certainly most informative.

>How far do you agree that collecting information is more important than
>collecting the 'real thing'?
I disagree to the question in the given form. But at the same time it cannot
be sufficiently emphasized that object related information is as important
as the 'real thing' itself. Seen the other way round (ideally, of course),
an object in a museum without information cannot be made to convey its
inherent meaning because it is simply not known. Strictly speaking (still
ideally), objects in museum collections without documentation should better
be deaccessioned (or used for decoration if meeting accepted aesthetic
standards).

>Will the video camera replace the need to collect objects?
Will the menu replace the need to cook food?

>How far is photography an under-valued collecting technique?
In this respect it is not a collecting technique at all but an indispensible
means of documentation.

>How is contemporary collecting possible in a world of ever-increasing
>consumerism and rapid changes in technology, fashion and lifestyle?
Ask our friends from SAMDOK (some of which, I suppose, take part in the
conference anyway).

>How do we currently select what to collect? What are the problems?
As with commissioning architecture, planning an information system, picking
a canap=E9 from the tray, etc., the problems are to know what one is really
aiming at and being able to express it. A good policy with practicable
selection criteria is the method of choice.

>How far do museums need to redress the imbalance between 'high' and
>'popular' culture in their collections?
Whatever they can do to achieve balance they should. As far as it concerns
historical collecting, it is, alas, in many cases too late. Therefore many
collections give false testimony, simply because they are not representative
for what they should be standing for.

>Do we need international rules for the recording of data from the
>collecting process?
Yes, we desperately need standards. Thank goodness there is a hard working
group within CIDOC concerned with this problem.

>How can museums evaluate their collecting strategies?
By periodically reviewing their collection policies in order to check
whether they are still - or at all - valid (according to their society's
accepted system of values).

Best wishes for your conference, sorry I cannot take part also physically.
How about post mortem materials?
Fritz
Friedrich Waidacher
- Klosterwiesgasse 44, A-8010 Graz, Austria
Tel/Fax +43 316 826 264
- Moenchegg 34, A-8742 St. Wolfgang-Kienberg
Tel/Fax +43 3578 8216
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