I'm SICK of the "who has time" argument.  Everybody has the same amount of
available time, but some are much better at assigning priorities than others.
I won't discuss WHY here.  Everyone can assess that for himself.

george

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>
>Hugh,
>
>I've worked in small-medium history museums for 7 years now and agree
>with you that (often) the intellectual content of U.S. conferences (as
>opposed to case studies, how to's, fundraising info, public awareness,
>etc.) and in various publications is often lacking.  Coming from the
>background that I do of understaffed, overworked and underfunded
>institutions, I'm not surprised.  Who among us has time to write, much
>less research, a scholarly article?  Aren't we all struggling to manage
>our workloads, keep on top of professional standards, and obtain funding
>to keep our institutions solvent?  Perhaps (and this is only a guess),
>some of the countries you mention have stronger public (i.e. gov't)
>support of their institutions, thereby unloading staff of the onerous
>tasks related to fundraising and p.r.  I also feel that AAM is doing a
>wonderful job at being our advocates with a government that increasingly
>attacks the nonprofit world.  While I think it's a shame that few of us
>have the opportunities to do more "thinking" and publishing, perhaps we
>should be glad that someone somewhere is and take advantage of it--and
>support the AAM's efforts in protecting museums because until we have
>the public's (again, i.e. the gov't's) support we will always be
>struggling to keep our doors open.
>
>Stacey Otte
>Collections Manager
>Catalina Island Museum
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>
>