I have to disagree with you, george.  Museums are not the same as
for-profit businesses.  If we embarrass and/or alienate our visitors they
won't come back to see our real product - the collections.  Doing what
other businesses do isn't always the right answer for musuems.

Beverly Balger
Registrar, Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State

>This is one of the most ridiculous reasons I have ever heard for deciding
>where to locate a gift shop!  Do businesses put themselves in
>out-of-the=-way places because somebody might be embarrassed if it were out
>in front???
>
>george
>
>==============
>
>>:      Sounds like good marketing to me.  I certainly
>>:      appreciate them as a consumer (read: museum shop
>>:      junkie) when I travel.  Obviously, you don't want the
>>
>>I am glad someone brought up this issue!
>>
>>As someone who greatly enjoys museum shops (and does much of my Christmas
>>shopping in them) I have no personal objections to having
>>exhibit-related merchandise available for purchase adjacent to the exit of
>>an exhibit.  However, I take strong objection to forcing exhibit visitors
>>to pass through the stores (or view merchandise advertising in the
>>exhibits themselves).  I think we need to reflect on contemporary museums'
>>missions to reach broader, more economically diverse communities.
>>Forcing all visitors through a museum shop (where poorer parents are faced
>>with battles with their merchandise-craving children) is something that
>>will further alienate them from the museum experience.  Not only does this
>>make an educational experience into an alienating commercial venture for
>>poorer families, but it also reinforces the message that museums are for
>>the affluent and not for the less economically privileged.   To me, this
>>seems the strongest reason of all for locating such shops in
>>of-to-the-side locations.  The Field Museum does this with its Egyptian
>>exhibit and I think it is a sensitive, sensible way to do things.  Those
>>who want to shop will spot the shop easily, while those who cannot afford
>>it can steer their children away.
>>
>>Kathleen M. Adams
>>Dept. of Anthropology
>>Loyola University of Chicago
>>
>>