Has anyone read this issue?


Summer issue of "Daedalus":  Crossroads for American museums

American museums are more popular and more controversial than
ever, according to a series of articles in the journal. Authors
-- a mix of scholars, curators, and museum administrators --
explore the history of American museums, and their financial and
cultural status. "The American museum is being substantially
reshaped," writes Stephen E. Weil, emeritus senior scholar at
the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Museum Studies. "In
place of an establishment-like institution focused primarily
inward on the growth, care, and study of its collection, what is
emerging instead is a more entrepreneurial institution that ...
will have shifted its principal focus outward to concentrate on
providing a variety of primarily educational services to the
public." Several of the articles deal with how the new outward
focus opens up museums to controversy. William L. Boyd,
president emeritus of the Field Museum and of the University of
Iowa, for example, looks at debate over how museums have
collected and displayed objects.

For many of the authors, a central issue is how to handle the numerous and
inconsistent demands being placed on museums. Neil Harris, a professor of
history at the University of Chicago, notes that museums have been called
"racist, revisionist, hegemonic, elitist, politically correct, mercenary,
greedy, and self-serving." Yet, he notes, they are at "a historic peak of
institutional power
and influence." The challenge, Mr. Harris writes, is to make
sense of "this apparent paradox -- triumphant public
achievements coexisting with sternly issued warnings." The
contents of the journal are not on line, but information about
it is available at http://daedalus.amacad.org/daehome.html


Copyright (c) 1999 The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc.

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