I too found Ann Gonneau's ramblings disturbing. As a resident of Ottawa, I
followed closely the 're-organization' and, to the public mind at least,
'improvements' that took place at the Cumberland Museum with great interest
(and more than little disgust) this past spring. And like many museum
people, I found it then and still find it now very disturbing that private,
for-profit companies, are permitted to come in and manage in their own
interests, collections and sites that are being held and maintained for the
public interest. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more common as
public institutions seek alternate sources of revenue generation (that
nasty phrase of the '90's) and cost savings. One of the easiest ways to
lower overhead and expense is to turn over mangement of an insitutution, or
a section or division within, to a private company in a sort of turnkey
operation. The very real danger inherent in this is that employees of the
company are loyal to the company, not to the insitution or the collections
they are working with - this can lead to all sorts of dangerous siruations.
And don't forget too - the 'company' goal is to make money - history, the
preservation of, and the presentation of, come second to profit....

Denise Corbett

(The opinions represented here are not necessarily those of my employer)